Justine and Dylan’s Travel Blog

Just to finish off, here’s a (heavily abbreviated) list of some of the highlights of our honeymoon…

• Watching the mists swirl in the wind and finally, in the end, reveal Machu Picchu (Peru) early in the morning of our last day of the Inca Trail
• Having the hike to Condoriri (one of the peaks in the Cordillera Real, near La Paz) base camp all to ourselves and watching the spectacular Andean landscape change as the snow laid down overnight melted throughout the day
• Watching red flamingos go about there business at the red coloured (and aptly named) Laguna Colorado (Bolivian Altiplano)
• Catching a glimpse into the crater from the rim of Vulcan Lascar (near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile) at 5480m and looking up to get an incredible view along a chain of other vulcanoes stretching off into the distance
• Having the stunningly varied hike around Refugio Frey and Refugio Lynch (near Bariloche, Argentina) all to ourselves on a beautiful sunny Xmas day
• Watching the sun rise over a cloudless Cerro Fitz Roy (anyone who’s been to Los Glaciaros NP in Patagonia can attest to how hard it is to catch a glimpse of the peak through ever-present clouds, let alone catch it on a cloudless morning)
• Walking into the natural amphitheatre formed by the peaks at the end of the (wind-swept) French Valley, having passed cascades, sliding waterfalls, crystal-clear streams, beautiful forests and dramatic (and regularly calving) hanging glaciers (Torres del Paine NP, Chile)
• Glacier walking at the base of Cerro Torre (Los Glaciaros NP, Argentina) on a beautiful sunny day
• Watching a deep red sunset envelop Manhattan, and in particular the Empire State building, from the top of the Rockefeller centre (New York)
• Waking up to find snow falling on the balcony of our guesthouse in Lower Pisang and walking through a stunning winter wonderland for most of the morning (Annapurna Circuit, Nepal)
• Early morning ascent up to the Thorung-La (pass), the highest point (5416m) of the Annapurna Circuit (Nepal) and and afternoon descent into Muktinath, on a perfect (and very bright!) day. Actually, the whole week from Manang to Marpha was pretty hard to beat. Spoilt for choice of highlights, I had to pick one
• Watching our plans for a walk up Bessho-san disappear under two inches of snow (laid down in about half an hour!). Very scenic though (near Fukuoka, Japan)
• Walking through a snow covered gorge with crystal-clear streams and waterfalls called Sandan-kyo (near Hiroshima, Japan) on a beautiful sunny day
• Staying at a secluded and ancient monastery (with sleeping quarters just out the back of one of the temples!) on Emei Shan in China (although had mixed feelings about being woken up by the chanting monks at 4am )
• Watching the sun rise over the rice paddies and karst limestone peaks in Chaolong (near Yangshuo, China)
• Lazing about on a picture-perfect beach on Koh Samui (Thailand)
• And last but not least: sharing all these highlights (except for one or two of the sunrises perhaps, a bit too early for some ) with Justine, who every day makes me feel like I’m the luckiest man alive

And, of course, just as important, our food highlights:

• Asado (barbeque) lamb in El Calafate, Argentina
• Some salmon dish prepared by our friends in Vancouver, Canada
• Cup Cakes in New York (somewhere close to the Library)
• Cold Stone Creamery (icecream) in Times Square, New York
• Some pork dish prepared by our friends in Groningen, Holland
• Sushi in Kyoto, Japan
• Okonomiyaki in Hiroshima, Japan
• Hida beef in Takayama, Japan (apparently similar to, but less established than Kobe beef)
• Steak in Hong Kong (after 4 weeks of trekking in Nepal )
• Some fish dish in one of the restaurants in the Muslim quarter (Xian, China)
• Most of the food around the Sichuan province… spicy! (Chengdu, China)

And finally, yes, I’m working on posting the photos… house- and job-hunting just might have to come first unfortunately

Before I forget and they become completely out of date…

• stands everywhere along the Inca Trail selling beer (called chicha, locally brewed along the track). Just what you need at the start of a casual walk up several thousand steps up a 4200m hill…
• a religious ceremony in Copacabana in Bolivia involving the local clergy blessing people’s… cars. Not just cars of course… cars decorated with flowers and covered in champagne with the hood open (so the engine could be blessed too)… who needs road-side assistance really
• dried Llama foetuses for sale at what is known as the Witches Market in La Paz. Not sure what they’re used for. Not something I figured I needed to at some point in time…
• soccer pitch at 5040m above sea level at a pass we drove over in the Altiplano in Bolivia. I was almost out of breath just sitting on the bus, would be interesting to see how long the people last that get together for their weekly runs on that soccer pitch…
• a rocket launch style count down from 10 to 0 as the Perito Moreno glacier (in Argentina) came into view… from our bus. It was a big glacier, but we weren’t exactly heading for outer space.
• wearing our goosedown winter jackets in mid-summer in Ushuaia. Apparently they were having a good spell of weather when we were there.
• celebrating New Years Eve in daylight (admittedly fading somewhat, but still) in southern Argentina. Could definitely make out the fireworks, but had the event been one hour earlier, there would’ve been some disappointed customers…
• British phone booths (you know, the red ones that everyone takes photos of in London) in… Buenos Aires. Apparently the Brits occupied the place for a bit at some stage (not sure when that was with the whole Spanish occupation, but anyway) and built some infrastructure as the Brits tended to do during their colonising days.

Anyway, not that many for two and a half months around South America. I guess they just don’t have as much originality as the Japanese when it comes to these things…

Alright, have been promising this for a little while, but they’re now all up (as always on www.dylanav.com). And by “all”, I mean approx. 1900 highlights (out of approx 7000 photos so far). Hmmm. Sorry about that. I haven’t brought the number down any further because we’ve just seen a lot of stuff lately.

Note: I haven’t done ANY editing of the photos (so yes, I know there is room for improvement with quite a few of them), but I plan to at some stage pick a couple of dozen really good ones, do the usual postprocessing (levels, cropping, etc) and put them up somewhere separate. Maybe in June

Some of the (scenic) highlights of the trip so far:

→ Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail, Peru: Day 1, Day 2 (incl. Dead Woman’s Pass), Day 3 (incl. Second Pass), Day4 (incl. Sun Gate, Machu Picchu and Wayna Picchu)

→ Walking through the snow to Condoriri base camp, Cordillera Real, Bolivia

→ Looking out over the Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni salt flats) from Isla de Pescatores, Bolivia

→ Flamengoes at Laguna Colorada, Altiplano, Bolivia

→ Climbing Vulcan Lascar to 5480m, Chile

→ Refugio Frey circuit walk (incl Refugio Lynch and Cordon Catedral), Nahuel Huapi NP, Argentina

→ Laguna de los Tres, Los Glaciares NP, Patagonia, Argentina: Take #1 (incl. hail coming in horizontally and Piedras Blancas) and Take #2 (incl. almost perfect weather and Laguna Sucia)

→ Watching the sun rise over Cerro Fitz Roy on a perfectly clear day, Los Glaciares NP, Patagonia, Argentina

→ Glacier walking on Glaciar Grande at the base of Cerro Torre, Los Glaciares NP, Patagonia, Argentina

→ Valle des Frances, Torres del Paine NP, Patagonia, Chile: Take #1 (incl. hanging bridge near Campamento Italiano) and Take #2 (incl. perfect weather around the amphitheatre near Campamento Britannico)

→ Los Cuernos and Las Torres, Torres del Paine NP, Patagonia, Chile

→ Watching the sun set over Manhattan from the Rockefeller Center, New York, U.S.

Off to Japan, Nepal, China and Thailand next week. Should be good for a few more highlights

A quick preview until I put up some photos properly…

Us at Condoriri base camp (near La Paz, Bolivia):

Us on the Uyuni Salt Flats (near Uyuni, Bolivia):

Us on Lascar Vulcano at 5480m (near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile)… and yes, those are other vulcanoes in the background

Us at the Torres del Paine Lookout (Chile):

Well, despite some earlier concerns as to travel plans through Bolivia (due to violent demonstrations days before we arrived), we´ve now left Bolivia and managed to do everything as planned.

First up was Potosi (altitude 4000m), an old mining town (which used to be the richest and largest city in the world a couple of hundred years ago). Didn´t do the mines; not interested in seeing poor people being exploited while submitting ourselves to some very dodgy mining OH&S standards. Did check out the place itself which was great. Very cruisy and some great views from the roof of the San Francisco convent (you actually get to walk on the roof!).

Next up was Salar de Uyuni, aka the Uyuni salt flats. These are massive salt plains (12,000 square km, ie larger than Holland) which you can drive around in jeeps (or be driven around in jeeps as in our case) and which in some spots stretch as far as you can see. Interesting place when you´re as tanned as I am. Cool also are these “islands” which you can drive up to; literally just hills I guess which happened to be higher than the surrounding layer of salt (up to 120m) and are now little oases with cacti, etc. The one we visited was Isla del Pescadores. Translated means something to do with fish. Interesting name, I´m thinking more to do with the shape than what you´re going to catch off the edge of it.

And then finally (on our way out to Chile), the Altiplano. These plains are at 4000m or more and let´s just say we managed to get away from most of the tourists. Our overland truck happily dragged us over the pass (5000m) and past a whole bunch of absolutely stunning sights that I´m guessing most people don´t get to see: lakes with red algae and mineral deposits with flamingoes (Laguna Colorado), similar lake but with different minerals making it bright blue (Laguna Azul) and not to be outdone a green version for good measure (Lago Verde), all surrounded by vulcanoes, landscapes created by these vulcanoes and other mountains. A few photos might have been taken.

As an aside, for the enjoyment (or not)  for those who haven´t been to not-so civilised places like La Paz (or Rome or the Arc du Triomphe in Paris), I thought I´d throw in a few traffic rules we learned yesterday on our way through La Paz as passengers in one of the local taxi´s… (although I imagine these will be very familiar to anyone who´s been to South America, Africa, Asia or Bendigo)

• Adhering to red lights is optional
• If someone is tooting their horn at you, you´re ok: at that stage you know you´ve been seen (and will probably not be mowed down)
• Lines on roads to indicate lanes are a waste of paint. Besides, you can fit more lanes onto a slab of concrete if lanes are not marked.
• There is always an invisible third lane in the middle of the road. The direction of this lane varies depending on the speed and size of oncoming traffic
• A gap is a gap. A gap is always worth going for. Lives are expendable when a gap has been sighted
• Taxi drivers are actually part-time off-road rally drivers. This becomes apparent when not on sealed roads.
• There are no bonus points for hitting old ladies, dogs, people with boxes of stuff, etc. as these are all to easy to hit: for some reason they seem to throw themselves (or perhaps they are thrown?) in front of oncoming traffic every few metres
• You don´t need a power nap when tired: a near miss accident every few minutes is guaranteed to keep the adrenaline pumping all day…

More interestingly, everyone seems to go by the same rules and survives. I´d just be intrigued to find out how driving lessons are conducted…

Fortunately the second day was a little more productive than our first day in La Paz (although not particularly surprising). We did a walk from Tuni (about two hours outside of La Paz) to the Condoriri base camp at 4700m, through stunning scenery. You can see why people keep coming back for the many treks in the Bolivian mountains.

Condoriri is one of the mountains in the Cordillera Real and like most is a rather technical climb if you want to get to the top. The walk to base camp, although reasonably tough (17kms, between 4300m and 4700m), fortunately only involves very gentle slopes (so is very easy on the knees, unlike the Inca Trail!).

Again, we seemed to be very lucky with the weather. The sun was out all day and when we set out the area was covered in a thin layer of snow from the previous night. By the time we had lunch though, the snow was gone and had transformed the landscape into a green version of the one we walked through in the morning. Very cool.

Again, some pictures to follow when I get to a (much faster) computer with USB and some sort of image editing (resize) software (other than MS Paint in Spanish… que??).

Now in La Paz (approx 3700m above sea level) where we´ve got a few days to do as we feel. Options in this lively city include city tours, walks around the mountains outside of La Paz, witches markets, San Pedro jail, Coco leaf museum and just walking around La Paz itself (breathless of course… not because of the sights but due to the altitude; although we´re now vaguely acclimatised to the altitude after our stint around Lake Titicaca, being on the 4th floor of our hotel is still a good one to make sure your heart and lungs are still working!).

So, with so much to do I figured now would be as good a time as any to organise another case of the usual TD (traveller´s diarrheoa). Fun and games. Apart from the usual things you miss about home (showers that are hot, showers that drain, supermarkets, fridges, English programs on TV, ie the usual things…), I´m looking forward to once again getting sick for a reason (such as after eating Harry´s cooking perhaps), rather some random circumstance (which I obviously haven´t worked out yet ). Maybe it´s just nature telling me to slow down and bore people wth this blog.

Anyway, this was just day 1 (feelng much better now) so hopefully I´ll have something slightly more interesting to report over the next few days

Isla Del Sol is an island in Lake Titicaca a few hours boat ride from Copacabana. Apart from some ruins, the birthplace of the sun itself (according to locals) and more Puma shaped rocks (according to same locals), I found it´s main draw card to be the scenery.

It sounds pretty cool with some of the “mountains” on the island being over 4000m above sealevel, but of course it´s easy to forget the lake is at 3800m give or take, reducing these mountains to some pretty easy going hills and making the walk we did around it pretty straightforward. Still, nice scenery and nice not to have to deal with the neverending stairs we grew accustomed on on the Inca Trail.

After a moderately painfree crossing into Bolivia we found ourselves in Copacabana, a small town on Lake Titicaca. Far more quaint and scenic than Puno, but no reed. Very disappointing (lack of reed, not Copacabana). Not so disappointing are the Bolivian prices though. OMG, it´s sooooo cheap here. Had a massive piece of trout (size of a small plate), cooked to perfection the other night. Damage: USD4. Not bad. Although apparently Chile is not as kind. Will have to make the most of it while it lasts.

Update on Bolivian political situation: all still good, so still on track and the expected itinerary change hasn´t quite eventuated