Canyon de Colca is not the deepest canyon in the world, though it is close enough for me. It is exactly 168 meters less deep than the deepest canyon in the world, which is also in the Andes, in fact not too far from the Canyon de Colca. Not sure why Canyon de Colca ended up being the more visited, but I´m not complaining.
The hike down was a slippery three hours zig-zagging the side of one of the rocky side that walled the canyon. So slippery that I was fully concentrating on my steps and didn´t get a chance to notice the straight drop half a meter from my feet along the way, something that we realized when we were sitting by the guesthouse at the botom where we were to stay for the night. The houses, or sheds, were made of grass and mud, not uncommon for Peru and Bolivia. What´s amazing is that the hosts kept the place so clean, that it felt more idylic than rudemental. A puppy and several hens ran around, bright scarlet flowers dotted about, a hidden stream gushed by somewhere in the trees behind the yard, and the house cat had a french-sounding name. I´m not making this up.
Canyon de Colca was a surprising delight, and it got better.
The next day we hiked first up and then down for an hour and half and we got to the place simply known as the Oasis. And an oasis it was. I was told there were swim pools and since it was called an oasis, I had expected some trees and flowers. But I had not expected palm trees, against golden rocks, in the belly of the Andes. Pristine clean swimming holes were made by adding walls at the foot of small waterfalls, where natural spring water was held lingering just a bit longer for us to soak in. Lying on the rocks by the pool, under a shady tree, I watched butterflies and dragon flies dance by and thought, this would be the kind of paradise of my choice. I wouldn´t quite like a paradise without mountains.
But the hike is not over. In fact, this would be the start of our hike up one of the deepest canyon in the world. There isn´t much to be said about that, other than kept on pushing and pushing and pushing yourself. We joked about the firm butt we were going to have after this and we faked hitch-hiking signals to locals passing by on mules, just for gags. We promised each other margaritas and hot showers as prizes. We kept on going. And we got to the top. That was that.
After the said hot shower and the said margarita and a good night´s sleep, we got on the bus to visit a different lookout point of the canyon, where the thermo airflow was such that it had been the candors´ choice for a local hang-out. There these majestic birds were known to come so close that people could almost reach to touch them while they glide by. We were not so lucky though, and none of the twenty or so condors that circled us got so close. Even so, it was a treat to watch these awe-inspirng creatures soar up and down, and be amazed at the fact that we actually share the same breeze.
星期六
Lake Titicaca and Isla del Sol
The lake sits in the bosom of mountains. It´s a vast blue body of water that resembles an ocean, an ocean in the mountains. If the headache from the high attitude doesn´t, the chilly breeze and glaciers in the background would remind you that this is no ordinary lake. The boat took a good 3 hours to rock its way to Isla del Sol, where the Sun was supposedly born and took its first steps on earth, leaving surprisingly human-like foot prints on the island before making its way to the sky.
The hike on the ridge of the island would not have been nearly hard if the sun didn´t dazzle as much. I could have sworn there is a different sun in South America. The walk took nearly three hours and strangely, I couldn´t seem to be able to get tired of looking at the same blue water all this time.
The hike on the ridge of the island would not have been nearly hard if the sun didn´t dazzle as much. I could have sworn there is a different sun in South America. The walk took nearly three hours and strangely, I couldn´t seem to be able to get tired of looking at the same blue water all this time.
Boat Ride to Rurrenbaque and Las Pampas Tour
If I could ever ask God for one thing, I would ask him to make sand flies extinct.
So I said to my fellow travelers on the boat ride to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia´s tropical capital for jungle and pampas tours. Now that I´m back to dry La Paz and out of the reach of sand flies and mosquitoes, senses came back to me and please God, I will keep my prayers of winning the lottery.
Sand fly bites are the worst I have ever experienced. It seems to make your whole body itch and I was quite ready to murder some small animals every time when it hit. The also attack in groups so I was covered in millions (ok, maybe that´s exaggerating a bit. Let´s go with THOUSANDS) of bites in a couple of days. Insect repellents only works for about 27 seconds and as soon as you put the bottle away, these exles of evil are all over you again. And they bite through clothing. I haven´t slept through one night without waking up scratching like a mad person.
Well that aside, there was a few things that we saw and experienced. I guess it was kind of cool when the Pink Dolphins came out to play with us. They are river dolphins that live in some ponds in the Bolivian share of the Amazon jungle. Being highly intelligent animals yet without proper TV programs to entertain the population, the Pink Dolphins are a deprived bunch who rejoyce at the presence of their human toys. They particularly enjoy the tourists, who are meeting them for the first time. They´d watch for the tourists jumping off the boats for a swim, sneak up to them from below, and give a fake bite on their unsuspecting feet. Though they know better than breaking the skin with their gnarly sharp teeth and strong jaws, the dolphins bited just hard enough so they could enjoy the screams and giggles let out by their new toys. We all sported quite a few dolphine nibbles by the end of the day.
We did saw a few hawler monkeys moving about their huge nets. These are some large monkeys, almost the size of some apes. The males are all black while the females are nicely golden in color. They are my favorite animals amongst all that we saw.
Here´s a list of the other stuff we saw. You can make up your own mind whether or not they are worth the thousand itch bites.
- Pirañas that we fished out of some ponds. I got three, one of each type - red, yellow and white. All them have sharp teeth. Most of them are only the size of a palm, but some of them are known to group-attack humans swimming, and yes, to eat them.
- Squirrel monkeys who ate bananas right off our hands. Small but greedy little suckers
- A sloth who somehow manage to climb all the way up a really tall tree. At the speed it moves while we are straining our necks to watch, I estimate it must have taken him about 34 years and a few months to get up there...
- Ants that are an inch long each. And yes, they bite. From the way Anna and Dave looked, they stung as HELL!
- A couple of alligators who hang out under our floor of our elevated dining camp everyday. The tour guides named them Pedro and Pedra. Pedro is about 9 feet long and Pedra is a petite 7 feet.
- A caman (a south american crocodile) who came over to visit Pedro and Pedra every couple of weeks, according to the locals. He´s a reserved-looking fellow yet the guides seriously warned us about this guys´ poker face and that he could never be trusted too close by, which in the jungle standard, basically means a safety distance of about a few steps. Mr. Caman is big-boned 12 feet bloke.
- A golden turtle we grabbed right off the river while he was floating around. And he really is golden yellow in color.
- A pensive-looking toucan
- Whole bunch of other birds that live around the river. Didn´t remember all those names.
- Half a hairy tarantula while she was retrieving into her tree hole of a home.
And lots and lots and lots of SANDFLIES....
So I said to my fellow travelers on the boat ride to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia´s tropical capital for jungle and pampas tours. Now that I´m back to dry La Paz and out of the reach of sand flies and mosquitoes, senses came back to me and please God, I will keep my prayers of winning the lottery.
Sand fly bites are the worst I have ever experienced. It seems to make your whole body itch and I was quite ready to murder some small animals every time when it hit. The also attack in groups so I was covered in millions (ok, maybe that´s exaggerating a bit. Let´s go with THOUSANDS) of bites in a couple of days. Insect repellents only works for about 27 seconds and as soon as you put the bottle away, these exles of evil are all over you again. And they bite through clothing. I haven´t slept through one night without waking up scratching like a mad person.
Well that aside, there was a few things that we saw and experienced. I guess it was kind of cool when the Pink Dolphins came out to play with us. They are river dolphins that live in some ponds in the Bolivian share of the Amazon jungle. Being highly intelligent animals yet without proper TV programs to entertain the population, the Pink Dolphins are a deprived bunch who rejoyce at the presence of their human toys. They particularly enjoy the tourists, who are meeting them for the first time. They´d watch for the tourists jumping off the boats for a swim, sneak up to them from below, and give a fake bite on their unsuspecting feet. Though they know better than breaking the skin with their gnarly sharp teeth and strong jaws, the dolphins bited just hard enough so they could enjoy the screams and giggles let out by their new toys. We all sported quite a few dolphine nibbles by the end of the day.
We did saw a few hawler monkeys moving about their huge nets. These are some large monkeys, almost the size of some apes. The males are all black while the females are nicely golden in color. They are my favorite animals amongst all that we saw.
Here´s a list of the other stuff we saw. You can make up your own mind whether or not they are worth the thousand itch bites.
- Pirañas that we fished out of some ponds. I got three, one of each type - red, yellow and white. All them have sharp teeth. Most of them are only the size of a palm, but some of them are known to group-attack humans swimming, and yes, to eat them.
- Squirrel monkeys who ate bananas right off our hands. Small but greedy little suckers
- A sloth who somehow manage to climb all the way up a really tall tree. At the speed it moves while we are straining our necks to watch, I estimate it must have taken him about 34 years and a few months to get up there...
- Ants that are an inch long each. And yes, they bite. From the way Anna and Dave looked, they stung as HELL!
- A couple of alligators who hang out under our floor of our elevated dining camp everyday. The tour guides named them Pedro and Pedra. Pedro is about 9 feet long and Pedra is a petite 7 feet.
- A caman (a south american crocodile) who came over to visit Pedro and Pedra every couple of weeks, according to the locals. He´s a reserved-looking fellow yet the guides seriously warned us about this guys´ poker face and that he could never be trusted too close by, which in the jungle standard, basically means a safety distance of about a few steps. Mr. Caman is big-boned 12 feet bloke.
- A golden turtle we grabbed right off the river while he was floating around. And he really is golden yellow in color.
- A pensive-looking toucan
- Whole bunch of other birds that live around the river. Didn´t remember all those names.
- Half a hairy tarantula while she was retrieving into her tree hole of a home.
And lots and lots and lots of SANDFLIES....
Bolivia's Southwest
You never know what music you´ll end up hearing in Bolivia. Yesterday Sinatra was blasting in over 100 degree heat out of a laundry place I passed by, and today outside the internet cafe, Nelly Furtado is cooing a soft cover of Gnarls Bark´s Crazy. On my trip of the Southwest Circuit though, it was mostly English oldies and Spanish songs that seemed like one very long song where the only lyrics is te amor over and over in different voices.
The Southwest Circuit was a relatively new route, from what I hear. It´s a four-day drive which includes the Salar de Uyuni on the last day. Salar de Uyuni has been known for years and has been one of the major draw of tourists into Bolivia. It is the salt flat outside of the city of Uyuni. Many many years ago the place was a salt lake which eventually dried up into a desert of salt.
The fact is that mostly everyone arrives in Salar de Uyuni in tour groups. Yet, salt flat really would only reveal itself to the lone ramblers. I managed to walk alone on the desert for bit one late afternoon. Blue ski overhead and white earth under my feet; both extending endlessly. No matter how long you walk, both remain unchanged and soon you lose the sense of all dimensions including that of time. Nothing seemed to ever change for the steps I diligently took, time stood still. Well, that is, until my biological clock kicked in and told me that I really had to pee. That was the end of my experience of infinity.
The landscape of the Southwest is one of the most amazing that I´ve seen. Many people tried to describe it but none does it justice. It´s a land of old, eroded moutains, volcanos, lakes, glaciers, rocks on deserts, geysers, hotsprings, and of course, the salt flat. It is a land of unthinkable colors - land of white, lakes of red and green, rocks of gold, birds of pink.
The country´s poor and the altitude high - this is no place for comfort and the hesitant minds. I hope this account helps you make up your mind - you have to see it.
The Southwest Circuit was a relatively new route, from what I hear. It´s a four-day drive which includes the Salar de Uyuni on the last day. Salar de Uyuni has been known for years and has been one of the major draw of tourists into Bolivia. It is the salt flat outside of the city of Uyuni. Many many years ago the place was a salt lake which eventually dried up into a desert of salt.
The fact is that mostly everyone arrives in Salar de Uyuni in tour groups. Yet, salt flat really would only reveal itself to the lone ramblers. I managed to walk alone on the desert for bit one late afternoon. Blue ski overhead and white earth under my feet; both extending endlessly. No matter how long you walk, both remain unchanged and soon you lose the sense of all dimensions including that of time. Nothing seemed to ever change for the steps I diligently took, time stood still. Well, that is, until my biological clock kicked in and told me that I really had to pee. That was the end of my experience of infinity.
The landscape of the Southwest is one of the most amazing that I´ve seen. Many people tried to describe it but none does it justice. It´s a land of old, eroded moutains, volcanos, lakes, glaciers, rocks on deserts, geysers, hotsprings, and of course, the salt flat. It is a land of unthinkable colors - land of white, lakes of red and green, rocks of gold, birds of pink.
The country´s poor and the altitude high - this is no place for comfort and the hesitant minds. I hope this account helps you make up your mind - you have to see it.
Patagonia
From Calafate to Chalten to Bariloche, it was a three-day affair with Route 40, made known by Che Guevara´s motorcycle trip up the Patagonia. Trekking for a couple of hours on glacier off Calafate was good fun, wrapped up with a celebritory round of Whisky served right on the glacier, and of course, with ice scouped up right off the glacier. Camping by Cerro Laguna was chilling to the bones, but meeting Fiz Roy bathed in moonlight from across the lake can not be done by any other means, and I´d do it all over again (ok maybe with better a sleeping bag).
Bariloche is a place for pleasures. The crispy breeze from the many lakes and peaks around town is served with wine and chocolate. You all know how cultured I am when it comes to wine, but even I´m loving the full-bodied, fruity wine here that seems to french-kiss before rolling down your throat to warm your heart.
Bariloche is at the end of the Patagonia. A couple of flights later, I´ll be in Salta, the Argentine part of the Andies. I loved the Andies on my trip to Peru, which had a different personality all together than the Patagonia. I´m looking forward to see it again from this side.
Bariloche is a place for pleasures. The crispy breeze from the many lakes and peaks around town is served with wine and chocolate. You all know how cultured I am when it comes to wine, but even I´m loving the full-bodied, fruity wine here that seems to french-kiss before rolling down your throat to warm your heart.
Bariloche is at the end of the Patagonia. A couple of flights later, I´ll be in Salta, the Argentine part of the Andies. I loved the Andies on my trip to Peru, which had a different personality all together than the Patagonia. I´m looking forward to see it again from this side.
Forward
When I read my blog made back in 2004, I daunted on me that it took me over 3 years and I came back to exactly the same dream. I started traveling in March 2008 and the time I decided to give myself was one year. The journey, both geographical and emotional, has taken me to the most beautiful places.
- Argentina - March 2008
- Bolivia - April 2008
- Peru - April 2008
- Spain - May/June 2008
- Italy (Rome) & Vetican City - June 2008
- China - September/October 2008
- India - November 2008
- Nepal - December 2008
- China (Tibet) - January 2009
- Tanzania - February/March 2009
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