Desert Brake Down

28 Oct 2002

[Well clearly I haven't managed to keep up with my 21-year-old self. My ME/CFS has required more wrangling than usual lately and I've had to jettison a lot of activities. I'm still keen to revisit this journey, but I'll be operating on #CripTime from now on.]

I was coming to the end of my allotted time for the central Andean countries, and was keen to head south for a summer of trekking in Patagonia. The scenic route into Chile is via barely existent roads through the salt lakes and volcanoes of the high plateau that sits above the Atacama desert. I had befriended an Englishman on the bus from Potisi to Uyuni - he gave me a lesson in macroeconomics and the collapse of the Argentine peso. His girlfriend was Bolivian but from a community of ethnic Japanese who farm near Santa Cruz. There are so few non-latinx immigrants in Bolivia that no-one believed in her nationality until they saw her passport. We joined forces and took a three-night 4WD tour from Uyuni in Bolivia to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

We started by driving across the giant Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. It is really big, really flat, and glaringly white. Smack bang in the middle is the remarkable Isla del Pescado, a small island covered in giant cacti and, allegedly, one (and only one!) resident mountain viscacha.

Train graveyard at Uyuni

Isla del Pescado

Salar de Uyuni

We spent a freezing night dossing down in a rough hostel that sprouted out of the rocky wastes. After hours of driving at speed across the salt, we had wondered what sort of damage it must do to the 4WDs. We soon learned. From an email:

"First the driver took the starter motor out, so we had to push-start or tow-start all the time.  Then the thing ran out of power: carburettor problem. We waved down other 4WDs to help, and they eventually got it going.  Then the stereo chewed one of my cassette tapes.  Arg!  But I managed to sticky tape it back together and it works fine (Yay!).  Then, when we were going up a steep, rocky hill, it went out of gear or something weird, and we started rolling back.  The driver hits the brakes, but nothing happens!  All gone!  At this stage the 4WD behind us became rather concerned that we were going to plummet into them, but the driver did a damn fine job and turned the 4WD into the hill, whereupon we came very close tipping over.  Later that day, we got a flat tire and the jack failed.  All this in one of the most remote corners of South America."

Meanwhile my Amazonian gastro had returned with a vengeance. Bouncing around in the passenger seat, I would hold on as long as I could before begging the driver to stop, whereupon I would run around the back of the 4WD and do my messy business in the middle of an uninterrupted plain. A cairn of rocks was all I could do to obsure my passing.

Despite our travails, the scenery was gobsmaking and alien. Green-blue lakes dotted with pink flamingos sat below snow-topped volcanoes in vast reaches of red rock.

Laguna Pastos Grandes

4WD break down

Arbol de Piedra

The next morning we got up early for dawn at the mud pools and geysers of Sol de Mañana. The geyser was cool but I was disappointed to learn that it had been channelled into a pipe to make it more impressive. There were no safety barriers or walkways of any kind, so skirting the mud pools was a risky proposition! Bubbles of gas blurped out of the mud, a rime of colourful salts coated the surrounds, and steam created an atmospheric haze at ground level.

Geyser at Sol de Mañana

Exploding mud bubble

Sol de Mañana

Our final stop before crossing the border was at Laguna Verde, which sits under the ridiculously photogenic Volcan Licancabur. The green waters of the lake contrast beautifully against the red-black of the mountain slopes. Before the end of the tour, my English travelling companion tried to convey how unimpressed he had been with the safety  and reliability of the 4WD. But the driver was inscrutable, and certainly didn't comprehend the threat of outing the tour company on Lonely Planet's online forum The Thorn Tree (ah, the good ol' days before social media!).

Volcan Licancabur overlooking Laguna Verde

San Pedro de Atacama is a charming little desert town with low-slung white-washed buildings. We hired mountain bikes for a day and had masses of fun exploring some nearby ravines. Then we struggled along a desperately corragated dirt road to take in the sunset at the Valle de la Luna, where the light brought out a rich spectrum of yellows and reds in the eroded landscape. It was stunning, but what I really enjoyed was running/falling/rolling down the giant sand dune.

Within a couple of days in Chile I learnt two things: roosters do not "cock-a-doodle-doo", and Chilean Spanish is a completely different beast to Andean Spanish. Chilenos speak rapidly, barely open their mouths and don't; finish their words. Even worse, if you ask them to repeat something more slowly, they stare at you blankly and then repeat it at full speed. Sigh, just as I was getting past my Spanish training wheels, it felt like I had to start all over again.

Valle de la Luna

Cerro Rico

24 Oct 2002

(Sigh, I had finally caught up with 21 year old Garth, but CFS has tripped me up. Also, my diary entries have dried up for the next couple of months, so details may be sparse.)

Potosi is the city established to take advantage of Cerro Rico ("rich mountain"), which is the largest silver deposit in history. The Spanish fed hundreds of thousands of indigenous and African slaves into the mines and took its wealth back to Europe. Nowadays there's not much silver left and it is mined mostly for tin and zinc by small worker cooperatives. But the working conditions haven't improved much: upon entering the mines, life expectancy drops to 15 years thanks to accidents and silicosis.

Although it could be construed as oggling at the misfortune of others, I figured a tourist dollar was more welcome than a mining dollar, so I went on a tour into one of these cooperative mines. It was pretty intense: hot, muggy, cramped and very very loud. The miners don't eat while working, preferring to dull hunger and pain by chewing their way through bags of coca leaves. One of my fellow tourists (all male!) was completely shocked and overcome by the conditions and was outraged that we weren't also outwardly incensed. Afterwards, we obliterated the physical and empathic discomfort by setting off explosives.

Note the cheek bulge: coca leaves.

Bag of coca leaves

Really, really hard work

Blowing stuff up

Cerro Rico

Amazon Adventure

20 Oct 2002

I joined forces with a couple of Dutch girls who were on my hell bus to Rurrenabaque. We organised to go on two three-day tours: one to the Pampas, which is a massive wetland/grassland, and another into the rainforest proper.

When our boat arrived to take us into the Pampas, who should be on it but Amira, my Israeli friend from Lima! Alas, it also carried her new boyfriend Itai, a big surly brooder that made it very clear I had missed the (Israeli fun-times) boat. The guide and cook from Amira's tour were told to get straight back on for our tour. They were majorly pissed off as they'd been told they were going to have a couple of days off. But it was tourist season and they had no bargaining power, so we set off under an oppressing cloud of disaffected labour.

It wasn't long until the Pampas had worked its magic, though, as it was absolutely pumping with exotic wildlife. Water birds, turtles, monkeys, caiman. I was super excited to see a couple of toucans - they are so colourful and their beaks are outrageously large. There were quite a few capybara - essentially giant guinea pigs - grazing on the banks. But the highlight was seeing a few pink river dolphins!!! (Alas, no photos.) I hadn't realised there was such a thing, and to see dolphins so far inland was mind-blowing. We even swam with them (well, in the vicinity), though this memory is marred by the insistence of an older German guy to swim in the nude despite protestations from the rest of us.

Heading into the Pampas

Turtles on a log

Swimming capybara

Caiman

Monkey

Capybara herd

The next day our guide, Sulo, came down with a nasty illness. But he was a seriously tough guy and he managed to drag himself out of bed for long enough to find us a small anaconda and a cobra. We also spotted a jabiru standing sentinel in a massive nest 10 metres off the ground. We were happy to head back to camp so Sulo could rest, but the annoying German whinged about getting his money's worth until we all told him to shut the hell up. That afternoon we went fishing for piranha, which is cooler in the telling than the doing. I caught one about 10-15cm long, though it had impressively large fangs at least 10mm long.

Holding a baby caiman which the guide had hypnotised

Taking a bite out of an anaconda

Our guide Sulo with a cobra

Back in Rurrenabaque I got into a conversation with some German guys at a bar who were raving about their jungle tour. I was immediately jealous, as they didn't go to a base camp but walked deep into the jungle for several days - and their efforts were rewarded by seeing a jaguar!!! My jungle tour was not nearly so successful. This time Amira and her boyfriend were with us. Their dour attitude brought the mood down, and despite her affinity for animals, Amira was completely neurotic about insects, spending most of her time cooped up under her mosquito net. I started to think it wasn't such a bad thing that I hadn't hooked up with her.

Our guide, Juan, was tiny and muscular - exactly what you'd expect from a jungle guide. He seemed to know his stuff, but the rainforest is a hard place to see animals at the best of times, and they kept their distance from our base camp. We saw the hindquarters of a deer, a few monkeys in the canopy, and some more toucans. Mostly it was bloody hot and humid and the insects were ferocious. Worst, though, was our incompetent cook - she had left some mince out all day, much to the appreciation of the local wasp population. Needless to say, the spaghetti bolognaise that night tasted a bit off, and a few hours later I was throwing up in the pit toilet. The next day our guide gave me some jungle medicine, which was remarkably effective, but I would be plagued by bad gastro for the next few weeks.

A glimpse into the Amazon

Tarzan Garth

Jungle swimming hole

Snoozing on the Rio Beni: Amira, Mirten, Itai and Erika

After the horror bus journey to get to Rurrenabaque, many backpackers fly back to La Paz in a light plane. My ego and penny-pinching won the day, however, and I got on a return bus which was, despite being 20 hours, thankfully much more bearable.

The World's Most Dangerous Road(s)

13 Oct 2002

Rurrenabaque is the gateway to the Bolivian Amazon, and getting there was an adventure in its own right. The first obstacle is the 'World's Most Dangerous Road', which navigates the extreme topography of the Andean slopes. Hundreds of people used to die each year on this road. Rather than put my life in someone else's hands, I decided it would be safer (and much more fun!) to ride down on a mountain bike. While inspecting the bikes from the tour company, I was distressed to discover that in the Americas the brake levers are on opposite sides to in Australia - left hand for front, not for back! Given that an Israeli girl had recently died by going over her handlebars and off a cliff, this was not something I wanted to get wrong! Thus began my mantra "Right brake first, right brake first".

We started our ride in the rarefied air of La Cumbre, a high pass at 4700m altitude, surrounded by icy peaks. The road soon narrowed to a single lane, the asphalt replaced by dirt and potholes. It barely clung to the side of a massive valley, a meager scrap of horizontal in a world of precipitous cliffs ("right brake first!"), lush vegetation and cascading waterfalls (some of which fell onto the actual road). Part of me was tempted me to cut loose, but the gravity of the situation was inescapable: blind corners hid looming lorries ("right brake first!"), and crucifixes at regular intervals marked the demise of whole busloads of people, the cliff below scored by their passing, inaccessible wreckage remaining as a stark memorial ("right brake first!").

Waterfall onto the road

The lower reaches of the road, where it was not nearly as steep.

I made it!

 

The worst of it was soon over, however, and I could relax into the ride and get up a little speed. Finally, after 3500m of vertical descent, I spent the night in a charming guesthouse nestled into a tropical hillside in Coroico.

Having escaped the clutches of the Andes with my life intact, the next evening I boarded an overnight bus to the Amazon proper. This would prove to be one of the least comfortable nights of my life. While the road I had ridden down had the most fatalities, I suspect the road from Coroico to Rurrenabaque was much more dangerous - it just gets less traffic. The agony began with the bus company selling more tickets than it had seats - there were only five spare seats for nine of us backpackers. We agreed to share the misfortune, taking it in turns to stand in the aisle for half an hour at a time. When I had a seat, it wasn't much better: looking out the window revealed just how fast we were going around blind corners, on the very edge of big drops; nightfall hid that horror, but also brought rain so everyone closed their windows and the bus turned into a stinky, muggy sauna; worst of all, the overhead luggage rack made a god-awful screech with every (frequent) jolt of the bus, drilling through my skull making sleep an impossibility. After 14 hours to cover 330km, we staggered off the bus with the dawn and found somewhere for a desperately needed sleep.

Yunga Cruz

10 Oct 2002

Most of the emails I wrote home while travelling are fairly cringeworthy, and my diary entries aren't much better, so I haven't been inclined to quote from them at length. But I like this one enough to reproduce it whole. You'll soon understand why I only have one vaguely decent photo to share.

"Caught a bus from La Paz to a tiny town called Chuñawi.  This was one of those old US school buses that are so common in Bolivia.  Even had a badge with some US and Canadian town names on the side.  These things are designed to sit 33 people, plus one driver.  We had 55 people, plus countless children that I missed in the head count, as well as about a tonne of luggage piled on the roof and along the aisle, where it doubled as seating.  You should see how athletic some of the old Bolivian ladies are at clambering over such obstacles!  I was the only gringo (so got lots of attention - mainly from the old men ... friendly chaps these Andean geriatrics).  6 hour bus ride took 7.5, through some incredible scenery (mountains and valleys higher and deeper than you can imagine).
 
Got off the bus at my destination, much to the amusement of the remaining passengers (who had, thankfully, thinned out by this stage) - still havn't worked out what was quite so funny, but I grinned along to be amiable." [I distinctly remember a passenger conversing with the bus driver, which looked like: 'What the hell is a gringo doing out here?' 'Going for a walk!' 'Huh?! But why here?' Shrug, 'It's in a book.' Which pretty much sums up the difference in world view between book-educated Westerners and land/oral-educated peasants.] 

 "Jumped straight onto the start of the trekking route, the Yunga Cruz Trail.  As soon as I did so, the Mountain Gods took note, and shouted their buddies the Cloud Gods a few rounds to come and join the party.  Anyway, found myself a nice camping spot, and my tent and sleeping bag did themselves proud in the chilly Altiplano night.
 
Next day, I'm off along the trail.  The reason I decided to do this particular trek is that it is supposed to be one of the best trails in the Cordillera Real (that's a mountain range - part of the Andes).  Start off nice and high (4000m) and then trek down to what they call the Yungas at 1500m, a cross between mountains and Amazon rainforest.  All along the way, one supposedly gets magnificent views and wilderness.  Sounded fab to me, but there I was following a trail along the side of a mountain ridge, surrounded by a very well laid on layer of cloud, with visibility down to about 50m.  Ah well, it'll clear, right?  Hah!
 
Ran into an old Bolivian fella (another friendly geriatric).  He was doing the rounds, feeding his cows a combination of salt and grain to supplement their grass diet.  This guy said he was seventy, and he was running around these mountains (in his sandals) in the cold, wind and rain with nary a whimper nor a complaint.  He provided some entertainment for the morning, plus reduced my cookie and chocolate supply, something I'm sure he does for all the loco gringos who hike this trail.

That afternoon, the Cloud Gods kept going strong, altough every now and then on rushed off to the toilet to allow for rare moments of tempting views, but never delivering on the real thing.  As I descended further, the Mountain Gods put on a keg and invited around their old friends the Mud Gods, who of course don't go anywhere without the Slippery Rocks and Precarious Drops Gods.  That night I camped in an area of cloud forest, which is basically high altitude rain forest - very cool, I'm talking major moss-action here.  Innsects were going great-guns as well - lets just say Aerogard is something they were afraid of as kiddies, but don't bother them so much anymore.

Next day was loooooong.  It just kept goin' and goin' and goin'.  The Cloud Gods backed off a little, allowing me some reasonable views, but they were always willing to take a dump on me at irregular intervals.  The track kept going, taking a good deal longer than it ought to have, owing mainly to the massive mud puddles through which it strayed.  Step.  Gulp, slurp, gobble.  Yikes!  Suuuuuck - POP!  Have to say that my boots held up admirably to the abuse, barely a skerrick of moisture made its way in the whole day.  After way too long, I emerged from the forest to see my destination right before me, except for a massive gorge which needed to be traversed to get there - one of those ´think you're at the end but you're really hours away so the rest is extra painful´ things.
 
So, exhausted, I reluctantly made my way through the copius coca plantations that dotted the hillsides.  Someone smiled on me, however, as at the bottom of the gorge was the most idyllic of places.  With a rampaging stream crossed by a log bridge, I made my way along a path edged by delicate flowers, only to have tens of purty butterflys arise with my passing and fill the air with sweet scented perfume.  Ahhh, ain't it just lurvely."

[Also worth noting is that on the way down into that forge I took a wrong turn and nearly ended up at an indigenous settlement which was a no-go zone for outsiders. Luckily I encountered some people who put me on the right path before I made an awkward mistake.]

"So yeah, I caught a bus back to La Paz and here I am.  Tomorrow I ride down The Worlds Most Deadliest Road (140 deaths in the last 2 months!) on a mountain bike, and then rumble on to my very own Apocalypse Now in the Bolivian Amazon!"

La Paz

7 Oct 2002

Of the big cities I visited, La Paz was my favourite. That's not saying much, to be honest, as the competition was far from inspiring. It was just as large, crowded and dirty as the others, but it also had a lot of character. Situated in a valley at 3600m altitude, the city rises up on all sides. The indigenous women are striking in their bowler hats, long plaits, and colourful and voluminous petticoats (though their inclination to pee in the gutter, shrouded in said skirts, was less charming). The shoe shine boys looking ominous in their black balaclavas. Delicious food from street vendors, singing their wares "Empanadas! Empanadas!" Soft drink in plastic bags with straws out the top. Mini buses crammed with passengers, the conductor calling out their route as he hangs from the door. 

Having said that, I had a close call in La Paz. As I explored the city I walked through a small park and was accosted by a man asking for money. He staggered towards me, disheveled and with foamy saliva in the corner of his mouth. It was clear he was on drugs of some sort. Thoughtlessly, I pulled my money purse out and he snatched for it. We were quickly surrounded by other people in a similar state. Luckily he was so far gone that I was able to wrench it back and quickly high-tailed it out of there. After I moment to gather my wits I realised how lucky I had been that they weren't more functional, or armed with knives.

I had a much nicer encounter with the locals a couple of nights later. I went out drinking with some fellow backpackers from my hostel. We were well liquored up and were carving up the dance floor in a small nightclub (well, attempting to - hiking boots were not made for dancing). I doubt I was an attractive proposition, but a local girl called Jhazmine thought otherwise and we danced late into the night. She left me her number and I eventually managed to summon the courage to call her the next evening. Thankfully I didn't have to talk to a family member, but between my anxiety and poor Spanish the answering message I left was probably incomprehensible. (It's distinctly possible I avoided being taken for a ride, but who knows, maybe she was genuinely interested!)

On the outskirts of town is the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), an extraordinary geological formation that looks like God got carried away making mud castles.

Valle de la Luna

Nearby is the La Paz zoo, which was much more humane than the one in Lima, though it was pretty sad seeing Condors in a cage, unable to spread their wings and soar.

Jaguar, Zoologico Municipal Vesty Pacos

Condors, Zoologico Municipal Vesty Pacos

A Lake In The Sky

3 Oct 2002

The Altiplano is a high plateau that spans the Peruvian border and extends well into Bolivia. It is a windswept, dry, mostly tree-less landscape framed by ice-capped Andrean peaks. The local campesinos eke out a hard living from potatoes, quinoa and vicuña.

Altiplano

Puno, Peru (I think)

In the midst of the Altiplano is the massive Lake Titicaca, which at 3800m altitude claims to be the world's highest navigable lake. More remarkable is that a group of people, the Uru, live on the lake. Not on the shore, but floating on the water! They make nearly everything our of totora reeds: boats, houses, and the large floating platforms on which they live out their lives. This was the inspiration for the Kon-Tiki, which was built at Lake Titicaca then transported down to the Pacific for its journey to Easter Island.

Nowadays the Uru make most of their money from the tourist trade, and I made my contribution. The floating islands are remarkable and the sensation of walking on 'ground' that gives like a giant sponge is distinctive and unsettling. But the whole experience was so touristic as to feel somewhat superficial.

Uros Floating Islands

After crossing into Bolivia I did my second trek, something much less audacious than the first. I started at Copacabana, a charming, sleepy little town where I watched the local kids play indoor soccer, followed by "one of the best dinners of my life - stuffed trout." (Alas, I have no memory of this fine dining experience!) The next day I walked along the coast, past a shrine to the Virgin Mary, and then paid a grumpy old extortionist to row me across to Isla Del Sol (Island of the Sun).

Isla de la Luna in Lake Titicaca

Isla del Sol

Ruins on Isla del Sol (maybe Isla de la Luna?)

I spent the rest of the day and the next walking the spine of the island, taking in the ruins and the scenery. Incan mythology holds that the sun and the moon were born in Lake Titicaca, and temples to each were built on the respective islands. The land is steep, terraced and barren, pushing me up into an expansive sky while the deep cobalt lake spread out beneath. On the horizon the Andes occasionally showed their majesty by peeking through the clouds.