Posts for November, 2009

Today is proof that we don't plan a long way in advance.

The antiplano is the name for the high desolate plateaus of Peru, Bolivia and Chile; and that's pretty much where we spent the day. From our camping spot last night at a little over 13,000 feet we drove all day at altitudes between 11,000 ft and our high point of 16,000 ft. And desolate it is, dry, dusty and cold. With the temperature at times as low as 35°F and never about 60°F. But - there are small communities and even individual family groups scattered all over the antiplano making a living from a combination of agriculture and rearing llama, alpaca, and sheep. Plus all these scattered little settlements are served by buses. The bus services are all the more amazing considering the quality of the roads, they vary from good black top to terrible gravel and broken pavement. On the bad sections of roads the buses travel at speeds of 40 mph whereas the roads restrict us to 10-15 mph. Anyone interested in building a vehicle for rough roads should come talk to the Peruvian bus companies for some hints on suspension design.

We were on the road to Cruz del Condor by about 7:00 am as the condors, apparently, are only visible around 8:00 am and 4:30 pm, and we wanted to be there in time to see them this morning. Apparently so did every other tourist and tourist operator for 200 miles around as the road was busy. It was also rough with the traffic from tourist buses making heavy washboards in addition to the parts of the road that are simply creek beds. But to compensate for the roughness the drive was wonderful. It winds along the side of a very deep steep valley both sides of which are covered with terraced agricultural land, foot trails, and villages (with no road access). The scale of the terracing is hard to comprehend, particularly when one realizes that much of it has been done by hand over hundreds of years of farming.

We had a nice quiet night at this spectacular lookout. We were more than a little curious as to how proceedings would get started this morning after discovering that there was no afternoon activity yesterday. The security guards arrived by bus about 6:00am and the first of the vendors about 6:30am but by 7:00am when we departed there were no tourists, not all the vendors, and no condors flying (presumably because the thermal air currents had not yet started). On the drive back to Chivay we passed dozens of large and small tourists buses. We concluded that Cruz Del Condor only operates from about 7:30 to 11:00 am each day.

Last night was the coldest we have experienced since Alaska/Yukon. At 6:00 am after the sun had been on the vehicle for 45 minutes the trucks thermometer showed 22°F. The cold, and a desire to cover some distance today had us underway by 6:00am.

It snowed in the hills above our camping spot last night!

Only chores today in preparation for our 9 day trip to Manu National Park in the jungle of Peru.

We were awake at 2:00 am for our 5:00 am pick up; how silly was that.

We were awake at 4:30 am this morning to go to see a bird called Cock of the Rock. Each morning and afternoon these birds gather in a section of the forest near our lodge for about an hour, then disperse for the day, until their afternoon gathering. We spent an hour at this place looking with great diligence for a glimpse of the bright red male birds.

Today we entered the Manu River and the Reserve Zone of Manu National Park. The Reserve Zone is a recent addition to the national park and together with the Cultural Zone are the only parts of the park that allow visitors, the bulk of the park is restricted to scientists. Access is carefully managed and we had to call in at the park office to register.

Today was a full day of looking for animals. We started by returning to Cocha Salavador early hoping to see the giant Otters and we were not disappointed, there were a group of maybe 7 of them frolicking in the lake and having breakfast on the local fish population. We spent a couple of hours following them around the lake hoping to get close but they kept us at a distance.

Today we said good by to the Manu River and National Park. After a relatively leisurely start we were into our boat and headed down the Manu River to the confluence with the Madres De Dios. Along the way we got really lucky as one of the guides spotted another jaguar on one of the numerous beaches along the river. We got a good, though distant, look at him. That's our second. Many groups don't see one in their 9 days in the jungle.

A 5:00 am start for one of the highlights of the trip, The Macaw clay lick. What's that you ask?

A somewhat leisurely start this morning (7:00 am departure) as we are starting our return journey with a 5 hour boat trip to Pantiacolla Lodge on the banks of the Alta Madre De Dios. Along the way we stopped at Boca Manu village for some cold drinks. The up river journey seems to be taking about half again as long as the downstream journey as the river is flowing very swiftly. The boat trip was again cool, insect free and pleasant - except for somewhat uncomfortable seats. We got a brief glimpse of a Capybara this morning, it's a member of the rodent family but about the size of a large dog. The name comes from a local indian language and means master of the grasses, which is what it eats.

Today turned out to be a day of relaxation.

Today was a long day of travel.

A day of chores, cleaning and drying gear from the trip.

For me today was another day of chores, mainly emails and updating the website. However Nina visited the nearby Inca ruins of Sacsayhuaman. These are right next door to the camping ground and are a large complex that has had very little excavation. It seems that up until recently all the money available for excavating Inca sites went towards the work at Machu Pichu, but now some money has been ear marked for work at Sacsayhuaman. The guide told Nina that in the 1930's locals mined stone from the ruins, using dynamite to break the stone, and sold the stone for one sol (today about 30c) per truck load. Other interesting tid-bits

Today we started the next leg of our journey - onwards towards Chile. We travelled over familiar territory today, first taking the road from Cusco to Juliaca (a grubby town with lots of small scale brick makers belching smoke everywhere), then onto the road towards Arequipa. We did not (plan to) make Arequipa today but camped again at the road junction just north of Imata on a very large flat area near a salt lake.

Throughout the night activity continued on the highway with more and more vehicles arriving and joining the line waiting for the road to be opened.

The drive out of Arequipa was stark and desolate. Big bone dry hills of sand and crumbling rock. But it set the scene for the days travel, all day we drove through variations on the theme of desert. If we had stayed on the coast in Peru we would have travelled through desert all the way from the Ecuador border and, from what we read, there is still many hundreds of miles of it to go in coastal Chile.

We awoke to a grey sky; sea mist in the mornings and evenings is apparently the norm in this part of the world - but eventually the sky cleared into a bright warm day.

The drive to Iquique was about 200 miles and it turned out to be generally a good road through desert scenery. Just out of Arica we came to some very interesting structures called something like guardian angels, they were abstract sculptures that seemed to be made out of mud. The remainder of the drive went through a series of large dry valleys. In each valley, the road descended 2000 ft down to a small river and then climbed out again. This happened maybe 6 times. The valleys were dry, completely devoid of vegetation except on the floor where the small river flowed.

We spent most of the day around the campground. I could say we relaxed and in part that would be correct. But also I spent a good deal of the day working with Bernie on his RV (and drinking beer). The metal cover over the valves on his propane tank was badly bent from an encounter with part of a gate and it needed to be straightened. This involved removing the tank, releasing all the propane, bashing the protective cover with a large hammer, and having a bracket re-welded onto the tank (that's why the propane was released from the tank). In the end it all worked out, but there were periods of doubt.

Today it was our turn for vehicle work. The truck needed the fluid changed in the transmission, and being hi-tech it needed a special fluid that I feared only a Chevy dealer would have. Dextron VI is the stuff. We hung around town for 6 hours while they changed the fluid, and topped up the differentials and transfer case. Why 6 hours - that was courtesy of their 1:30 - 4:00 lunch break.

Today Sandra, Bernie, Nina and I went for a 30 minute paragliding run hooked up in tandem to an experienced pilot. This was Bernie's way of celebrating his birthday and Nina and I just tagged along because it sounded like a good idea.

We got a late start from Iquique as I wanted to hang around the flight school using their wifi to fix a problem that had developed with the software that downloads maps to our GPS. Got it fixed eventually but it left me with the feeling that maybe we have too much technology with us - you think!!

Over the past couple of days we had been indecisive about our route after Tocopilla, would we or would we not head inland towards El Tatio Geysers. Well today we decided - El Tatio here we come. The downside of this decision, which we would later suffer with, was altitude. In one day this route would take us from sea level to 14,500 ft. As it turned out this was too much - but that's getting a bit ahead of the story.

Well the effects of altitude did not diminish during the night. We both suffered from head aches and an in-ability to sleep - it made for a long and uncomfortable night.

Leaving San pedro this morning we had one of those delightful little surprises. Just outside the town was a sign pointing to a gravel side road with the sign Cordillera de la Sal. We spent about an hour negotiating our way along this track past various weird geological structures formed by salt pushing up the ground. Eventually we got stopped by deep sand and had to turn around. Our next expedition vehicle will have a better (ie higher) tire floatation in sand.

A quiet day!

Last night Nina and I were talking about bureaucracy and which of the countries we have visited display the worst bureaucracy. This conversation was prompted by a conversation Nina had with her sister about the level of effort and paper work associated with moving their family back from Germany to Australia.

Today we were simply heading south, trying to cover some miles. More desert scenery.

A long drive today trying to make some headway south. Today signaled the first of a few milestones, the vehicle ticked over 40,000 miles on the odometer, and we left the Atacama desert behind finally. Coming up in the next few days are 30,000 trip miles and S 30° latitude.

We continued up the valley this morning to the town of Vicuna. Quite a lovely place, clean and tidy with a wonderful main plaza with great old trees. We walked around for a while absorbing the atmosphere and soaking up the sun.

A milestone again today - over the 30th parallel.

Another milestone - 30,000 miles since Gig Harbor in just under 9 months

Today was going to be another day of chores. First stop an organization named SALFA (the local Chevy dealer). We found one of their outlets near where we spent the night but it turned out only to be a sales office for very large Mack trucks. They sent us into the heart of the city to there light vehicle sales and service office. To cut a long story short, the Chevy people checked the brakes for us (did not need any work) but could not replace the shock absorbers as they did not have replacement parts. However they drove us to a local workshop that dealt in aftermarket parts and they were able to fit 4 new shocks. Mind you this took all day. But the tiger feels a lot better with the repairs.

This morning we discovered that we left one set of keys at the workshop that replaced the shocks. What a drag - we had to drive all the way back into central Santiago to get them.

We did not travel far today. Nina has a cold and needs to rest in the sun. So we drove from our gas station just west of Santiago to the coast to a camp ground near Laguna Verde. We found the camp ground from a tourist brochure.

We drove back to Santiago from the coast to pick up a new (warmer) jacket for Nina from a local camping store. They said it would be available Saturday. To do this we had to negotiate our way through Santiago traffic in the, ritzy, Los Condes area of the city. But - when we got to the store it was closed!!!!

Today everything was closed, even the toilets at the gas station, for the presidential election. Guess this is another good excuse for a day off.

It's 9 months today since we left Gig Harbor, seems amazing that we have been living in this little vehicle for so long. When I look at the map I am a little surprised by the distance we have travelled and even more surprised when I contemplate the return journey - I think it will take another 9 months.

Today we left Highway 5 (the Panam) for an excursion East into a region of lakes and volcanos. The country side is now very temperate in appearance, rivers large and small, evergreen trees, lush pastures and spring flowers.

After a slow start, partly caused by me wandering off to an internet cafe without telling Nina where I was, we headed off looking for a minor road that would (we hope) circumnavigate Volcan Villarrica and lead us to Laguna Lican Ray the next lake south. The scenery was lush pastures, fine stands of evergreens and crystal clear rivers and a few minor water falls. The road turned out to be a little rough and gave us a chance to experience the positive effect of new shock absorbers. We even got to take the Tiger on some real 4x4 road - but only a little way. We could not complete the traverse to Lican Ray as the road became impassable to a vehicle as big as the Tiger. So we retraced our steps back to Villarrica and took the opportunity to do some chores, washing clothes, and washing the Tiger.

It was a beautiful morning with the sun shining off the glassy waters of the lake, and the occasional small wavelets washing the black sand beach. This really is a lovely setting for a campground.

We left Panguipulli about 10:00am maybe a little later than expected after the usual chores, fuel, internet, groceries and a few last photos. It is a really nice little town, not particularly touristy.

Today was sunny, but with a blustery cool wind. We spent the morning in San Martin shopping and looking around and then headed south down highway 234, also called the Ruta de Los Siete Lagos (route of 7 lakes) towards San Carlos De Barioche. As the name promised we spent the remainder of the day driving past and viewing lakes, the rivers that feed/drain them, plus some spectacular mountains. Really a very pleasant day.

We continued our tour of Argentine lakes, rivers and mountains today.

We set out from the campground today to explore west along the lake shore with the intension of eventually stopping in Bariloche to look around. Oh how plans can change. We drove past a number of scenic lakes and called into the famous hotel LLao LLao just to have a look at the place. It's really grand, with a great location on a hill with commanding views of lakes and mountains. While having coffee and chocolate in one of the restaurants we asked ourselves- why not stay here for a night?. Within 10 minutes we had a room.

We used up all of our minutes at the hotel this morning leaving right on check out time of 11:30 making the most of hot showers, a sumptuous buffet breakfast, and that last click on the internet.

Today we drove back to Bariloche. The weather turned wet and miserable for the first time we can remember. As a result we checked into the Hotel Tirol a day earlier than originally planned. They had space in the back for us to park but the entrance way was really tight. We had to fold the mirrors in on the sides and I would guess there were only a couple of inches spare on top. The manager was very nice about it and tried to help us with directions.

We spent the day looking around the town of Bariloche and communicating with family. One of the things the town/region is known for is chocolate and there are many stores around the town selling it. Of course we were not able to find simple plain chocolate. The weather was much improved today, sunny but windy and still cool. Santa Claus was out traveling around on a red fire truck. He seemed very athletic, jumping on and off the truck, for an old guy. Made me more than a little envious.

We got off to a bad start today. On the exit from our hotel parking place we had to go through a narrow gate. The gate posts were about 3 inches wider than the Tiger. But the driveway was not level so part way through the gate the Tiger tilted and bumped into the left hand post causing some damage to the house body and damaging the plastic panel where we put in fuel.

We joined up with the Panam Highway at Orsono late this morning and followed it south with a small side trip to explore the town of Fruitilla, then around a peninsula (jutting from the west into Lago LLanquihue), and back to the Panam. The drive was pleasant through nice green country side. The weather was cold, grey and wet - not really encouraging for getting out and seeing things.

The weather had improved over night so we could explore the camping ground before leaving without getting wet. It was in a wonderful position right on a headland with fine views of the ocean. Like many camp grounds we have seen in Chile it was once an impressive facility and a substantial investment but over the last probably 10 years there has been little maintenance and now it looks run down.

The end of today brought us to the town of Quellon and a big milestone; the end of the Panamerican Highway. It runs 29,000 miles (though different versions of the route are different lengths see - Pan American Highway) from Prudhoe Bay or Fairbanks Alaska to Quellon. Chile and is called Ruta-5 along much of its length. Now we can't claim to have driven the entire Panamerican as often we have travelled by lesser side roads, but we have certainly travelled the distance.

Today we are heading north to the towns of Puerto Varas, and Ensenada to meet up with the Canadians (Sam and Bernie) that we met in Colombia and Iquique Chile.

Today the four of us (Nina and I, plus our friends Bernie and Sam) drove into Puerto Varas about 50 kms from the campground to do a bit of sightseeing. The town has a number of old German style buildings that the guide book recommended; they were pretty run down and needing some maintenance. Another example of Chilean tourism infrastructure in need of repair. We took the opportunity to have lunch at a Mexican restaurant.