Our Tucan Adventure- Lake Titicaca

We left La Paz and joined a group tour, which we will stay on for a while now, it's called the Tucan 'Inti Express'... the rest of the group had been together for about 3 weeks since Rio, but we are getting along with everyone really well, so it's been pretty fun, except for the fact that everyone seems to be sick, getting sick or was just sick- blame it on the Bolivian water or something.... I was lucky and only had it for 24 hours, but sam was ill for at least a week so he missed out on a fair bit of the Lake Titicaca adventure because he was in bed :(

Anyway, so the Tucan tour is a bit different from the Gap one we did in patagonia, because we drive around in a big yellow bus between towns! its pretty hilarious- on our first morning driving from La Paz to Puno we stopped for lunch on the side of the road, where there were a bunch of people dressed up making either a film clip or an ad or something so we watched the action and tried out our horrible spanish chatting with them, which was funny!

La Paz, Bolivia

After our unexpected visit to Iquique, we ended up having to buy plane tickets to La Paz, so including the replacement plane tickets we had to buy from Santiago, we had a very expensive couple of days, so it was great to finally arrive in La Paz.  Of course, the first thing that happened was that we got scammed by a taxi driver! Grrr... I had agreed to a price of 50 Bolivianos, which was the going rate, but after we got in the taxi, and he locked our bags in the trunk and started driving, he told us that it was actually going to be 50 Bolivianos each!! What a jerk... he also drove like a maniac, so it was nice to get out of the taxi and settle into our hostel.  It was really cool, with murals everywhere, and we had a huge room with a balcony and bathroom so it was perfect for our 3 nights in La Paz. As we were walking to the front door (puffing like crazy because of the altitude), our friend Mark who Sam had gone for the polar bear dip in Patagonia with, happened to stick his head out of the window- his room was right next to ours!  The next day we wandered around the city and walked up to a view point where you could see for kilometres.  The view was crazy, as La Paz is in a valley, and the houses go forever.  We really enjoyed wandering around, and taking in the atmosphere of the city, and finally eating some good food!!  On our 3rd day, we did the 'most dangerous road' bike ride with a company called Gravity Downhill, which was superb- I would recommend doing this if you ever get the chance, the scenery is incredible- the mountains are so steep its crazy to think that it was an actually highway not that long ago.  We also did a flying fox over the valley after lunch at a wildlife sanctuary (which was a bit of a disappointment, and not at all like it had been described unfortunately).

The San Pedro de Atacama Fiasco!

So, to catch you all up on what has happened since we left Santiago, firstly I had my first travel 'oopsie'.... meaning that we missed our flight from Santiago to Calama, we arrived to check in at 7- which was when the flight was supposed to leave...... As you can imagine, Sam was very calm about the whole thing and didn't care at all that we had to pay for new flights and sit in the airport for about 7 hours.... haha... anyway, I told him it was an early birthday present, a flight over the Atacama desert... it was amazing, you could see volcanoes and salt lakes, although the pilot tried his best to make everyone sick by flying like a maniac...

 So this part of the trip was the only 'unplanned' aspect, and we were supposed to get to San Pedro and do a 4x4 through the Atacama desert and end up in La Paz in time to join our next tour.  Unfortunately when we finally got to San Pedro about 5pm (not 10am as we were supposed to) we were told that there weren't any tours leaving the next day and that you need more than 3 days to get from San Pedro to Uyuni and then to La Paz... so we ended up getting a 8 hour bus trip to Iquique the next day, which also had some really cool views, and was on the beach, and smelt so good after being in the desert! The scenery was incredible the whole drive, so I guess it sort of made up for not getting to see flamingoes and arsenic lakes... the desert mountains went all the way to the coast- so the towns we drove through were literally on the beach and next to the desert.

Patagonia- The 'W' Trek, Torres del Paine

We've just got back from doing the 'W' hike in Torres del Paine National Park, which was really beautiful, and lived up to its reputation of crazy weather- on our first day it was so sunny we got sunburnt, then we
 walked over a hill and almost got blown away by wind, then further up the hill it started sleeting, by which time it was so freezing cold it was ridiculous- then on the way down we had torrential rainfall! And this pretty much went on for the whole 4 days we were walking, so it made a relatively easy walk a lot more difficult!

I think more than anything though, it was the wind that  made things difficult for everyone- at one place we stayed, a French couple's tent got blown over and ripped apart while they were sleeping, so we were pretty happy we stayed in a Refugio that night! The walk was really well set up- if you wanted to camp you could, or there were guest houses and refugios along the way, with bars and food for sale- although some had more character than others.

 These guys were all over the road on the drive up to Torres del Paine, they were so cool, apparently pumas eat them, and leave the rest for condors though so I guess thats why they hang out in packs... On  our first night we had dinner a restaurant and I thought that some chairs looked cool because they had furry backs, and Sam pointed out that they were made out of the guanacos...

 
 Most of the walk was around these incredible glacial lakes, they were aqua blue, and the colour just doesn't seem to come out properly in photos- has to be seen to be believed I guess! Anyway, you could drink the water straight from the streams, it was so icy and fresh...

 So did I mention that it was really really cold and usually really really ridiculously windy?

Thats because there are glaciers everywhere- so so cool to look up at snow-capped mountains and glaciers...

 Anyway, we are doing a group tour with G Adventures called 'Essential Patagonia' and Sam has managed to find another person as crazy as he is to hang out with.... see this beautiful snow-capped mountain? Remember how I mentioned the wind? well, it has been between 30km-100km an hour at stages, and maximum temperatures have been about 5 degrees, so it is cold cold cold....

 Anyway, apparently in the USA, they have this thing called the polar bear dip- it's when you go for a swim before breakfast- so Sam and 'Mas Alto' decided they would have the ultimate polar bear dip and swim in the glacial lake!

 They didn't last very long, but I did film it so that make may it up here at some stage- but did I mention how cold the water is? the next lake over has icebergs!!!!

The Navimag- Chile

After Osorno, we got on a cargo ferry called the Navimag from Puerto Montt.  It was 3 nights in bunks in a 42-berth cabin (which actually wasn't as bad as it sounds!). This is where the group started to get to know each other a bit more, because it was 4 days on a boat with not much to do but look at the scenery, play cards and laugh at people who got sea-sick... There was one night in particular that really got to some people, but we thought it wasn't much worse than a bad ferry trip from Manly... We got off the boat at a tiny fishing village called Puerto Eden, which was really, really isolated- no roads to the town at all, and extremely wind-swept and cold- beautiful to visit, but pretty hard-going if you lived there I guess.  The poverty on this island was really stark, especially after the Lakes District which had been populated by German immigrants who drove around in their expensive cars....