South America- part 3

After returning to Santiago for the final time during our trip, we felt ready to move on to a new country- Peru!  Originally, we had scheduled a four day trek through the Cordillera Blanca, but while we were in San Pedro de Atacama, we were informed the date either had to be moved up or back a day.  Unfortunately, moving it back was not an option as our flight back to the US was already set, and we had no desire to go straight from a four day backpacking trip to a nine hour bus ride and then to the airport.  Our other option was to move ahead a day, which would cost us an entire day of acclimatization.  If our max altitude was say between 10,000-12,000' maybe, but we would be reaching altitudes closer to 16,000'.  Embarking on a backpacking trip should be fun though at times difficult, but not stressful.  We both decided it was probably best if we cancelled the trip which meant changing our flights to fly home early or finding somewhere in Peru to kill that time.  After traveling for almost a month, we decided we would try to negotiate a change in our tickets.  I booked travel insurance through Expedia, which was useless despite the fact that we had a change in schedule beyond our control that would have potentially impacted our safety.  So, I had to circumvent Expedia and call the airline myself, directly.  Now I have been as critical as anyone of domestic airlines, but I have to say, Delta was incredibly easy to work with and waived our rebooking fee ($300 each are you kidding me?) and allowed us to catch an earlier flight for just the fare difference, which was more than reasonable.  So, that out of our mind, we set out to make the most of our time in Peru.

We flew into Lima where we caught a cab to a bus station outside of the airport region.  Holy cow, traffic in Lima is crazy!  It is just chaos yet everyone figures it out and makes it where they are going.  We had a few hours to wait in the Moviltours bus station (each company had their own free standing bus station and terminals which was actually really cool).  The station had a cafe, lots of seats, and most importantly, the Champions League semi-finals on a large TV.  So one weird thing we noticed in parts of Chile and Peru is that bathrooms don't have toilet paper.  You have to bring your own or buy it from someone selling outside the bathroom.  It only takes once, and then you always remember to bring some.  Once.  Haha.  Once on the bus, which was the only one we took that left late (about 45 minutes), we zoomed through the city streets, frighteningly close to guardrails, people on scooters, and pedestrians, making our way along the coast and then eventually into the mountains on the windy pass roads.  Some of the sights in Lima were tough to see- entire bluffs covered in shacks, medians full of garbage, and awful air quality.  As with most cities, I'm sure there are areas that don't look like that, but when that is your first impression of a place, it's kind of tough to move past that.  We watched the sun set from the bus and arrived in Huaraz that night around 8:30 where we caught another taxi and arrived at our hotel just after 9:00, starving.  Carrying our oversized bags to the third floor, we instantly felt the altitude of nearly 10,000'.  We headed out to grab some dinner, and as much as I wanted a beer or a Pisco sour, the thought of what that would do to my sleep deprived, hypoxic body persuaded me otherwise.  Water please, and keep it coming!

From the bus traveling Lima to Huaraz

We had already planned to spend the next day just wandering around the city, drinking lots of water and getting used to the altitude.  We ended up having to change rooms because as I tried to adjust the hot water temperature in the shower, the knob fell off and out shot a continuous stream of water.  That was not our finest moment, but once we changed rooms, now on floor four, hooray, and had breakfast, we were ready to get a look at Huaraz.  One thing that was striking was the mix of old and newish.  There were tons of women dressed in traditional village type attire- colorful skirts and wraps, high hats, and tights.  Many of them showed signs of a long life full of hard work.  I wondered where they came from, and when we ventured up into the mountains a few days later, we would see that they walk down from villages miles away into Huaraz to buy and sell items.  Many of them work as farmers, herding sheep, goats, and cattle at altitudes over 12,000'.  Consider me impressed.  Huaraz is definitely a place inundated with tourists looking to hike and backpack to some of the most scenic places on earth, and I don't know how many tour companies there are, but there have to be almost as many of those as people.  It's crazy.  Tours aren't really our thing- we like to go and come on our own timeline, often starting early or late and trying to avoid as many people as possible.  We purposefully avoid the hotspots because A) being around that many people isn't fun and B) we both feel, philosophically, it's not appropriate to burden those areas with any more people than are already there.  Yeah it's like one person swearing off single use plastics, it can feel like it doesn't do any good, but in my mind, I have to abide by my own values, and that is one of them.  Back on topic: tours.  So yeah, not a fan, however, logistics of independently getting to some of these sites is incredibly dependent on collectivos, so you have to wait until it is full of people before it will take you, so no matter what time you want to go, you go when the van, car, whatever is full, and by full, I mean full.  I read a travel blog from a British girl who said, if you're wondering how many people can fit in a Toyota Corolla, the answer is nine!  That sounds miserable enough, and couple that with Shaun's height, and that is just a hard no.

Views in Huaraz

View from our second room

Traditional dress (this was part of a festival, but there were people dressed like this not participating in any festival)

Soooo, we decided to look into booking a private tour, just the two of us and a guide.  Shaun found a company called Andean Peaks, and they happened to have an opening the next day for Laguna Churup which was definitely on our list of want to sees.  Octavio, one of the co-owners, met us at our hotel and went over the next day's plan and collected our money.  He seemed more than competent, so we went to bed that night full of water and excitement for the next day's adventure.  Octavio and his brother, Eloy, picked us up at 8:00 am and drove us high into the mountains through multiple villages including the one where they were raised.  Octavio told us he had to walk to school down in Huaraz, several miles, and sometimes he would have to walk back down in the evenings for soccer games.  While I marveled at that thought, I also began to freak out if I would be able to even keep up with this guy on our hike!  We arrived at the trailhead, I paid 50 soles to use the bathroom, and off we went.  Eloy was to pick us up at the end of our hike and drive us back to Huaraz.  While he waited, he would take a casual run along the road at 12,000'+.  No big deal.

The trail to Laguna Churup isn't long, but it is steep- it is only 1.8 miles to the lake, but you gain 2,142 feet of elevation.  You start climbing, and you don't really stop except for a couple of small relatively flat sections in the middle.  Initially, my lungs felt fine, my head felt fine, but it was like my legs weren't getting any oxygen at all, so I resorted to doing what I do when I want to die on trails which is count my steps to 100 and evaluate from there.  If I'm feeling good, I count to 100 again, and if I'm not, I stop and take two deep breaths and then start again.

Starting the day with Coca tea to help with altitude

Going up 

Yes, it was high

Part of the trail included negotiating two slick rock sections by aid of cables and some scrambling a short distance from the lake.  Once that section was over, it was only a few minutes before we crested and came face to face with the glassy emerald waters of Laguna Churup.  Towering at the far end of the lake was the impressive Mount Churup.  Perhaps more impressive than the mountain itself was the street dog who made the trek up to beg for food.  A quick instagram hashtag search reveals he's a regular at the lake.  Because altitude tends to damper my appetite, I was happy to share some cheese from my sandwich.  We sat at the lake for about half an hour before climbing an additional 300' or so to another viewpoint allowing us to look slightly down on the lake and also down our descent (the car seemed so far away).  The trail was a lollipop out and back meaning we didn't have to descend the cables, instead skirting around the lake's outlet before meeting back up with the main trail.  By the time we reached the car, our knees were really feeling the sharp descent, and by the time we reached Huaraz, we were starving!  We unloaded our bags and went out to grab some food and finally my Pisco sour!

Getting a look at the cable section

Shaun negotiating the cables (this was actually the way down, we only had to descend the easier of the two cable sections)

Climbing up

And up

And up

We had to assist two French tourists who did not know how to use the cables.  They were sitting under a tree waiting for help when we came upon them.  Validated our decision to hire a guide. 

That road down there in the middle, yeah that's where we started

Finally!

Made it!

And so did the dog

Us with Octavio

Doggo taking a nap

Laguna Churup

The water was incredibly green

Panorama of the lake

From the mirador which pushed us to 15,000'

We ascended just to the left of that waterfall

Views on the way down

Dramatic peaks

Bye beautiful mountain

The next day after sleeping in, we really wanted to get out and see another lake but weren't in the mood for a long hike, so we opted to hire a cab to take us to Lagos Llangonuco, about a two hour drive from the city.  The funny thing is, to take a packed bus tour for one hour at the lake is $115 per person, and we got a cab for the entire day for $150.  Another bonus is our cab driver was basically Jason Bourne- after sitting in standstill traffic for about 20 minutes with the opposite lane closed, our driver had enough.  Impulsively yet with amazing skill, he jerked the car into the closed lane and floored it for about two miles to the head of the traffic where there was a traffic official who immediately held up her hands to stop us.  The driver screamed at her that his passengers had a bathroom emergency and she reluctantly let us pass.  We all three had a good laugh as even though we negotiated our terms in Spanish, the driver didn't realize we knew what he said to the official at first.  We burst through another couple of smaller traffic incidents and reached the access road to the lake.  It was about 15 miles up a terribly rutted, rocky road, and we could see the driver's concerned expression with every bump and hole we hit (at an excessive speed for the road conditions).  Once at the lake, we affirmed one hour at the lake and then we would descend.  As we walked to the lake, we noticed the driver checking the condition of the car's body and decided we would pay him the $200 he asked for originally because he saved us so much time.  The first lake was unbelievably turquoise and we traversed a ways, leading to an even more beautiful view of the peaks in the distance.  After taking in the sights and eating our lunch, we headed back to the car, eager to find out if anything could top the trip to the lakes.  Going down was obviously easier than going up, and once back on the main highway, it was pedal to the metal pretty much the whole way.  We camp upon a police truck and of course we passed it though this time using the signal (the first and only time the whole drive).  During our time in Huaraz there was a festival going on called Fiesta de la Soledad which is ironically includes the word solitude.  The festival involves groups of kids marching down the middle  street in traditional garments playing drums and flutes at all hours of the day and night.  The traffic backups can last for half an hour or more, and wouldn't you know it, there was a group blocking our route back to our hotel once we arrived back in Huaraz.  Our driver then executed his most accomplished piece of traffic navigation yet.  Rather than cut down side streets, he turned across traffic onto the other side of the street, aka oncoming traffic and just started driving, banking on opposing traffic peeling off to avoid a collision.  Thankfully he was correct, and after we bypassed the parade, it was back on our side of the street and back to our hotel where we paid the full fare plus a generous tip.  I think I was more exhausted from the ride than I was from the hike to Churup.  After that it was one more sleep (and parade serenades) before we caught a bus to Lima for the longest travel day of my life.

Holy shhhhhh

Could have sat here for a while, but we had an hour

Crazy contrasts of colors

Always good to see lupine!

Caught the bus at 11:30 am, made it to Lima airport at 8:00 pm (after taking a cab from the bus station), waited for our flight to board at 12:30 am (it didn't), arrived in Atlanta at 9:00 am or so, and eventually back in Portland at 7:30pm... the next day.  It was straight to the hotel, shower, and pizza!  The next morning we caught the Amtrak back to Olympia, and just like that, it was over.  Definitely a whirlwind, jam-packed, unforgettable time with a lifetime of memories.

Windy roads down to Lima

Allll the way down to the valley (sorry for blurry phone photos from the bus)

Next steps were to find a place to live and start to get settled into regular life again.  Just kidding, we decided to do two more weeks on the road and add a member to our family- stay tuned!                    

April and May in South America- part 2

Part 2 is here!

We arrived in Pucón the next day just after lunch, after taking the overnight bus, which included a picturesque border crossing with amazing views of a volcano whose name I can't remember as the sun was rising. With a couple of hours to kill until we could formally check in to our place, we walked to the center of town for some lunch and to grab some groceries. At each stop, we tried to take care of that immediately so we wouldn’t have to spend so much money eating lunch (all the places we stayed had free breakfast) and could spend more money doing things or upgrading to nicer seats on the buses, etc.  Our room in Pucón was very, cozy, shall we say.  One thing we have learned is to be more discriminating when reading lodging reviews. If it’s a 25 year old, they might have a very different frame of reference for what constitutes a nice place compared to someone our age, particularly when it comes to things like location and amenities. So, that said, the place stayed was advertised as a boutique hotel, what it really was was a hippie chic hostel with a freezing cold bathroom and a skylight that leaked when it rained. The staff was extremely nice, and the breakfast was delicious which greatly tempered our frustration with the size and temperature.
After being mostly frustrated with poor transportation in Puerto Varas, we were relieved to hear the parks near Pucón were much more reasonably accessible, with a bus leaving from one of the terminals near our hostel (we’re calling it that from now on).  For a cheap fare, we caught the 8:00 bus full of non-Chileans to Huerquehue national park. There was plenty of frustration to go around however- the drive up was about an hour after stops, then we had to register and listen to a speech, in Spanish, from the ranger, yes the ranger, not one of the rangers, THE ranger. By the time we did all that, it was nearly 10:00, and we had to be back to the bus before 5:00 to get back to town, which left seven hours of hiking time. The hike we intended to do, up to a mirador where eight neighboring volcanoes were visible was supposed to take three hours or so up, and a little less than that down. However, as we had learned, the times for hikes as well as the trail marked distances had been woefully off the mark, so neither of us felt comfortable risking it and possibly missing the last bus at 5:00. We were bummed but opted for the Tres Lagos hike anyhow. After walking around the first lake shore, we were disappointed to be confronted with yet another road walk for about a mile through private land before getting back into the park boundary and onto the trail. Once to the trail, it climbed straight up for about two hours, worth it for a beautiful lake, not so worth it for so so lakes, which is what we got.  They were pretty but really rather average. We had lunch at Lago Verde and watched tiny trout smolts darting all over the place, which was actually pretty cool.  After seeing the third lake, we made our way straight downhill (tough on the knees), where we had to wait about 75 minutes for the bus, which proceeded to fill to standing room only after picking up passengers on the way back to town.

First decent view

Nice fall colors and even some trout in the lake

Lugged my heavy camera up, mostly used my iPhone

I always love seeing sheep!

The next day the rain set in, inches of rain, with no intention of letting up anytime soon. The original plan was to photograph waterfalls in the rain, but it was raining so hard, photography would have been impossible. Rather than face another night of leaky skylight, we decided to take the night bus, leaving around 10:00 pm, driving all night, and arriving in Santiago early the next morning, where we had a hotel for the night before flying to Calama. Another helpful feature of bus travel in South America is that you can cancel up to 4 hours ahead of departure and get 85-90% of your money back, and given how affordable the bus system is, you’re talking one or two dollars at worst.  One thing I have learned over the course of several years of traveling is to heavily scrutinize reviews on trip advisor and other websites.  I used to automatically write off companies with anything less than 4.5/5, but when you start traveling places where no one gets above 3.5, you have to dig deeper.  I will read the most positive, most negative (which are usually completely absurd and likely mostly untrue), and then a few in the middle.  I look at what people didn’t like.  If someone doesn’t like the meal served on a bus but everything else was good, to me that’s essentially a five star, as I wouldn’t expect bus food to be good anyway.  Another example of ridiculous reviews muddling a company’s reputation would be someone giving a bus company three stars because the movies shown on the bus were too violent (I seriously read one like that).  Seriously??  Just go to sleep or close your eyes or buck up- anything.  Ironically enough, one of our buses had a DVD reel of Jean Claude Van Damme movies including one that begins with him waking up in an ice bath with a kidney missing, haha.  Anyhow, we took four or five different bus companies throughout our travels, and they were all fine.  Some were nicer, but really, they were all one million times better than Greyhound here in the states.  For our bus to Santiago, we elected to purchase sleeper seats known as salon cama seats which reclined to 170 degrees including ottoman like footrests.  I can never sleep on airplanes, even a red eye, but I was able to fall asleep for a few of the ten hours it took to go from Pucón to Santiago.  We arrived at 7:00 am, and after taking a cab to our hotel, we paid $35 to check in before 9:00, and by 10:00, I had showered and settled in for a three-hour nap.  We pretty much lazed around, knowing we had an early flight to Calama the next morning.  We watched an incredibly awkward movie with Tommy Lee Jones, Meryl Streep, and Steve Carrell, but it was in English, so we didn’t care.  We watched some truly terrible movies that day.

We caught a 7:55 AM flight the next morning and arrived in Calama just before 11:00, where we picked up our rental car and headed for the desert or more accurately, Mars.  We arrived at our hotel and found that it was actually a standalone house with a loft bedroom and a spacious living and dining room.  Our host, Phillipe, originally from France, had married a Chilean woman and made the move to San Pedro.  He was incredibly welcoming and accommodating, and best of all, he had a German Shepherd named Nutella who came to welcome us and continued to try and sneak in the house to see us over the next three days.  After taking a short nap, we decided to drive to an area called Valle de la Muerte to catch the sunset.  We paid our entrance fee and drove three miles along a sandy road to a parking area just as the formal road ended.  There was a sandboarding tour group there as well, and we took a few minutes to watch people ride (okay mostly fall) down the dunes toward the parking area.  We walked about a mile up the foot trail and climbed to an overlook.  The weather was hot but pleasant, but we immediately noted the change in altitude as we reached over 9000’.  We walked along the overlook vista for half an hour and then decided to grab our spot for sunset as tour groups began to show up in their sprinter vans, arriving from the opposite end of the road, thereby driving all the way to the top of the overlook we had just slogged up!  Lots of selfie sticks and people doing jump poses, hardly looking at one of the most magnificent sunsets we witnessed on the whole trip.  Oh well.  With a deadline to exit the park before dark fell, we hustled down to the car and out.  The next morning we slept in and enjoyed the fresh baguette and chocolate croissants delivered to us by Phillipe.  Mid-morning we headed to Los Flamingos National Reserve where we saw hundreds of Andean Flamingos who are unfortunately endangered with only 40,000 remaining in the world. These magnificent birds live high in the Andes, often above 10,000’ and subsist on sculpin type food sources.  One of their biggest threats, stop me if you’ve heard this before, is habitat destruction, their homes encroached upon by mining companies whose byproducts poison their food source.  Aside from learning about all the terrible things mankind has done to push this species to the brink, it was so enjoyable to watch them move about the lagoons and fly gracefully through the sky, gliding in for a landing, breaking the glassy surface of these high desert alpine lakes. 

After enjoying the flamingos, we elected to drive to Lagos Miñiques and Miscanti, which sit at almost exactly 14,000'.  Along the drive, we passed through a couple of villages which were varying degrees of primitive and enjoyed viewing the wildflowers that dotted the landscape as we continued to climb.  Once we turned onto the road to take us to the lakes, we spotted a small herd of vicuñas grazing- our first but certainly not last sighting of the trip!  The lakes were not too crowded except for a couple of tour groups with 10-15 people.  There isn’t much hiking to do other than walking along the lake, but at 14,000’ that was about all we could handle anyway.  

Sunset over Valle de la Muerte

Andean flamingo

Andean flamingo

Flamingos feeding in glassy water

More flamingos

Laguna Miñiques

Golden hour

Sunset

Laguna Miscanti

Vicuñas grazing 

This little guy came running full speed at us before diverting across the road

Driving east toward the Chile-Argentina border

Babies!

I know it doesn't look real, but it is- Laguna Tuyajto

San Pedro de Atacama is known around the world as the darkest sky on the planet, so of course I was thrilled to find out we’d be down that way just after the new moon- a perfect opportunity to shoot the night sky!  After a long day, we slept late in anticipation of staying out late to photograph the milky way, so mid-afternoon we headed out to scout some locations for the night’s adventure.  We ended up driving nearly all the way to Argentina.  Everything was just so beautiful!  We left Mars and arrived in Iceland!  We saw hundreds more vicuñas along the way and some of the most beautiful lakes in colors you could hardly dream up from the depths of your imagination. One particularly striking lake, which I had hoped to use as the foreground for my milky way shots had been closed after some touron (get it?) drove all over the sensitive landscape in a 4WD truck.  Although I was bummed, I was also glad the park did what was right- protect the landscape. I wish the National Park Service would do something similar with places that have weathered far too much human caused destruction.
After driving around all day, we eventually returned to the road leading up to Laguna Miscanti where we waited for the sun to set and the stars to appear, and oh did they!  I have never seen so many- the Milky Way was striking against the pitch black sky.  We had been photographing for about an hour and were packing up and contemplating another location when one of two vehicles we saw all night turned up the road.  Once the bright car lights and headlamps hit our faces, we knew it wasn't just a regular car.  Out jumped three cabañeros screaming instructions and questions in Spanish.  They were asking for identification, driver's license, and what we were doing.  Once they checked our IDs and found out we had been doing photography and were now leaving, they told us to drive safely as the roads are very curvy.  Despite it being scary at first, we never felt threatened, but it was definitely a more militant style police presence than we are used to.  After that experience, we decided not to go for another location even though the core of the Milky Way had yet to make an appearance.      

Before we got run out of the park

After begrudgingly leaving our comfortable accommodations, we headed back to Calama to check into our hotel in preparation for our flight out the next morning.  We were less than ten minutes from the airport when a rock hit our windshield causing a pretty substantial chip.  No coverage plans cover windshields in Chile and the collision protection I purchased separately also did not cover such damage, so we thought we were looking at about $1200 based on what we were reading online.  Luckily for us, the rental company attendant took pity on us and marked it down as a small chip that only cost us $400 (I say only, it was still a huge bummer, but what's done is done, and we were happy to not be an extra $800 poorer).  Frustrated by our bad luck, we headed into the center of Calama and saw a Domino's pizza, and yes, we got it, and yes it was terrible and amazing all at the same time.
The next morning, we headed back to Santiago for the final time this trip, now preparing for the last leg of our journey in Peru.