Hasta Luego South America

After a 39 hour bus journey and 7 long hours at the Bolivian border, I have finally made my way back to my favourite South American city, Buenos Aires, which will unfortunately be my final destination on this trip. My travel plans have been cut short as South America is not as cheap as expected and so my funds are running low! So, its time for me to say goodbye to South America for now.

I have had an incredible 15 weeks in this amazing continent. I have been to some to some unbelievable places and met some unforgettable people along the way. The Amazon, the Atacama Desert, Rio De Janiero, Iguazu Falls, Buenos Aires and the many beautiful Brazilian beaches have been just some of the highlights of my trip. I will be sad to leave South America but have two and a half months of quality time with friends and family ahead of me in England, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and where ever else the world takes me. I will be back in the new year to continue my adventure from Buenos Aires to Mexico and everwhere inbetween.

For now, Hasta Luego South America.

My Che Guevara Adventure

Whilst travelling around Bolivia I have been reading Che Guevara´s Bolivia Diaries, his final diary entries before his asassination 45 years ago. Of course, I could not leave this incredible country without retracing my heros final days, bizzarly, 45 years to the date of his death.

We started our Che adventure at Samaipata, a small, quaint village 3 hours away from Santa Cruz in the East of Bolivia. We left our backpacks at a hostel in Samaipata taking only a small overnight bag containing my toothbrush, spare contact lenses, a pair of leggings, my swiss army knife and of course, my copy of the Bolivian Diaries. We hired a car and set off for Vallegrande, a small village a further 2 hours away where Che was secretly buried for 30 years. After visiting the Che museum, which featured numerous harrowing photographs of his body after he was killed, we visited the place where his body was displayed to the media after his death; a small laundry room at the back of the village hospital. The hospital is still in use, whilst the laundry room has become a graffati covered memorial in which people express their love for this unforgettable, inspirational figure.

It was such an undignified, depressing end to such an incredibly great man. Standing inside the laundry room, a place of death, whilst watching young mothers taking their babies into the hospital seemed such a bizzare and harrowing experience.

After visiting the place in which he was secretely buried for over 30 years, we went for lunch where we starting chatting to David, a bright, charasmatic french tour guide. He told us he was on his way to La Higuera, the next village on our route and would happily give us a lift and a hostel. So, we piled into the back of his jeep, there were no seats so we just sat on the floor, and hoped it wouldn´t be another horrendous journey, and we started the 2500 metre climb over the mountains to La Higuera. Once we arrived in the tiny village of Higuera, and settled into our cute hammock filled hostel, David offered to take us on the real Che Guevara trek, literally retracing his final steps through the mountains, desert, jungle and rivers. This is completely off the beaten path, as travellers in search of a real adventure, an offer that we could not refuse.

So, the next morning David gave us each a big backpack containing a hammock, sleeping bag, essential cooking equipment, a litre of water and some very basic food, and along with my toothbrush, contact lenses, leggings, swiss army knife and my copy of Che Guevara´s Bolivian Diaries, we set off in the 35 degree heat. 

As we walked for three hours through the sparse, steep mountains, 2000 metres downhill towards the Rio Grande, I quickly finished my litre bottle of water in the midday sun. We eventually came to a waterfall with a natural pool in which we immediately jumped into, to cool off from the horredous heat. Having no bikini, or change of clothes we had to strip to our underwear to splash about in the cold waterfall. We continued our trek through a rocky canyon with the midday heat and lack of water starting to become a problem. After two hours more, we eventually reached a dry river bed with a very small amount of water. We eagerly filled our empty water bottles and drank the relatively clear river water. It was salty so didn´t really quench my thirst and it certainly wasn´t enough to keep me going for a further two hours through the dry desert.

Being exposed to the high sun and afternoon heat in the desert, we were becoming deseperate for water. I started to feel sick as did the Anita and Jen, and I had to pause to a few times as I felt as if I was going to faint. We finally reached the Rio Grande, a large river of brown, murky water. We were so thirty that we didn´t care about the colour or the taste of the water, nor about the potential parasites or bacteria that we were quenching our thirst with.

We filled our water bottles with the muddy water and continued with just one more hour to go through the cactus covered desert, until we reached our camp. As we struggled with exhaustion and dehydration, climbing over giant sand dunes we were rewarded with an incredible view of our home for the night. A completely deserted, river beach surrounded by lush green trees.

As soon as we reached the beach, we dived into the river in desperation, needing not only to cool down from our 8 hour desert hike but also needing to rehydrate ourselves.

After taking in the unbelievable views of the Rio Grande and the secluded beach, we set up camp amongst the wildlife. Hanging our hammocks between the trees, starting a campfire and using my trusty swiss army knife to prepare a much-needed dinner of potatoes and onions. We spent our night resting our exhausted muscles by the campfire, attempting to rehydrate our lethargic bodies by drinking hot river water with coca leaves.

We awoke the next morning after a very restless night in our hammocks, and set off for another tiring day of trekking in the sun. After three hours the desert suddenly turned into rocky terrain and boulders, making it very tricky to co-ordinate my tired legs. I had a couple of falls from the rocks causing my shoes and only set of clothes to become completely soaked in river water, making it even more difficult to walk on the slippy rocks. After seven long hours, we finally arrived at a much needed waterfall where we could set up camp for our second night in the wild. Luckily, the waterfall was surrounded by lemon trees and sugar cane, meaning we could make fresh lemonade, making the dirty river water much tastier, but still parasite-filled.

As we relaxed in our hammocks after a dinner of tuna pasta, we heard the sound of thunder and saw the lightening heading our way. It wasn´t long before the rain came. We scrambled under a small piece of tarpaulin with our sleeping bags to shelter from the thunderstorm. We spent the entire night squashed under our shelter. Needless to say I was far from fresh for our final day on the Che trail.

Tired, dehydrated and hungry, we dragged our weary bodies and our heavy backpacks for eleven hours through rivers and jungle. We climbed 1100 metres through rocky waterfalls and up vertical walls, with only a piece of rope which David held at the top whilst I struggled to pull myself up the rocks. Every rock that we climbed left me with another bruise or cut, it was agonising. There were tears and laughter as we dragged ourselves along the exhausting trail and unsuccessfully attempted to scramble up the vertical rocks.

When we reached the cave in which Che spent his final night, where he wrote his final diary entry, we all paused and thought about how horrendously difficult it must have been for him and his men surviving in these conditions for over a year.

Two hours later, we finally reached the place in which Che was captured, which has now been converted into a peacful, memorial spot. We sat, completely exhausted, thankful that the trek had ended...almost. Just one more hour of hiking 1000 metres uphill, back to the little village of La Higuera. It was dark now and we were desperate to get back to the hostel, our motivation being a hot shower and an ice cold coca-cola!

Unsurprisingly, I was sick for two days after the hike from pure exhaustion and dehydration.

This was by far the most incredibly difficult, physically challenging experience of my life. But a true adventure, Che Guevara style!

 

The Cities of Bolivia

 La Paz, the highest capital city in the world is crazy, chaotic and noisy but somehow still manages to be colourful, interesting and rather charming. Its busy streets are crammed full of traffic, pollution, colourful markets and colourful people, it very much reminds me of Mumbai. It is an excellent place for people watching as the women wonder around the streets wearing their brightly coloured traditional clothes, carrying their children on their backs wrapped in colourful material whilst selling fruit. I found the most interesting part of the city to be the Witches Market. A small square of stalls selling llama skeletons, feotus´ , dried sea creatures, herbs and potions.

According to Bolivian tradition, if you bury a llama skeleton under your house, it will bring you good luck!

Next on my list of Bolivian cities was Cochabamba. A non-descript, run down city. It´s a city that runs from 11am until 10pm, outside of these hours the place is completely shut down, dark and rather grim. Due to the bus schedules we were forced to stay in this uninteresting, unfriendly, grey city for longer than we would have liked. Two days was more than enough.

Beautiful Sucre was a complete contrast to Cochabamba and La paz. A pretty city of white buildings and terrecotta roofs, stone archways, flowered plazas and grand churches. It is very similar to something that you would expect to find in Spain.

I spent two days getting lost in the maze-like streets of this beautiful city and stumbled accross the food market. Brightly coloured and sweet smelling rows of exotic fruit and vegetables. Women dressed in traditional clothes and huge smiles making fresh fruit smoothies. Delicious!

The Amazon

After the terrifying 22 hour bus journey, we finally arrived in the little jungle town of Rurrenebaque, where we jumped into a jeep for three hours across bumpy dusty roads towards the almighty Amazon. We were greeted by Juan Carlos Wolf, our tour guide and protection from all that is dangerous in the pampas. We hopped onto his little wooden boat and set off in search of animals big and small.

Within a few minutes we were face to face with alligators and caimans, which was a little scary at first but we soon got used to it. Although, when we saw an alligator viciously eat an anaconda two metres infront of us, I was more than a little scared.

After a three hour boat ride along the rivers of the Amazon, we arrived at our little wooden river lodge, where there were monkeys jumping from tree to tree and on our roof, completely unaware and uninterested in our presence in their home.

After settling into our new home for the next three days, we chilled in the hammocks and watched the sunset over the river, before eating a surpringly delicious dinner. After dinner, we hopped back into Juan´s boat armed with torchlights for some night-time caiman spotting. The sky was crystal clear and we were able to see thousands of stars and the milky way. Fireflies buzzed around us as did big bats as we searched for caimans. Their eyes lit up bright ruby red in the dark and from a distance it looked like the trees were dotted with fairy lights, until we shone our torch lights on them and their giant teeth.

We were up early next morning and started our day with anaconda hunting. Needless to say, I was more than a little apprehensive about this activity, but I couldn´t leave the Amazon without seeing one of the worlds deadliest snakes up close. Kitted out with heavy wellington boots we made our way to the muddy swamps. The technique for catching an anaconda is to stand on it whilst in the swamp and wait for the head to pop up, then just grab it. When we eventually found an anaconda, I was surprisingly calmer than I expected to be. Whilst us girls were not brave enought to just grab the head of an anaconda, the guides and some of the more adventurous were.

After a whole morning of searching for deadly snakes, we spent an afternoon in search of man-eating fish as we went piranha fishing.

Using Juan´s homemade fishing rods and raw meat as bait, we watched as the piranhas flocked to the boat. Within 2 minutes, I had caught one. As I reeled it in, I got a little nervous as the piranha jumped around the boat with its sharp teeth chattering at my feet. It wasn´t long before we had all caught some of the nasty-looking little fish, which we later barbequed. Tasty!

We spent the rest of our evening playing jungle volleyball, football and watching another beautiful sunset.

It was a very early start on our third day, as we woke up at 5.30am, jumped onto the boat and made our way down the river to watch the sunrise. It was so peaceful with only the sounds of buzzing insects, noisy cicadas and howler monkeys. A perfect way to start the day.

We spent the morning swimming around in the river to cool off from the horrendous humidity and baking hot sun. As everyone splashed around in the crocodile infested river, the pink dolphins decided to join us for a swim. After searching the river for more interesting jungle animals, we spent another 3 hours on the wooden boat and headed back to the little jungle town of  Rurrenebaque where we would get another boat deep into the depths of the jungle.

The scenery on the way to the jungle was very different to that of the pampas, with huge jade green mountains overlooking the river and small river beaches. It very much reminded me of South East Asia. Four hours later and the boat pulled up in a random spot on the river, as we wondered were on earth our jungle lodge could be. With our heavy backpacks and bags of food ( I was unfortunately asked to carry the eggs) we followed the guide through the jungle. Climbing up muddy banks, through rivers and balancing on narrow tree-trunks was not easy whilst carrying my 18kg backpack and a bag of eggs! Twenty five minutes later, and we finally arrived at our very secluded, extremely basic jungle lodge (without any egg breakages), where we would spend the next two days trekking through the depths of the Amazon. 

There were less animals in the jungle compared to the pampas, although it was full of giant insects and poisonous spiders. As we spent our days battling through the giant jungle, unsuccessfully trying to avoid mosquitos, we were lucky enough to get up close with more monkeys, tarantulas and even a deadly viper snake, and we followed jaguar footprints, although unfortunately we didn´t get to see the jaguar. We picked and ate unknown but delicious fresh fruit, drank the purest water I have ever tasted from the trees and tried medicinal leaves, bark and flowers.

It has been an incredible five days in the Amazon and an absolute highlight of my trip!



A Deadly Bus On Death Road

After an incredible three days freezing in the desert, I decided to head north to the Amazon for some warmth and humidity. Mariska, a lovely Dutch girl that I have been travelling with since Cafayate, decided to join me on the trip, so we boarded a bumpy 12 hour overnight bus towards La Paz where I was reunited with Jen and Anita, two english girls that I had met in Rio.

Most people fly from La Paz to Rurrenabaque, the gateway to the Bolivian side of the Amazon. We had heard that the bus journey to Rurrenabaque was horribly dangerous and so preferred to take a flight, however there were no flights available that we week so we thought we would risk it and take the bus along Death Road to Rurrenabaque. The tour operators told us that the majority of accidents happened in rainy season and given that we are currently in the height of the dry season, eveything should be fine.

We turned up at the chaotic 'bus station' for our 11am bus, only to stand and watch the chaos of people running around, busily packing the buses with wooden crates, climbing on the roof to tie huge boxes and bags to the top of the bus whilst chidren boarded the bus with live animals. Ninety minutes later and we finally left la Paz, all a little nervous about the journey, but grateful that it was a dry sunny day. Ten minutes into our journey out of La Paz, it started to snow. Heavily. As the bus struggled to move past 15 miles per hour, chugging along the high mountans in the heavy snow, we all started to get very worried.

Two hours later, the snow finally stopped as Death Road became narrower with more deadly drops. I was unluckily enough to have window seat so was able to see the bus hanging over the edge of he cliffs, and even spotted a couple of memorials where people had previously died on this terrifying road. Four hours into our journey and we forced to stop due to a mudslide on the road. As we waited for a truck to resolve the problem, we watched nervously as the sun began to set, as we knew we would have to do the remainder of the death threatening journey in the dark.

After an hour and a half of waiting on the dusty side of a cliff, we finally reboarded our rickety bus to complete our journey. The driver was not too happy that we had lost precious time because of the mudslide and so began to drive along the narrow, 300 ft high cliffs at an erratic speed. With hearts pounding, hands shaking and palms sweating, Jen and I furiously argued with bus driver about his dangerous driving (thank goodness for those Spanish classes), as Anita and Mariska cried with uncontrolable fear. The driver continued at an erratic pace and as night fell we considered our options. 1. we get off the bus as soon as possible, only to get squashed by another bus on the insanely narrow roads. 2. we wait until the next village to get off the bus and try to get someone to drive us the rest of the way. Option number 2 was looking more preferrable.

We waited a long and extremely terrifying two hours as the driver swerved and shreiked along the scary roads. Finally we arrived at the next small, chaotic town and as we stepped off the death bus with complete relieve, another bus crashed into our bus. We were thanking God, karma, fate and anyone and anything else that was looking down on us that night. Needless to say, we took the flight back.

The Atacama Desert

In the north of Chile is the small dusty town of San Pedro de Atacama, the starting point for my 3 day desert trip across the Atacama desert in Chile and Bolivia. My day started at 8am with a 3 hour wait in the freezing cold at the Chile and Bolivia borders. I boarded a jeep with 5 other people that I would be spending the next 72hours with, isolated in the vast Atacama desert.

As we drove over the Bolivia border we soon reached heights of 4800metres above sea level, hitting everyone in our little jeep with extreme altitude sickness. It was difficult to breathe in the thin air and every 5 metres that we walked left us feeling as if we had sprinted 5 miles. We were all furiously chewing on cocoa leaves and cocoa sweets to help the headaches and dizziness. However, the headaches, dizziness and breathlessness were forgotten as we approached the incredible Lagoona Blanca.

A beautiful ice blue lagoon surrounded by snow-topped mountains. Not far from the Lagoona Blanca was the equally impressive Lagoona Verde.

We continued through the snowy mountains, along multi-coloured sand hills, past iced lagoons and steamy geysers until we reached our home for the night, a little stone house isolated in the middle of the desert overlooking the incredibly beautiful Lagoona Colorida.

After lunch in our cold little house, we went down to explore the lagoon. I was amazed to find that the water in the lagoon was bright red and inhabited by hundreds of wild flamingoes. It was such a peaceful sight, with the only sounds being the fierce wind and the faint sound of flamingoes grazing in the red lagoon. It was truely incredible.

We returned to the house to watch the sunset over the white mountains and prepared ourselves for a very cold night in the middle of the desert. Despite wearing practiacally all of the clothes that I currently own, plus a sleeping bag and 6 blankets, I was still unable to combat the below freezing conditions.

After very little sleep and still suffering with altitude sickness, we all jumped in the jeep wrapped up and ready for another spectacular day in the cold and windy desert. Our first stop was the hot springs, at 35 degrees they were a nice temperature to swim in if you were brave enough to strip to your swimsuit in the freezing cold conditions. Surrounding the hot springs was a huge blue lagoon filled with flamingoes. A perfect spot to relax!

We drove onwards and upwards stopping at more frozen lagoons and brightly coloured lakes. The most spectacular being an ice blue lake filled with illuminous coloured flamingos, circled with snowy mountains. It was amazing to be so close to these graceful creatures who were unaware of us as we sat amongst them, completely overwhelmed by the surrounding beauty.

We spent that evening in a small 'hotel' completely made from salt. And whilst sitting at the salt table on the salt chairs, next to the salt bar with our feet on the salt grain floor, I had my first taste of llama steak.

After a slightly warmer night but still suffering from the altitude, we set off across the worlds largest salt flats, Salar de Uyuni. There was nothing but blindingly white, sparkling salt for over 12,000 km, and just 6 metres below the salty surface is the sea. We came across a small cactus covered island which looked completely out if place amongst the bright white salt flats. The island was made of coral caves and cactus and home to a few alpacars and llamas, it was a perfect place to explore. As we crawled through coral caves and breathlessly made our way to the top of the island, we were greeted with stunning views.

Aftrewards, we had lots of fun playing around in the salt flats.

It was an incredible trip and I have seen so many amazingly beautiful, and rather surreal natural wonders!

Quebrada de Cafayate and Salta

The Quebrada consists of a  multi-coloured desert, dusty mountains, dry rivers and huge valleys that surround the little town of Cafayate, and its a great place to explore for a day. We started our trek at the low slow-moving river which was surrounded by low, red-coloured mountains and green bushes.  As we continued  through the desert the mountains became much larger and multi-coloured, and the trees became sparse, illuminous coloured twig-like plants.

As the wind forcefully blew us across the top of the mountains, we had spectacular views of the giant rocks of bright orange, crimson red, mint green, grey and maroon. Some of the mountains were striped with different colours and it almost looked as if someone had painted the rocks like rainbows. As we walked through the valley with the mountains overlooking us, it felt as if we had been abandoned, as if we were the only people for thousands of miles. I felt so tiny and completely isolated.



During the walk we were lucky enough to see a group of friendly llamas wandering around the vacant desert.

We ended the day at Garganta de Diablo, the Devils Throat, a giant cave that we were able to climb to the top of, (with a little difficulty). The fun part was coming down by sliding down the rocks. 

Salta, known as 'the beautiful', is a pretty, sunny city with a small town feel in the north of Argentina. As with all cities and towns in Argentina, the main area consists of a large grassy plaza surrounded by beautiful colonial buildings. However, the plaza in Salta seemed much more grand than most others. The plaza was covered with brightly coloured trees and pink blossom, and an old pink cathedral stood at the centre of the square.

We were able to take the cable car to the top of the highest mountain, overlooking the entire city of Salta. It wasn't until I reached the top that I realised what a huge city Salta actually is. Also, what you don't realise whilst walking around the city is that this 'small town' is completely surrounded by mountains. A bottle of wine whilst overlooking 'the beautiful' city of Salta was a perfect way to end my trip in Argentina. 

Cafayate

The journey from Buenos Aires to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile is an extremely long journey and involves changing buses 4 times, so I decided to stop off at Cafayate along the way, a small town in the north of Argentina. The journey to Cafayate isn´t exactly short, taking 22 hours and exchanging buses in Tucuman. The bus journey takes you over cactus-covered mountains at dizzying heights and along jaw-dropping cliffs. It was rather scary at points! When I finally arrived in dusty Cafayate it was clearly siesta time and it reminded me of an eeire abandoned town, similar to something you would expect to see in an old western film. I later found out that siesta time in Cafayate is from 1pm to 7pm, which I would consider less as a siesta and more of a good nights sleep.

Cafayate is famous for it´s numerous vineyards that surround the little town, so it´s no surprise that the town is full of wineries. The main plaza consists of a tree-covered square surrounded by cute restaurants and small market stalls selling art, jewelry and of course, wine. After the 7 hour siesta the plaza becomes occupied by children playing football and old ladies eating Sauvingon Blanc flavoured ice-cream. The dusty streets leading to the plaza are very quiet and rather lifeless and even after siesta time the plaza is uneventful, resembling a ghost town.

Mi Ultima Semana en Buenos Aires

I have spent the past two weeks in Buenos Aires indulging in world-class wines, scrumptious steaks, incredible ice-creams, delicious dulce de leche, endless empanadas, and my favourite of all, chumichurri-covered choripans. I have spent my days wandering around the cobbles streets of San Telmo, the coffee shops of Centro, the parks of Recoletta, the bars of Palermo and dancing to the beat of Bomba De Tiempo. I returned to BAbel Spanish school for private classes to refresh my spanish as I had forgotten almost everything I had previously learnt during my four weeks in Brazil. I was happy to be back in the classroom with the BAbel teachers and my Spanish soon came flooding back after a couple of challenging classes. Now, unfortunately it is time for me to move onwards and upwards to the Atacama desert in the north of Chile, with my spanish version of ´´Harry Potter´´ and dictionary in hand!