Colca: Canyons And Condors

With a week at the lake having been more than enough, moving on felt glorious. In the morning of Boxing Day we got ourselves by a moto taxi to the bus terminal and got tickets to Arequipa. We had asked about the ticket prices in the town center a few days prior and it was said that Express bus tickets would cost 40 soles (14ish USD) which to me had seemed quite high for a 6 hour bus journey in Peru. And when buying the tickets 10 minutes before the departure at the station, they'd cost exactly half of that. Hah! On the way to the platform we grabbed some standard ham/cheese rolls for breakfast for 1 sole each and off we go. It's good to be on the road again!

Getting to Arequipa we're rather surprised about how nice the city center is. So called colonial style, the buildings are built out of white stone and feature pillars, terraces.. and with the cobbled streets and well-kept plazas, it's like looking at a central European old town. Another surprise is to find the first Döner Kebap joint we've ever seen in latin America to be located just around the corner from our hostel. The evening is spent sampling Qusquena beer and purchasing tickets for a 2-day field trip for the next morning.

And as the new day rises, we get picked up by the tour bus at 0800 and we head north towards the gorgeous Colca Canyon and the surrounding natural reserve. The first stop is to a touristy store selling various coca products to help with the altitude sickness as today we're reaching the highest point of the trip; 4910 meters above sea level. Coming to think of it, we've consumed so much coca stuff in the past 3 weeks in Peru and Bolivia that it would be hilarious to take a drug test some stiff companies are imposing on new employees nowadays. Priceless!

On the way to Chivay, a small town down in the valley bottom yet at 3800m above sea level, we see a bunch of vicunas, alpacas and llamas on the side of the road but find it hard to get excited about them after seeing the creatures for a few weeks already. The clouds close in on us and it starts to rain and soon the awesome mountain peaks disappear in the fog. The entertainment for the rest of the day is paying a visit to another thermal springs joint, and this one turns out to be by far the nicest we've been to. The water in the pools is 38C-40C and for once even Riikka doesn't think the water is too cold :D The day is concluded by a trip to a local Penã, a kind of a dinner & show restaurant with local dances being performed while the crowd eats and drinks.

The second day of the excursion took us to the edges of the actual canyon. At over 4000 meters deep (!) it is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in US, making it the world's deepest canyon. And oh my the view is .. spectacular, rivaling those of the Death Road. Sadly the weather was a bit cloudy, it being the rainy season and all, and sometimes the visibility dropped dramatically.






Besides the view, the main attraction of the canyon is the healthy population of Andean condors residing on the walls of the canyon. With a wingspan of over 3 meters it is the largest carnivorous bird there is. And they live up to 100 years old in captivity and 60-70 in nature.. crazy! We saw several, but capturing them on picture with a regular camera is somewhat hard with them flying so high and fast.

Currently we're frantically looking for a place to spend New Year's in. Somewhere warm and within a <20h bus trip from Arequipa, south Peru. Suggestions? ;)

Merry Christmas From Lake Titicaca!

After gathering our strength in the warm Coroico sun for a few days following the downhill madness we moved on and arrived to Copacabana, a small town on the Bolivian side of the fabled Lake Titicaca. The birthplace of the sun in the Inca mythology, the lake resides at some 3800 meters above sea level and is one of the world's highest navigable lakes as well as home to one of the largest trout there is. The trout are farmed here and taste delicious with Criolla topping :). While there's nothing really special about the town, it is the penny-pinching traveler's wet dream; we got offers for hostel rooms for as little as 3.5$ and a really nice three course set dinner including the local trout as main course went for under 4$.

After a night in the town we headed out to Isla del Sol, some 2-3 hours away by boat. The island is a central place in the Inca tales of creation and home to a few hundred indigenous folks scattered across the island. We stayed overnight in the northern end of the island which hosts the most important ruins that can be covered by a 2-3 hours hike from the town. On the hike we spotted plenty of very cute small asses - or baby donkeys if you prefer - as well as llamas and sheep that roam the hills. December is rainy season here, so very few tourists were present. Around the town there were a few tiny shacks acting restaurants offering the local trout to us brave souls who stayed through the cold night.

One day after returning from the island it's time to move on to the other side of the lake, to the Peruvian town Puno where we meet up with Riikka's family for christmas. Puno is rather big and I take the opportunity to try and find myself a new pair of shoes since the old ones are pretty much coming apart. But it seems it is impossible to find shoes of size over 42 in latin America so the attempt is futile once again. But I do manage to buy a few pairs of new socks from a market to replace some destroyed ones.

On a day trip, we pay a visit to the Islas de Uros - the famous floating islands of Lake Titicaca - as well as Isla Taquila which hosts a community of Quechua-speakers with funny hats and colorful clothing. While the floating islands seem quite fake and nowadays only exist to benefit from tourism, the visit to Taquila is pleasant. We take a little stroll over the island - whose highest point reaches just over 4000m - and have the local trout for lunch in the village on the top.

We spent christmas eve pretty much lying in bed enjoying cable TV and planning the next stops of the trip. Later we go out and enjoy alpaca and some more trout for the christmas dinner. I have to admit I miss the traditional foods ham and caviar!  On christmas day we have lunch with Riikka's family before going our separate ways with them heading to Cuzco and us starting to make our way towards the coast, finally descending down from the altiplano.

See all the pictures from Bolivia here!

Death Road Downhill

What does someone with a terrible fear of heights and little experience on mountain biking do in Bolivia? Rushes to ride down the World's Most Dangerous Road of course! A 65km stretch of mountain road on the Andes from the capital La Paz to a pleasant mountain town of Coroico, it has become the single most famous attraction here that most adventurous visitors to the country just have to do. It gets the nickname from the fact that it indeed is the most dangerous road, having received the most deaths annually. With the recent opening of the new road between the cities, the amount of traffic has been reduced to a minimum and nowadays 95% of it are downhill bikers and their support vehicles, most likely greatly reducing the amount of deaths on the Old Road. Yet it remains a favourite legend among the travelers in the region.

The ride starts on a plateau at some 4800 meters - roughly the same altitude as the summit of Mt. Blanc - and plummets down to 1200 meters. While on the top the weather is chilling and you're out of breath immediately after trying anything properly physical, down at the end of the run the climate is subtropical and you're greeted with the sounds of a jungle as well as a 30+ degree heat. The first 20 or so km are paved road where you go blazing down dodging cars and road construction strips - all the while being dumbstruck by the, pardon my French, f*cking epic views.

And there our little group gets unlucky; when me and Riikka ride around a turn in the road we notice something lying on the street. Pulling over we notice it's our fellow rider, a young Canadien. He's not moving and his bike is thrown some 5 meters from him - or, more likely, the other way around. He is barely conscious when I go to him, and his face is just smashed. There's blood everywhere and all I can do is take his bike to the side of the road and stand guard so cars wont run over him as I'm afraid to move him. He is not able to talk and just makes a scary howling noise, swaying there and staring at all the blood in shock. In some 5 minutes our support vehicle arrives with the other guide and they get him to a hospital for CAT scans and X-rays.. huh. Later we find out he survives with just several fractured teeth and no broken bones. Bad karma but the rest of us push on with no further incidents.

In the end of the paved part of the road there is a 8km stretch of occasional uphills. Our biking company of choice, Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking, are the only one who offer the chance to ride this bit too; the rest pussy out and load their bikes on the busses and skip the uphill section. Our bikes are these really heavy set downhill monsters, not very fit for riding uphill, but we push on and the only thing keeping me going is that I want to be able to say I really did bike the whole thing.

After that bit the interesting part starts; we arrive at the start of the Old Road, which is some 45km of gravel not more than one lane wide, with occasional land slides and waterfalls to surprise you. Oh, and any uphill traffic have the right of passage, AND due to the characterics of the road, the traffic is left sided. This means you have to meet any incoming vehicles on the side where the edge of the road is. Oh, and beyond the edge of the cliff there is up to 300 meters of vertical drop to the valley floor that is already littered with car and bus carcasses. And, sadly, with at least one biker like us - a French girl had gone over the edge some years ago.

While it's technically not a challenging ride, the dizzying thought of the gorge next to you combined to the mindblowing views and the occasional bird/butterfly joining you on the ride, I found myself having to put all effort I could muster to concentrate on riding. After a while the terror of the possible fall lurking not more than 1-2 meters to the left of you subsides, and you start to trust your bike and from there the ride becomes really enjoyable. We're lucky to get amazing weather for it, too, despite the oncoming rainy season starting in a few weeks. There's only scattered clouds and the 6+ km peaks are bathing in the sun with their brilliant white snow covers, the tall waterfalls of San Juan splash you mildly when riding directly under them.. arriving in to the valley you really feel dazzled by the whole 5-6 hour long experience quite unlike what I, at least, have ever seen or done.

Down in the valley Gravity takes you to Senda Verde animal refuge, another eco lodge in the jungle with wild animals rescued from illegal pet trade. Their selection included a load of monkeys, tropical birds, tortoises and even a black Andean bear. There we enjoy a beer and buffet lunch on the biking company and enjoy the surroundings (they even have a swimming pool in the forest where all the monkeys hang out!) so much that me and Riikka decide to stay instead of returning to noisy La Paz. And after that very relaxing night we decide to postpone moving on by a few days and instead pay a visit to Coroico, a weekend getaway town to Pacenos (La Pazians).

Coroico is a colorful small town on the side of a mountain at the altitude of 1700 meters, with great views over the valley and the surrounding mountain ranges. Also you see both the old road and the new road and can sit back with a cold beer and think over what it was like to ride down the most dangerous road in the world. By accident we find a really awesome deal to stay for a few nights; a lodge some 1km hike from the plaza to the west, run by a French couple. A room with amazing view and private baths for mere 17$, and the place has a beautiful garden with a small pool as well as a very inexpensive restaurant with great foods. Jackpot for the weary traveler.

Over The Andes And Far Away

To get our behinds into Bolivia, we booked us a 3 day 4WD safari trip from San Pedro to Uyuni across the border. The route takes you over the altiplano aka. the highlands plateau that is Bolivia and across the Uyuni salt flats, the biggest of their kind in the world. We were 10 people on the trip, 5 per car (plus the driver-guide-cook each of course) as promised by the travel agency Colque Tours. Having read a lot of bad things about these trips on the web I had some doubts, but they were blown right out of the water when we got on the road.

DAY 1

We started off at 0800 from the Colque office, exchanged some Bolivian cash and headed to the border on a minibus. There we'd quickly get stamped into the country and load ourselves and the bags on the cars. Was surprised how big and comfortable the 4WDs were. Plenty of room for everybody. First on the menu was a stop at White Lagoon for breakfast, after which we saw a few other lagoons before getting to the hot springs. Lying in the 34C water looking over salt flats and pink and blue mountain ranges was blissful.

After the 30 minute bathing session we moved on and reached the Morning Sun Geysers - not geysers per se, but steaming and bubbling mud ponds at a crazy altitude of 4800 meters. Even with our 3 days of acclimatization, it didn't take much effort to get lightheaded. Pretty awesome sight these mud ponds, way better than the ones we saw in Costa Rica. They were really active and would occasionally squirt the hot mud 2 meters high. Last stop before a (very) late lunch was to go see Red Lagoon and its hundreds of avian inhabitants: flamingos. Also saw several vicunas - a wild llama like creature - during the day, grazing on the barren plain.

Our overnight lodging would be a small barracks style building with no heating and no running water; luckily the heavy blankets kept the freezing room temperature at bay. Since the lodging was located at some 4700 meters above sea level, you tended to get very peculiar dreams. We hadn't ever before even been above 4200 meters let alone sleep there.. quite an experience. Certainly feels weird to be out of breath even while lying down and hear the vicious wind bring on the chill that would result in -10C temperature at night. At dinner they surprised us with decent veggie pasta and some of the guys summoned three bottles of wine and a large Flor de Cana rum and we had a feast. Great first day!

DAY 2

After a bread-and-tea breakfast we reload the cars and head off. The first few hours are spent exploring several high altitude lagoons with amazing amount of flamingos, and this time we get to see them really close up. After the lagoons we arrive to a valley full of strange rock formations, the most distinctive one called the Stone Tree.

The defining characteristic of the second day was the amount of driving done, as this was the day when most of the distance was to be covered. Throughout the day we would stop in strange ghost villages, in one which we'd get treated to our first dose of llama meat at lunch. In the afternoon the landscape started to change, sharp peaks of the Andes surrendering to more smooth lunar like hills and canyons. For the second night we arrive to our lodging at the edges of the Salar de Uyuni, the biggest salt flat on the planet with its 12000 sq. km area. And the lodging was built almost purely of - yeah you guessed it - salt! They had a bar there and after a tasty lunch, our group would sit till late night and chat over beers, wine (a Chilean guy had brought 5 bottles..) and more of the brilliant Nicaraguan rom Flor de Cana.

DAY 3

On the last day we spend the morning on the eerie salt flats taking silly pictures that abuse the vast whiteness and perspective. Also visited Fisher Island, an "island" in the middle of the salt flat. The island is home to several thousand year old cactus, the tallest being 9 meters. After some camera fun we continue on and see one more town and a train cemetary before arriving to our destination Uyuni, where our group continues to have a pizza together before saying goodbyes. We stay overnight while most head off to Potosi and La Paz the same night.

The next night we hop on a night bus to La Paz (11h, 13$) where we end up one hour early at 0600. We find the cheapest accommodation on the trip so far - 10$ for a double room with private toilet - and head out booking some more mountain adventures for the days to come. The 4WD trip was exhausting yet so much fun that tomorrow shall be a do-nothing day. And then, hopefully some extreme mountain biking..

Destination Desert

After a lengthy journey we're in Chile again. The last time we visited (in 2008) our stay in the capitol Santiago was cut very short due to travel arraignments, so this time we spent a whole day and night exploring the town. While nothing mindblowing, Santiago has some very pleasant areas and after a few months in Central America, the European style vibe feels almost exotic. Late in the second evening we board one of their brilliant Cama Class buses (hey Finland, when are we getting these babies?) which have the seats that recline all the way - after all the name Cama means "bed" - and ride through the night 800km to the north to Copiapo.

The stop in the mining town (near the mine where the miners recently got trapped) Copiapo is merely to cut the travel time to Atacama in half to avoid sitting 26 hours on the bus in a row. We didn't find a lot to do in town beyond a visit to Museo Mineralogico and sampling some of the fine wine the country has to offer. And of course to hit the Parrilladas; we've had almost no meat dishes on the trip so far besides some ground beef burgers and such, and a feast of Bife de Lomo is more than welcome. Then it's time for another overnight bus up north to Calama, where we change to another bus and finally get to our final Chilean destination, San Pedro de Atacama (pop. 3k-4k), the tourism hub of the Atacama region.

The small town of San Pedro is full of tiny tourism agencies, all offering the same exact trips to nearby (and sometimes not so nearby) sights including lagoons, geysirs, volcanoes and most strange rock formations on the planet. The weather is rather interesting here; the air is so dry that it doesn't take 20 minutes for laundry to dry. Rain is very rare here and we've yet to see a single cloud on the bright blue skies; in some places of the desert it never rains, making Atacama arguably the driest place on the planet. Oh and a cool Finn called Reijo runs the nicest - and only - bar in town.

We, of course, did some of the excursions. One of them is to get on a minibus at 0400 in the morning, drive 2 hours to El Tatio geyser field - world's highest such, altitude wise - to freeze in the -15C .. -10C temperatures and watch the sun rise from above the mountain range and light up the fuming geysers. Afterwards you get to thaw in a thermal spring about 40C hot. Daytime temperature exceeds 30C in the sun, so the variation is quite big. It felt really strange shopping for woolen socks and hats in the scorching sun. In the afternoon of the same day we went to see sun set over Valle de la Luna, or Moon Valley, a strange bunch of sand dunes and canyons just outside the town.

And finally - beach vacation in the desert? Not quite, but our visit to the salty lagoons were still really relaxing. The first lagoon of the three boasts salinity of over 40% (ocean average is 3.5%) and thus allows you to float on the surface no matter what.  

And now our busy week in Chile is up and we're moving on. Next stop: Bolivia.

See all the Chile pictures here!

The Keepers of the Seven Cayos

They call the small Caribbean islands and islets Cayos - or "Keys" to the norteamericanos - and we certainly did visit our good share of them. On the last day on Isla Utila we stopped did the first dive of the morning at the nearby Diamond Caye and spent the surface interval snacking and sunning at a café on the Pigeon Caye where they had rescued a few baby turtles - that get flushed on to the shores occasionally - and a tiny nurse shark and were keeping them in confined seawater until they'd get bigger and stronger to be released. Great last day of diving all in all, encountered two seahorses and other small stuff in the sand between the corals.

After 9 splendid days on the island doing little else but diving, we felt like doing something else for a few days before leaving the region. And after several people at Alton's had recommended a jungle lodge near La Ceiba to us, we booked a cabin there. A bit pricey, the Omega Tours Eco Lodge was a very pleasant hideout in the valley by the river, covered by jungle and surrounded by mountains. Many people on Utila told us to definitely do a local waterfall hike there, and while not quite living up to the hype, the 3-4 hours trip up and down the mountain to swim and shower under the waterfalls (taller one had a 60m vertical drop section and indeed was quite a sight) was refreshing and provided the long overdue physical exercise. While not steeper than the previous hikes on the trip, this one required a bit more technical skill (even used ropes at one point) due to the huge rocks as slippery as wet ice. Riikka had some trouble with the tallest bits with her short reach, so I ended up tossing the dwarf a few times, but nobody told the elf.

We haven't really been listening to (our) music in something like a month. So on this morning's bus ride from La Ceiba to San Pedro Sula I fired up the laptop (which doubles as our only music player) and listened through Iron Maiden's genius album Somewhere In Time while working on the last set of Honduran photos. Good stuff! Really hit the spot after three weeks of almost pure reggae diet. While the weather at the moment inland is gray and rainy, when I'll think of Honduras in the future, the images in my mind will certainly be those of the lush jungles and the gorgeous turquoise waters of the Bay Islands. With careful calculation the night before, we ended up at the La Ceiba airport with 5$ worth of Lempiras in our pocket, which we used to buy baleados - the tasty local burrito with excess bean paste - and one last Salva Vida beer! 

Central America recap

The travel possibilities in the Central American region have been even better than I was hoping for. The transportation - i.e. the bus - is inexpensive and while not exactly fast, the small size of the region makes travel times doable. We've liked all the countries - Nicaragua and Honduras perhaps the most, at least we ended up spending the most time in those two. Belize was amazingly beautiful but rather expensive and offers little what Honduras - which is about 50% cheaper - does not. It's a shame we didn't make it to El Salvador, as that would probably have been the most exciting one of all with the lack of tourism infrastructure compared to it's neighbors. It's such a travel cliché to say "the local people are so nice there" but a few days ago we saw a police cruiser stop by a homeless beggar, an officer get out of the car and hand the man a few notes before driving off. Draw your own conclusions. 

Rough costs of usual things:

• entering a country through onland crossing: 0-12$
• onland departure tax: 0-3$ (Belize 4-37$ depending on the crossing point)
• airport departure tax: 37$ (Honduras, others probably similar amounts)
• night in a hostel double room 15-25$. Most often with shared bath/toilet and without hot water. Dorm prices per person were almost the same.
• dinner 3-5$ (5-10$ in Costa Rica & Belize)
• a whole large lobster on the Caribbean coast 15-20$
• 0.33 bottle of beer 1$ (1.5-2.5$ in Costa Rica and Belize and parts of Guatemala)
• an hour (anything from 20km to 80km depending on terrain, the bus and the driver) on a bus 0.75-1$
• half-day hiking/etc trip 20-30$
•  full-day trip such as rafting 50$, includes lunch usually
• getting a weeks worth of laundry for 2 people done 3-5$ (Belize 6-10$)
• 2 tank diving trip 50-55$ (Panama & Honduras, includes snacks and possibly accommodation in Honduras) to 100$ (Belize, includes nothing)
•  meeting tons of fun people: free!

So this is the end of the first and longest single leg of the trip. Next on the menu is the Andean highlands and coasts of South America. We have only done rudimentary planning on what the route will be, but with the ~20 hours of travel still ahead of us today there should be plenty of time to start looking into it in more detail and I'm sure we can hit most of the goodies of the area has to offer in the 4-5 weeks we have scheduled for the second leg. In other words it's time to open up the good old Lonely Planet South America (this is the book's 4th trip down here). But first: some nethack.



See all the Honduran photos here!



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