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

Puno´s main claim to fame are the Silustani Ruins and its vicinity to Uros island in Lake Titicaca (the highest lake in the world I believe at 3810m).

The Silustani Ruins are basically some rocks left over from Inca and pre-Inca times. Moderately interesting but a fair bit of imagination was required for some parts (some Peruvians can see puma´s in just about any rock).

Uros islands were far more interesting though. This is a group of approx 40 islands all made of reed. Lots of reed. All floating a little while off the coast from Puno. Quite a sight, especially when you see all the things one can make out of reed. Boats, huts, watch towers, trinkets, pens for the birds, etc, etc. You can apparently also eat it, although the few out of the group that tried that… well, let´s just say the reed didn´t quite have the dietary impact they were after. Anyway, just about the only things not made out of reed where the solar panels feeding TVs in some of the (reed) huts, but it didn´t detract from the overal setup. Pretty cool even if I did feel like a dirty big tourist again. Almost used to it.

Today was a day of recovery and washing just about all our clothes after finishing the Inca Trail yesterday (4 days, 42 kms, altitude up to 4200m). Not a bad little walk and we were very, very lucky with the weather considering the wet season has just started, so overal a great few days. Definitely one of the best hikes I’ve been on.

Will worry about putting up some photos one of these days, but might be tricky until we get to say… Canada

Some overal thoughts:

Cons

• hikers everywhere, feels like Piccadilly Circus in July! Which is an interesting sensation at 4200m above sea level in the middle of nowhere
• can be misty sometimes (understatement), you can see why it took them a while to discover most of the trail including Machu Pichu): literally within minutes an entire valley can appear and disappear from view. This can happen any time of the year though, so it really just feels like gambling, you either get lucky or you don’t
• hard work if you happen to get a case of TD (traveller’s diarrheoa) two days before you start (as I might have ) Otherwise the walk is very do-able compared to some
• definitely not a place for people with a fear of heights (luckily I’m over mine nowadays… or enough anyway!)

Pros

• amazing views (when there’s no clouds) with a great variety of plants, flowers and landscapes 
• service with a smile: the porters carry so much stuff, they really make your life pretty easy on the tour (including three course meals and chairs to have lunch on!) 
• what an ending! Machu Picchu really is an amazing place, made even more spectacular by the surroundings

Off to Lake Titicaca tomorrow, then Bolivia which should be interesting (http://article.wn.com/view/2007/11/27/Morales_defiant_as_protests_leave_4_dead/). It looks like our first change of itinerary is coming up already and we haven’t even left our starting point yet…!!

Well, in Cusco (Peru) now. Have recovered from trip over here (47hrs door to door from Melbourne… and who said travel can’t be fun) and have vaguely acclimatised to the altitude (approx 3300m). With that out of the way I’m actually quite enjoying being quite the tourist again. Which you know you are when

• You struggle to understand a single word the locals say (although also had that issue in Glasgow)
• You struggle to identify most foods at the markets. And heading to the local ”supermarket” doesn’t improve things.
• You can’t help but giggle childishly at your Do Not Disturb sign (which reads No Molestar) even though you already knew that one from previous travels.

Pretty standard stuff so far really, it’s just that it’s been a while.

One thing that was cool though was watching the Brazil – Peru game the other day on TV (1-1 btw for anyone following world cup qualifiers). Didn’t understand a word the commentators said but when Peru scored the equaliser, not a whole lot of translating was needed.