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

And to finish off our tour of Patagonia we did a final three days around Torres del Paine National Park, billed as the W (three day walks which on a map look like a W).

We had already done the Las Torres Lookout in almost perfect conditions, so did a walk around Lago Sarmiento and Laguna Verde instead (30kms all up), which was quite nice (although the highlight was probably the lookout over Lago Sarmiento and Rio Paine at the start of the walk…).

Had also done the Valle des Frances (French Valley, 27kms) on day 2, but were happy to do it again in perfect (although somewhat windy) conditions (remember me babbling on about the weather in the previous post?… yup, it was still good at this stage). It really is one of the best and most varied walks I´ve ever done with spectacular views at the end at the Mirador Condor.

Finally, day three was a walk to Lago and Glaciar Grey. This last day was a bit of a circus as most people in our tour group by this stage had grown tired of walking and wanted to catch the early catamaran back at 12noon. Not impressed as we were expecting one last full day (the short version, walk- and day-wise was NOT what had been sold to us), we ended up meeting the tour guides halfway and forced one of them to get up at 5am to accompany us to the Refugio Grey and back by 12noon. Well, we made it (23kms), but I´ve had more relaxing walks… Disappointing also as the weather was probably the best we´ve had during our entire stay in Patagonia (sunny, cloudless AND completely windstill) and apart from a more casual pace, we also missed out on going all the way to the third lookout (next to Glaciar Grey, instead of in front), which is apparently worth the extra few kms. Oh well, can´t win ´em all I guess, and leaves something for us to come back to… although might be a while :)

Overall still a great few days (80kms!) and am now totally content with leaving Patagonia. Couldn´t have had better weather, better views or nicer people to walk with. Other than a few days of flash-packing (meaning “backpacking” in a nice hotel) left in Buenos Aires, all set for the next part of our adventures in Vancouver, New York, London and Holland. Which will probably mainly consist of undoing all the good work (fitness-wise) from the last two months. Oh well…

Btw – haven´t been able to get the computer I´m currently sitting at to co-operate photo-wise, so will try to post some preview piccies again over the next few days…

The literature will invariably tell you this is one of the finest trekking destinations in the world and that it can get very, VERY windy. Well, consider both confirmed.

With the addition that while we were there, it rained on the days we arrived and left and there was glorious sunshine on the three days in between. Can´t help but feel that we´ve been very lucky again. And that coming back in two weeks time might be disappointing unless the weather pulls off another miracle Oh well, one way to find out.

Anyway, the walks we did included the compulsory Torres del Paine Lookout, a walk up the even better (far more varied, ie hanging glaciers, mountain streams, unspoilt forest, 360 degree views of an amphitheater including the other side of the Cuernos del Paine, etc, etc) Valle de Frances (aka French Valley) and a quick walk up the Mirador Condor with panoramic (insanely windy, could barely stand up!) views of the light blue Lago Pehoe. Awesome.

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, today we went mountain biking from Pucon. Had to fit in at least a few activities (we did hiking and biking) as would have felt guilty skipping every adventure activity on offer here (which covers just about most in existence). So mountain biking it was today. Had forgotten (from Tuscany in 2005) that we don´t go cycling often and that hilly places are not a good place to start. Scenery was great (especially the Ojos de Calburgua, so blue lakes and waterfalls… very photogenic), but let´s just say I´ll sleep well tonight. And I´ll be walking funny for a few days. 

Last thing I thought worth mentioning is the “vulcano traffic light” installed on the roof of the tourist information centre. As I mentioned before, Pucon is near the (still active) Villaricca vulcano (at the base pretty much actually), so I guess they figured some sort of vulcano information device would be a good idea. It´s currently on green which I´m guessing is a good thing. If it hits red I guess things are going to get interesting around here very quickly. Or it will anyway for those tourists stupid enough to need a traffic light to tell them that the vulcano is going off. Didn´t work out what the orange was for. Perhaps I should´ve read the explanatory text that went with the traffic light. Silly tourist.

Huerquehue is a national park not far from Pucon where we are now. Walk was about 17kms and only between 800 and 1400m high (woohoo, no worries about altitude any more… although we weren´t quite sprinting up the hills I have to admit… with the lower altitude the temperature also seems to have picked up a bit). Apart from the views of the local vulcano (Villaricca), the park has some very scenic lakes and a tree variety called the Araucaria. Kind of like a cross between a palm tree and a pine tree with dinosaur scales. They get pretty big and it made for a nice change in the forest scenery. So did the trees actually which I wasn´t used to any more after 4 weeks above 3000m including Altiplano´s and deserts (not a lot of trees there). Which reminds me that Pucon is funnily enough about the closest thing I´ve seen to Switzerland (except with snow capped vulcanoes rather than mountains), although apparently Bariloche (in Argentina where we´re off to next), is even more so. Strange.

I guess you could be stuck in worse places, but it´s simply a case of me being extremely spoilt these days.

La Serena is a beach town at the southern end of the Atacama desert which we got to after driving south for a couple of days from San Pedro (enjoyed the bush camping on the way down actually). If you´re into lying on a beach, great. Otherwise, the town centre was ok and very, very Western/modern (after Bolivia anyway), but overal getting some stamps here was the highlight.

Santiago is just a big city. The biggest we´ve been to since London actually (5m+ people). Its centre is great for shopping but otherwise it was great to just be out of the tent and into a nice hotel for a few days. Did enjoy the farewell dinner (it was the end of the Cusco to Santiago leg for some of our fellow Dragoman travellers… doesn´t time fly), great food.

Also got quite a few chores done but somehow managed to again run out of time for internetting. Interesting how that happens when you´re travelling. Oh well. Posting some photos will eventuate at some stage.

After having lived at above 3000m since Cusco and above 4000m (roughly) since the Altiplano, we thought we´d try and see how much higher we could go. Fortunately around San Pedro there are several vulcanoes that go up to 5500 or even 6000m. Easy fixed.

Finding a guide was just as easy, but he pretty much scoffed at our recent Inca Trail and Cordillera Blanca experience (latter only up to 4800m, defn not high enough), so an “easy one” (5480m going by my GPS) called Lascar was selected. The other cool thing was that each morning it still emits a little smoke and we could see into the crater from the top. The walk started at 4900m so we had a little bit of a head start, but still…

Well, we weren´t disappointed. Physically it was quite a challenge and at a height where I´d say hiking is not really great fun any more (think: one step, one or two breaths, one step, one or two breaths, etc… and add a few breaks and breathless gasps in between), but the views were hard to beat. Apart from being able to see the whole crater(admittedly very smelly, ie sulphuric, ie rotten egg gas), we could see all the way along the chain of vulcanoes that previously we´d only seen from San Pedro and in most other directions. Very, very cool. A few more photos might´ve been taken. Sleep was quite good that night too.

Next time we go up this high will be in Nepal (Annapurna Circuit), so I guess an interesting side effect was that we now know we´ll be able to actually complete it (highest point is at 5419m, ie a bit lower), which is always good to know before you fly half way around the world and hike for 10 days to get somewhere