Bolivia - day 3

On the third day, we went to the Salar... Unfortunately, we did not have time to make it to the salar itself for the sunrise (we missed it by about 5 min due to the guide and a slowly-packing person) so we had to stop slightly before. It was still amazing.
The salar de Uyuni is about as big as one third of Belgium... Despite being also flat, there is still a major difference. The salar is all made of (white) salt. A big jeep is therefore needed for all displacements on the salar.
Basically, the salar looks like a sea (or a frozen Swedish archipelago). Gustav was even tempted to check the thickness of the ice layer before stepping. Just like in the archipelago, there are islands as well. On the fisher's island, one can see cactus measuring from a meter to about 12 meters...

And indeed, we spent about two hours taking stupid pictures with the white background...


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Bolivia, day 1 and 2

We started out early in the morning, by minibus up to the Andes and the bolivian border. There we switched to jeeps after some 5 minutes of border formalities and stamping of passports. From the first meter the change was very notable as the tarmac turned into rocks and mud and it became obvious why we had left the minibuses. After 20 minutes of bumpy jeepride we reached our first stop was "the white lagoon".

After having seen the marvelous view and taken some photos we continued past the "green" and "red" lagoons, full of flamingos and surrounded by peculiar rock formations. We tried to get close to the flamingos but they kept running away, thus they could be seen as a general pinkish mass, but there were so many of them that the effect was quite impressive!

That night we stayed in a little village called "Villamar" ("Seavillage"), funny name for being in the middle of the dessert, but they clamed that there was river there during rainy season and I guess that for bolivians (who are landlocked since the war opf 1870) that is enough!!

The next morning we went to see the "Llama paradise" where we saw plenty of lamas and a valley deserving the name!

We continued through some other small villages, one of which looked like a classic western town, complete with a railroad from the ninetenth century, a cementary and several abandoned houses!

From there we continued to the brink of the saltflat, where we stayed overnight in a hostel that actually had hot water and a great view of the tremendous flat!

San Pedro de Atacama

After a long night bus ride, stopped twice by an anti-narcotic control in Chile (apparently it happens all the time, for traffic coming from North), we made it to San Pedro de Atacama...
As the pictures show, the landscape is very different from Arica (although Gustav sees a similarity with the morro - the big rock on which stands proudly a gigantic chilean flag in Arica...).

The rock formation here is very special, and reminds (older) local people of dinosaurs.

"The Three Marias"
"Valle de la luna"
"el atardecer..."

Tomorrow, at 7.45, we'll be going to Bolivia for four days. Don't worry, Uyuni will be the most northern town we'll visit... We should be back to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, by Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately, we could not book a bus ride to Salta, Argentina earlier than Friday morning, so we'll have some extra time to hang out in this -overpriced - touristy town. Which means plenty of time to upload pictures from Bolivia from this suprinsingly fast Internet place (where they even have 17" flat screen, way better than the usual 15" cathodic one)...

Arica, Chile!

After three great weeks we have left Peru and arrived in Arica, the northernmost city of Chile. So far we have passed some relaxing two days seeing the Morro, a strangely shaped hill taken by the chileans during the war of the Pacific, the beautiful (but quite dirty) beach and the towns church, constructed by Eiffel before he made his famous tower. Tomorrow night we will be moving on to San Pedro de Atacama, in the Atacama dessert. From there we are planing to do a jeep excursion to the Bolivian side of the dessert!

Also I can proudly anounce that at last I´m in an internet cafè having my camera AND a charged battery AND the cable. Thus my photos from the Titicaca Lake will be uploaded to Pierres blogpost. Enjoy!

Lake Titikaka

So... Here are a couple pictures from the lake. I slept on an island in the middle of nowhere... I like sunset pictures, so here are two.

Lionel posted a spoiler earlier about the danse evening. This will be the only picture allowed. Maybe the happy few will get some more in December.

I slept in a traditional village, here is a picture of our host, cooking. And yes lionel, she spoke perfect Spanish, although her parents could only speak Quechua.

This lakes reminded me of some islands in the Mediterranean sea. The biggest difference being the water temperature (which does not top 12 degrees...)

Tonight, we're getting on the night bus to Tacna, on the Chilean border... Good night!

Gustavs photos:
At last!! Here are some photos from the floating islands. While Pierre did the two day tour, I and Romina, who was visiting me, took a day tour of the floating Islands. Starting with a 30 minute boat ride in what might have been the worlds slowest boat we arrived to the first of them. We ha a look around and were told a bit about the history and continued to the second island on a tradicional reed boat. There we saw a wonderful sunset (that I for some reason can´t find in the photos) and went back to Puno.

Puno

We took the bus this morning from Cuzco to Puno. Gustav is currently on a small boat tour to the floating islands. I will take a two-day tour tomorrow, and sleep on an island in the middle of the lake. For the record, there is a legend saying that a treasure lies on the bottom of this lake (which is also the highest navigable lake, 3812m, 190km-long). When the Spanish took over Peru, they made the inca master prisonner, asking for a huge rancon in gold (the incas were to fill the prisonner's cellar with gold). Gold was arriving from all parts of the inca empire. Realizing the Spanish had lied and killed the master, the sailors on the titicaca lake who were to convey the gold just threw it overboard... But Cdt Cousteau never found it (but he realized that a lama could not swim).
(*standing joke*) If Gustav manages to find Jack's cafe, maybe we'll find the treasure.

PS : the postcard contest will be back soon... We'll be in Tacna on Wednesday morning, which means we'll be entering Chile Wednesday or Thursday...

Inca Jungle Trail

Machu Picchu

Here are a couple pictures from Machu Picchu... I was really extremely lucky with the weather. It was a little bit cloudy in the morning, but turned out to be sunny all day!

This picture has been taken from a mountain we climbed the day before with Gustav (No, we did not pay for the helicopter tour...). The next day, I woke up at 4.30am to climb the Machu Picchu. There are lots of tourists who do that, because you can make it before the first bus (depending on the physical condition hehe). After that, the parc opens at 6am, and everybody starts running towards the bottom of Wayna Picchu, the mountain you see in the clouds, on the right side of the next picture... It offers a very nice view of the city of Machu Picchu. However, only the first 400 tourists get to climb it... (you need to take a ticket for later the same day).
Having been in the first to get the pass to Wayna Picchu, I went back to the actual machu picchu town, for a guided tour. Unfortunately, the "english-speaking" guide promised by the agency was not so fluent... and not very interesting as well. But the site is really interesting.
There are lots of temples, the most important of them being dedicated to the sun... Unfortunately, most of the explanations given are only legends, because the inca did not have any written language. All we know is that there were pretty good with astronomy, way better than the europeans in that time (1500s).
And the Spanish never discovered this secret city, which was revealed to the world in 1911.
This last picture is the view from Wayna Picchu. After that great time, we had not such a great time arguing with the agency to get back in time in Cuzco... They kept saying that there was no more seat available on the train we were supposed to take! But after a long discussion, we got the train, and made it in time to Cuzco. I'll be more careful when choosing a tour operator (maybe not the cheapest...).

PS : I found a 46 2/3 pair of addidas... I got ripped off, paying 45 euros for it, but did I really have a choice?

Back in Cuzco!

So, I'm back in Cuzco with lots of nice photos. The only problem is the camera battery isn´t charged so I can´t upload them... Anyway, we had a wonderful hike. I´m sure Pierre is having a great time in Macchu Picchu right now, and so am I, in Cuzco. Pierre should be back here tonight, and pictures should be up by tomorrow!

Cuzco

We have spent the last couple days in Cusco.... It is a very nice city, although it is full with tourists... It is very famous for its plaza de armas (looks like whenever there is a nice place in a peruvian city, they call it plaza de armas...). It took us a few days to rest from El Misti (especially Gustav jajaja). But now, we are in shape, so we can go for another trek!

That s me looking for a pair of shoes... as you can see, the shoe on the right misses a few centimeters to make me happy... Hopefully, I eventually found a place to fix my chinese "timberland" for 6 euros (half the price I paid, lets hope it will last)... For the record, the vendor asked 90 euros for a pair of shoes that did not even fit!

We'll be off the radar for the next couple days because we are leaving tomorrow at 6.30am for a 3-day trek. The first day will be biking, then two long days of walking through the Jungle (yes, we have mosquito repellent). On Wednesday night, we should make it to Aguas Calientes (or Machu Picchu Pueblo). Gustav will be heading back to Cusco since he has better to do than visiting Macchu Picchu again... I will stay one night there and visit it on Thursday (so tonight I'll make sure my camera batteries are full).

Oh, and yesterday, we went to a bar, where there was an amazing concert... The piano player is from Madrid and should give me some tips for Piano there (piano bars, and piano teachers...). I also played a couple songs before the concert.

Recent Events in Bolivia...

I have not had time to read carefully the news, but I heard that Bolivia's situation is going down... So far, we are considering to go to La Paz, which should remain safe. The situation is quite bad in the east of the country (Santa Cruz,....) so we might fly directly from La Paz to Brazil.
Apparently, the Swedish embassy does not "not recommend" to go to Bolivia yet. If you have some suggestion or news we might not be aware of, please comment on this post...

Une petite pensée pour Lina et Yannick....

Un peu décu de ne pas être de la fête, mais je vous souhaite tout plein de bonheur à tous les deux!!!
PS : Yannick, je fais comment pour le service après-vente de mes chaussures?

Today's game...

I broke my trekking shoes I bought in Beijing a couple months ago, on the way down the volcano... Now, the new game is : "find a 47-sized pair of shoes".... So, anytime I enter a shoe-shop I would go "do you have large shoes?", and the sailor would answer "yes, we do go up to 44"... or 45 with luck.
Do you have any idea apart from "buy a 45-pair and some scissors" or "some surgery would do"... If I do not have anything by tonight, I will consider the shipping option.

PS : Some photos have been added to the previous post

"Misti" or "Altitude sickness is FUN!!!!"

We started yesterday at 08.00 in the morning with a very bumpy jeep ride to the bottom of the volcano Misti. From there we had a 3,5 hour hike (of some 1200 vertical meters) up to the base camp at 4600m, carrying the tents, the water and lots of other stuff. We got to bed at 19.00 that night as we had to wake up at 01.00 the day after!!
At 01.00 we had a marvelous view of Arequipa followed by some 5 hours of climbing up to the top even though it felt more like 100 hours because of the altitude sickness (yeah, I was exactly as bad as I look on the pictures)!
Now we are back in Arequipa waiting for our bus to Cusco that is to leave at 20.30 tonight. So far we have spent our afternoon here looking for size 47 shoes (Pierre broke his on the trek) which turned out to be impossible and uploading photos, which turned out to be possible but slowisimo !!

Colca Canyon Trek!

We are back in Arequipa after a very nice three day trek of the Colca Canyon (suposedly deeper than the grand canyon but...). It started at 05.00 with the hostel owner waking us up with a cheerful "your bus is allready outside!!" (we were supposed to have left our hotel at 05.30). On our way to the canyon we passed saw some condors and had lunch.
The first days trek took some 4 hours or so and by then the sun was already setting and it was bedtime as we were to get up at seven the day after.
The second day begun slowly but by midday we had a steep and very sunny ascent of some 200 meters.

change of writer (Pierre)...
We did not die from it, which is a really good sign... After a couple hours trek, we arrived to an Oasis, in the middle of nowhere (in the canyon). A couple hours of chilling around a nice swimming pool, the sun set (4pm...). That's the problem with 3000m-deep canyon, you dont really get sunlight for a long time! 4 hours after the sunset - I already see you doing the maths... - we went to bed.

We woke up this morning at 5.30am, and then climbed 1200m (and made it 33% faster than the rest of the group, which means we arrived 1 hour earlier - dad, you can do the maths, you seem to like that :-) ). After that, we had breakfast (yes, I wrote after). Then we went to some hot springs, on a general german request, and then drove back to Arequipa...

PS : In a comment to the previous post, you'll find a lot of answers...
PS 2 : the volcano shown on the last picture is the one we´ll be climbing tomorrow.