Patagonia

Bariloche is a gateway to Patagonia- thousands of kilometers of grass, rock and ice, and water, lots of water, in all forms and colours… wilderness at its best. Farm and wild animals walk side by side, undisturbed by nothing but few passing cars. The creeks and rivers are clear and you can drink straight from them. And glacier lakes have that milky blue colour and bright blue icebergs floating around; and some are huge, like Lago Buenos Aires near El Calafate or Lago Grey in Torres del Paine National Park. There are hanging glaciers in the mountains and amazing looking pinnacles like, Cerro Tore and Mt Fitz Roy near El Chalten in Los Glaciares National Park; or Cuernos (Horns) and Torres del Paine in the national park with the same name. Bluest lakes, amazing rock formations and the ubiquitous, untamed wildlife all add up to a hiking experience that you will never forget.
Imagine walking a trail through the grassy hills. There are guanacos everywhere; chasing each other and making funny noises because it is the beginning of their mating season. They are jumping the fences a lot as all the properties in Chile and Argentina are properly fenced because of the cattle. There are guanaco bones lying around in the grass; collection of many years. There are also half-eaten bodies hanging of the fences. Some got stuck when jumping across and puma found them. Nature plays hard, but nothing gets wasted- whatever’s left, the condors and foxes will take care of it. As you keep walking, you see yet another guanaco hanging off the fence, caught by a leg. But this one seems intact. When you get closer, it moves. At first, you are sort of scared because you don’t know if you can help it and it is damn hard to turn your back to suffering when it is thrown in your face like that. But this time you can. The wire is cutting through the leg, little above the hoof; it has a double twist and it’s pretty tight, but two people can just stretch it enough for the slender leg to slip out. The guanaco is on the verge of panic, but too exhausted to struggle or run. So you leave it alone and let it just lay there and rest. It seems relieved. And after half and hour or so, you see it get up and make a few steps. It’s limping but it can walk. You are watching it and something inside you is screaming with joy. Life in every breath.
The same day we see a flock of condors feeding on dead guanaco, Mick finds a condor feather (longer then my forearm and hand together) and we come across petroglyphs in some funky looking sediment rock full of river pebbles. It is a good day; one of many.
Patagonia is a great place, full of wonders with an indefinite potential for adventure. If you make it down there, you won’t be disappointed.
To touch base on our itinerary, Mick and I traveled down the west coast and back up the east coast. From Bariloche through El Bolson and Esquel to Perito Moreno at the Lago Argentino which I liked a lot- reminded me of an inland sea. We visited Cueva de las Manos (curious petroglyphs and hand imprints left by prehistoric men) in the Canadon de las Pinturas (great climbing potential but it’s on the UNESCO world heritage list so they let you only look and dream). Then it was hiking around El Calafate (Cerro de los Crystales) and El Chalten (trails around Cerro Torre and Mt Fitz-Roy). From there we crossed over to Chile to hike in Torres del Paine NP, then visited Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas and drove as far south on the American mainland as we could. 4km from the end of the road a creek crossed the road and we stopped there for the nite. We picked mussels at low tide and fried them in fire on the beach at the Magellan Strait- one of my best memories. Then we caught a ferry to Tierra del Fuego, visited Rio Grande and Ushuaia which was celebrating its 126 birthday and hang out a bit at Lago Fagnano. Then back to mainland, Rio Gallegos, Comodor Rivadavia, and a couple of days on the coast around Punto Dos Bahias where Magellan Penguins were waiting for their first eggs to hatch, and a colony of sea lions was basking in the spring sun on a nearby island. Then we went to Puerto Madryn and we just couldn’t leave- camping on the beach with whales passing only 15 meters away from the shore, playing with their babies, jumping and flopping their tales and flippers, puffing and singing... we didn’t have enough. There was also that albino whale. Seeing a white whale jumping gives you a bit of a kick. And there was this other beach, with elephant seals. We walked among them and watched… females feeding their babies, single males trying to score a female while the alpha male was chasing them away, harem of females basking in the sun. Watching a 300kg elephant seal mating with a 100kg female, I couldn’t help thinking, how easy we, people, have it. Never underestimate the power of simplicity.
Now we left Patagonia and pretty soon we gonna leave South America altogether. We are cruising along the Atlantic coast, ever closer to Buenos Aires. We are shipping our car to Veracruz in Mexico on 23 of November. Our plain is leaving on 29 November. We are heading to Cuba for 3 weeks before we can pick up our car again. Days are passing fast on getting everything ready. No grand finale, just another transition. Something ends and another thing starts.

Bariloche and the volcanoes

Yeah, Bariloche… had a really good time there. Weather panned out great- snow storm followed by a few days of sunshine and even the wind took some time off- the gods were smiling to us those days. On the first day of skiing in the Cerro Catedral resort, we bumped into some cool people, Lasse and Jan, and so the four of us hang out quite a bit together; our little private social scene. We did some backcountry skiing in Cerro Chall-Huaco and improvised a quick side trip to ski the volcanoes in Chile. And to top up the experience, Lasse lavished us with some best hot showers we have had in this trip, as much as we wanted, whenever we wanted, free of charge… act of sheer kindness. Tell me, how not to love Norwegians?!
Mick and I also did a trip to Refugio Frey, a cool little mountain hut near Bariloche. Snow wasn’t great but, again, we met there some nice people and had a great day out all together. We had a bit of an epic getting out of there in the hauling wind that woke us up on the last morning, but when we finally made it up that damn ridge, the windlessness on the other side was our reward.
We had a lot of fun in Bariloche, except for dealing with the local post office. We were waiting for some docs from Australia to arrive general delivery. The thing was that nobody could find them in the system under the tracking number and each time when we asked to have it checked under our last name, we would hear “No” delivered with straight face. They would say that if there is a tracking number, it always gets scanned and shows in the system; if it doesn’t show, it means that the docs are not in Argentina yet. We put up with this shit for a week, but, I mean, how hard it is to walk 5 meters to the backroom and look up if there is any mail for Michael Coffey. Then one day we came in and insisted that there is no tracking number, and so the guy finally moved his ass those 5 meters to the backroom and guess what? He found it! Hell knows how long it had been lying there because nobody bothered to stamp it, never mind scanning. I was more pissed off then relieved but at least we were free to move on.
Now, we stayed in Bariloche from 24 August till 15 September, including a five day side trip to Chile to climb volcanoes Lanin and Villarrica. Lasse went with us and Jan joined us just for Villarrica. So we had full car and tripped on shit all the time but it was great. On Lanin we slept in a little hut half way up the volcano and climbing was long and steep. We didn’t reach the summit but skiing in that spring-like snow was awesome and we left some big lines there, especially the telemark crew, Mick and Lasse. Villarrica is an active volcano- smoke, fumes, lava, the whole nine yards. We really wanted to see the lava. The day we climbed it was almost perfectly cloudless, until the peak started building up that cloud which looked like a cotton ball hat and gave about us much vision as when diving in milkshake. When we got to the top of the crater, the wind made me breathe through my feet because the mouth was busy suffocating; and we couldn’t see each other, never mind the lava. So we turned around, put on our skis and left. Still, skiing out of this cloud into perfectly still afternoon… that was something. This was what Alice must have felt like when she fell into a rabbit hole and popped out in Wonderland.

Chile… yeah, that was a bit of a love-hate affair, although for a reason as mundane as the weather. We crossed over from Argentina at the Cristo Redemptor pass which is not too far from Santiago. Not much snow in Portillo, but we had already got used to it, and hardly accessible backcountry- we gave it a pass.
Santiago as a capital ain’t too bad- old buildings, nice coffee shops, lots of gardens and good public transport system. And every US company you can think of is there- you can tell the foreign affairs of the country just by looking at the display windows of its shops. And in the supermarkets… I felt like wallowing on the floor from happiness when I saw that can of Dr Pepper soda on the shelf… Long live American imperialism! In Santiago we visited a mate of mine, Hugo, and abused man’s hospitality as it was due time for our annual shower and laundry. Good think about taking showers only occasionally is that you remember every single one of them and providing the water was hot, the last one is always the best one. But where were we… Ah, Hugo! Together with his family we went for a trip in our van to Valparaiso one day, which was a really cool trip- good company, good seafood, very pretty port town on the hills with colourful houses, narrow passages in between the buildings and old telefericos taking people up and down those steep harbour hills. Yeah, we both with Mick liked the place a lot. But our time around Santiago passed mainly in the mountains. We skied a couple of days in Valle Colorado and Valle Nevado, did an off-piste day in the couloirs of Farallones, I had some exciting stomach adventures which as humorous as they were are not that sort of things that you pride yourself with in the blog. But generally we froze our cute little butts off in those mountains. So when Chilean post fucked up our delivery from Australia we knew it was time to go. The road was calling.
Chillan was next on the list. We stayed there for a week as at first it was so windy that the house roofs were making low flybys all over the parking lot and later on it was so good that I didn’t wanna leave. Time-out we used wisely chasing up the god damn refill of our gas bottle- that was how I spent my birthday this year. Party on, Wayne! Party on, Gart! But when the good weather came in, it stayed in for over five days- 5 sunny, almost windless days in that magic backcountry with hidden natural hot springs, volcanoes and beautiful vallones (little valleys) all over the place. I loved it there. So we both got fired to skiing volcanoes and there were all those volcanoes that were coming up our way. I’m afraid it didn’t quite pan out for us that way.
First, Antuco- we missed the weather window by a day and then it was all about wind, fog and rain. After 4 days of waiting we gave up and drove further south. There was a weather window coming in 3 days and we really wanted to do Llaima, a volcano that erupted recently twice, 2008 and 2009.
We spent one day in Las Araucarias, an extremely friendly ski resort, walking around in the mist and rain. But the next day we scored high- a beautiful sunny day, not too much wind for most of it, just on the summit which we had to do in crampons for all that funky icy growth on the last 200 meters of the cone. The top was all steaming up, numerous craters, warm rocks, snow bridges, snow layers collapsing from heat, little crevasses- was beautiful and challenging at the same time. We didn’t ski off the top because of the ice but lower down the snow was great. You know those runs when you’re gliding over smooth gentle slopes, around you just the blue sky and white unspoilt snow, and it’s perfectly silent… I do, now.
From the slopes of Llaima we saw two perfect volcanic cones of Villarrica and Lanin. We rushed in their direction but the weather didn’t open again. We were lucky enough to see the top of Villarrica only once more; one night its top was glowing red from lava reflecting in the low clouds over the summit (fucking awesome view, if you ask me). But after that, the clouds closed in and dropped low… all the way down. And the forecast didn’t say any better for the next 5 days. So after lingering in Pucon for some days and a couple of visits to the hot springs in Los Pozones (cool spot to hang out even on gloomy days) we farewelled Chile to chase the good fortune in the famous Argentinean skiing capital of San Carlos de Bariloche. But that is a story for another day…

Argentina June/July 2010

It welcomed us freezing our water system, but Argentina was love from the first sight. Its friendly people with their thing for kissing for ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’, also strangers… its beautiful roads with system of gas stations where you can buy great coffee and fresh medialunas, take a hot shower, use wifi and camp for free no worries… its mountain and vineyard landscapes with autumn colours on the flats and white winter high up there; its unbelievably tasty steaks which you can buy really cheap everywhere- out of the five weeks we spent in Argentina so far, we had non-steak dinner maybe 5 times. I wish I could add to this list awesome skiing but I can’t (yet). Winter in the southern hemisphere this year is shit. It came late, it hardly ever snows, or when it does, the next day wind blows it all away, where, I don’t know because we didn’t come across any hidden stashes yet. Maybe there is a secret valley in the Andes where all the snow goes to live happily ever after undisturbed by civilisation and its offspring. Or maybe it is just our beloved Mother Nature messing with us, you know, to keep us on our toes so we don’t forget who the boss is. Whatever the reasons, good snow this year is a struggle here and so July had gone and we found only one patch of snow in Las Lenas where we could play, and so we did, on and off for 2 weeks.
Hot springs! Did I mention the abundance of thermal waters that Argentina seems to have. We visited a few very groovy places but nr 1 on my list is Termas de Cacheuta just out of Mendoza- great range of temperatures covered by its many pools indoor and outdoor, sauna, picnic area and a cool location in the mountains.
We were in Argentina from 14 June till 18 July and our itinerary was following: crossed the border from Chile thru Paso de Sico, a few days in Salta (slow transition back to civilisation again), a couple of lazy days at Cabra Corral (lake), Los Banos in Rosario de la Frontera (first bathtub in 16 months), San Miguel de Tucuman, Catamarca, Termas de Santa Teresa (shithole in the middle of nowhere, open only to hotel guest), La Rioja, Patquia, Chepes, Caucete (gas station with great showers), San Juan, Mendoza (where the wine hatches), Lujan de Cuyo, Termas de Cacheuta (fuck yeah!), Los Penitentes (no snow), Las Lenas (beautiful skiing terrain) and Malargue (nice town), back to Mendoza area (hot springs, changing spark plugs, etc), Los Penitentes (still no snow) and over to Chile.
We gonna be back in Argentina soon and frankly, I can’t wait. Argentina feels like the forgotten world of my childhood, where people are friendly and have time for family and friends, where rules are few and flexible and so you can relax and enjoy just being there. Sure it ain’t perfect- it’s just a country made of just people. But it has this something that many countries by now have lost. The best I can describe it is a sense of freedom.

Bolivia- June 2010

During our 2 weeks in Bolivia we stayed mainly in its western part. We crossed the border in Copacabana where we camped at the Lake Titicaca next to the Isla del Sol. Mick made friends there with a little calf and they spent the whole arvo chasing each other. The nite at the lake was very dark, filled with stars, and so still that you could hear the silence. It really wasn’t a bad intro to a new country.
The next 4 days, including Corpus Christi, we spent in La Paz. I liked the capital city- dominated by spontaneous street life, seemed unlike other capitals I have seen. We found there good coffee, wireless and ATMs- a basic survival kit in any big city. As we ran out of gas in Peru, we needed to organise that before leaving La Paz, as there ain’t much out in the Peruvian countryside. This little task turned into a fucking mission which we payed for more than we ever bargained for.
Our way south to Salar de Uyuni (salt flats) consisted of shitloads of driving, mainly thru flat and open spaces with some cataclysmic looking towns in between, but we did find some cool spots too. The Urmiri hot springs was a little hotel-spa resort hidden in the hills in the middle of nowhere, with beautiful gardens, pools of hot water and a natural sauna. It was great. I sat in the water so long until I got sick. Then we drove out into the hills and camped there for the nite. And the nites in Bolivia are pitch-black with beautiful stars… which I certainly would have appreciated more if I only remembered to keep my contact lenses in after the dinner.
Now, the highlight of my Bolivian trip, and I think also Mick’s, was Salar de Uyuni. It is a salt flat which in rainy season turns into a shallow salt lake. It is huge, it is white like snow and navigating thru it is like navigating thru a sea- you take your course on islands, volcanoes or whatever you can see on the horizon; hopefully, not a mirage which is not unusual there. We hang out there for 3 days. The days were beautifully warm, and the nites, fucking freezing, but, again, the most amazing ever. The Milky Way was wider than elephant’s ass and shooting stars were like mosquitos. And when we played hacky sack, sky was the limit.
From Salar de Uyuni we drove south. There were hardly any road signs. There were no gas stations. All there was, was a maze of dirt roads and tracks going in all directions. But thanks to good people and not so good maps we eventually made our way out of the salt flats. Following instruction from a local, we discovered the underworld of Bolivian fuel supplies. When we arrived to San Juan, we asked for Don Cecilio. The infamous entrepreneur would professionally suck out some petrol from a barrel thru a hose and after 5 minutes we were ready to roll. It’s always pleasure to deal with people who know their shit.
Also, in the middle of nowhere, we bumped into some kiwis, Nevil and Sandra, cycling north from Chile and it was the nicest gringo fix ever. After talking to people in broken Spanish I definitely miss the language I can easily communicate in.
And so we arrived to Sud Lipez province which in vast majority consists of a natural reserve which Mick and I thought worth to check out, since it had a red lake, a green lake, hotsprings, geysers and fumaroles; and the supposed entry fee of AU$5 seemed reasonable for our dirtbag budget. Well, the price has recently been raised 5 times- just enough to annoy you at the very start. Unfortunately, the quality of our experience didn’t follow the price. The roads and road signs in the park were so good that we didn’t find the geysers and almost missed the hot spring. The lakes where like lakes, only one bright red and the other bright blue. Others than that, there were lots of rock and dirt. I realise I am bitching, but it was disappointing for majority of this park wasn’t any different from the areas we had driven thru for free. And when you are on a budget, $50 for nothing feels like a waste of money. Well, not complete waste though… that hot spring on the edge of the salt flat was actually really cool. The first day we had the place all to ourselves until after dark when a group of nude Spaniards and their guide joined us for a nite dip. The next day, it got really busy in the morning when guided groups arrived for the sunrise gig. Not being on the schedule, we jumped in the pool around noon to watch 2 vicunas come by really close; and the sun was hot and the salt flats shimmered in the light. It was great.
We left for Chile the same day, but it didn’t go smooth. As we found out on the border, it wasn’t exactly a border crossing; it was a tourist pass. The difference, you may ask? There is no customs on the tourist pass hence we couldn’t officially check out our car from the country. As we found out from our ‘kind’ migration officers, customs were 60km from the border and we were supposed to know it (from the legendary Bolivian road signs) and surrender our car permit over there. The only thing was, we couldn’t go back because we didn’t have enough fuel. So we had a little bit of a situation there. At first, the dudes on the border were not particularly helpful but eventually, generously offered to act out of their competence and hold on to our car permit with the intention of dropping it off for us at the customs. I don’t know if it ever happened and I don’t really care. Bolivia stayed behind me and it was good to be moving on.
We were not the only ones with the bumpy exit. On the border we picked up 2 English girls, two Clairs, dropped off by their guide that morning, waiting for an alleged bus to arrive. Surprisingly, before leaving he gave them some money back. As the bus was never to be there, they understood, why. It was maybe 100km to the closest town in Chile, with the traffic next to nothing. As we were driving along, the girls were saying that others than that, he was a really cool guide. I think they were just really cool girls.
We spent 2 days in Chile. San Pedro the Atacama is a cute, little touristy town, very pricy but it has its charm. We sorted out our stuff, paid the highest bill ever for fuel- AU$160, so we could continue our trip south… to Argentina.

Peru

As some of you know, when we were trying to find the border in the mountains we had a little bit of an incident when the car went off the road on a very steep angle and it took an excavator to pull it out and some minor repairs afterwards, which kind of delayed our crossing to Peru by a couple of days. But we did cross over eventually, and did so, on the most relaxed boarder crossing ever- we slept under the boarder bridge, some guys there don’t even wear uniforms to work, and the Peruvian custom officer wasn’t even sure what procedure there is for us to enter the country; he figured that if he speaks loud it sounds more competent- it was damn funny.

We drove for 3 days thru Andes, thru some good roads and fucking bad ones, thru valleys and over thousand meter drops, in the mists and sun and starry nites. It was a cool drive. And then we got to the coast and all this awesomeness was replaced by post-nuclear-war-like landscape of deserts and grey smoky air- ‘Mad Max 4- Resurrection’. Shortly afterwards, we started having problems with the car which made us spend in this lovely environment more time then necessary, but there was work to be done- Mick taking care of the car, me taking care of Mick. And we made our base of Trujillo.

After checking the spark plugs, dismounting fuel tank and disassembling the fuel pump, we were no closer to any answers. We even changed the transmission fluid. Everything looked fine (said Mick and I nodded). So we hit the road again and our car problems just as they mysteriously appeared, they seemed to disappear. Anyway, they had their effect on our stay in Peru and made us waste some very pricey fuel on driving there and back, not sure what was going on.

We visited Huaraz in Cordilliera Blanca. There is this amazing grassy plateau on 4000m or so, stretched between 2 mountain chains, one with snow caps and the other one without. The place is so beautiful. We drove it there and back, having some awesome stops in between, and once again, Peru proved to us, it is all about mountains.

Lima was a shit fight so after a failed attempt to drive into town we happily pissed off on Panamerican Highway to Nazca. The Nazca signs were shallow lines in desert plateau but I really liked the area there. We didn’t go for a flight assuming it was expensive like any touristy attraction in Peru and we drove into the hills, once again leaving the coast for the mountains. Between Nazca and Cuzco it is 660km and we drove through some coolest landscape ever; massive sand dune, our first pampa, canyons with cool looking rock and hidden mountain valleys. I would repeat it anytime on the bike.

And so we arrived to Cuzco- a very pleasant city with a cool, little old town and great tourist info services. We even made ourselves fake student ids to get a discount entrance to the ruins but they didn’t work- as pretty as they were, we made them to thin which raised the suspicions. Anyway, following the priceless map scored in the info centre, we checked out the sacred valley, we even did our laundry in the sacred river Urubamba. We checked out market in Pisac, Calca had some not-so-hot-springs, Urubamba saved us with its food and ATM and Ollantayamba welcomed us with a street fight and groovy looking ruins. This is were we left the sacred valley and climbed some 4000m high pass, to get to Machu Picchu from the backside- a must for budget travellers considering the price of the train and more so the walk on the sacred Inca path. We drove some deteriorating dirt roads and arrived to Santa Teresa were we left the car. Then we walked for 2 and a half hours to hydroelectric plant, which included river crossing in a fucking shopping trolley wobbling on a rope stretched across the river and doing so in 3 people (I couldn’t wipe the expression of disbelieve of my face even when it was all over). And then, already in the dark, we walked another 2 and a half hour along the railroad tracks. It was rather flat and straightforward walking but when we arrived to Aquas Calientes, we took the first room we saw, spent at least half an hour under the hot shower, so that you couldn’t see in the room, the air was so heavy of steam, and still, I fell asleep a few times over my food in the restaurant. I don’t remember last time I was so tired. There was no way, any of us could get up the next morning at 4am to walk up to Machu Picchu. So instead, we spent the next day hiking up this mountain on the other side of the valley. It had this one dodgy section, with rotten ladders missing parts and deteriorating unfixed after the last rainy season, so later on we found out that the trail was closed. Following the ever-present desire to be climbers that fuck, not fuckers that climbs, with some whinging on Peruvian safety standards we scaled that piece of wall and had the top of the mountain all to ourselves. And there, the most amazing view on Machu Picchu you can imagine. Now, I don’t even remember what this peak was called, but it definitely made my trip.

The next morning, we got up fucking early, took advantage of 24hour coffee shop in town and headed off up the hill to the gates of Machu Picchu. It must have been good coffee, ‘cause we arrived an hour too early; beaten only by two French who started their hike at 2:30 and a group of three Americans. The line behind us grew fast, though. Just before 6am the buses started to arrive. And then they let us in and everybody went roaming among the ruins on their own. It was a beautiful clear morning and Mick and I lost ourselves in those ruins for 3 hours or so, just walking, watching and enjoying. We smuggled in some food and threw a little picnic on a sunny terrace overlooking the sacred valley. Tuna and crackers never tasted so good.

We left the ruins quite early as we still had a hell of a walk out to be done that day. We took our bags from the hostel, ate something in town and dragged ourselves slowly towards Santa Teresa. Every hour or so we would stop, take our shoes off and put the feet in the cold river. I mean, we were tired. When we reached the river crossing there was a long line of people ahead of us, but down on the river the workers were just finishing the bridge. And so Mick became the godfather of the bridge on Urubamba in the Sacred Valley of Incas, being the first one to use it. Then we took a ride to Santa Teresa- enough is enough.

We came back to Cuzco, where we collected our car rego papers (thanks Jo) and bumped into a befriended French family whom we met in Guatemala and who also travel in a campervan. Then we drove south to Colca Canyon which is supposingly THE largest canyon in the world, twice bigger than Grand Canyon and so on. Well, to all those who have seen the Grand Canyon- don’t bother with Colca. Maybe it is bigger, but doesn’t have the intensity of Grand Canyon. It’s got condors though and they are fucking huge.

In Colca Canyon we realised that somebody tempered with the door lock in the car, so it was time to leave Peru. We drove along the lake Titicaca, which is very pretty, very big and has amazingly clear water. We parted with Peru on the boarder crossing of Copacabana. It was painless and rather happy farewell. We spent there 3 weeks.

Ecuador- April 2010

Ecuador was a bit of a surprise to me. I didn’t know anything about it when we crossed over and as we moved on the longer we wanted to stay. So for a month we happily zigzagged like 3 times from mountains to the coast and back, and we didn’t even touch on Orient which is the Amazonian east of the country.
I liked the Laguna los Dios near Ibarra where we camped and hiked for the day. People come and dive in this volcanic lake and its water is crystal clear; and at the foot of a volcano.
It just happened so that we arrived to Ecuador in rainy season and particularly rainy too- it was raining almost every day or nite while we were there, sometimes a lot. San Miguel was a tiny little village 4 hours up the stream of Papayan River from the coast. We decided to spend Easter there, Thursday in, Sunday out. They had this awesome house there for the visitors- it’s huge, it’s on the hill overlooking river and it’s got hammocks. And we were the only guests then. Every morning a woman would come to cook us breakfast and lunch and if we wanted to also dinner. And as it was holiday there were celebrations in the village every day, and nite for a good measure. They had a missionary church there. They invited us in for Good Friday celebrations. It started with Kuko- their traditional dance, and then they did the quickest Camina de Cruzes I have ever seen, and I grew up in a catholic country. Then the whole Friday nite they were singing. On Saturday, we went to the church again, this time for dancing. We were all running in long snakes around the church hopping to the rhythm of bongos, sweating like hell, and I believe there was method to this madness, but it was fun, even if there wasn’t.
We wanted to leave that nite but there were no boats coming out as everybody was celebrating. So we stayed one more day.
On Sunday everybody was getting ready for the big dance party at nite. In the afternoon we started drinking a perfectly cooled beer (they have their priorities right) in a little social palapa (hut) and the way they drink it is that somebody buys a bottle ($1.25 for 750ml Pilsener), gets a couple of plastic cups and walks from one person to the other (or only the ones he/she wants) and pours them in a bit, until the bottle is empty. It seemed to be happening all the time and nobody seemed to care much about who to whom and how much- somehow it flew smoothly and everybody was happy. Every so often, somebody would serve Aguardiente- vodka made of sugar cane; acquired taste, so to say. Mick and I got ourselves a bottle of that concoction to somehow fill in the time during the day. It lasted us 2 days and that with me one nite throwing up from it. A well-trained local drinks a bottle and a half in one nite.
While we were drinking and dancing in the little palapa on the hill, it started to rain, then to pour. Soon, the party had to be relocated to bigger and drier area so it died out for a bit. Mick and I went to our room to sleep a little before we would catch a boat at 1am that nite. It never stopped raining so when we walked out at 12:30am all packed and ready to wave our boat, the river rose by 2 meters and flooded. There were no boats running that nite- too dangerous. What were we to do- we dropped our bags and joined the party.
The next morning the river dropped us quickly as it rose, so we kept our fingers crossed for the whole day that it wouldn’t rain anymore. We didn’t have any more money for accommodation and food but they let us stay in the house for the day and the lady who had cooked for us brought us some food. The music played the whole day in the canteen that day and I danced some more as some local saw a potential for salsa in me and fancied to teach me a bit. As the evening approached, it started to rain again. And then it poured. Hanging there in our hammocks we parted with thought of leaving that nite. It was quite a surprise when at 2am somebody all of a sudden emerged from complete darkness telling us to get ready as the boat was leaving soon... For Mick and me it was as if the sky opened and all the heavenly angels sang out together ‘Alleluia!’ That was our first week in Ecuador.
From Borbon, where we left our car while in San Miguel, we drove to Esmeraldas and Quito, back in the mountains. It rained a lot. We went to Laguna Quinaloa and from there back to the coast, for some sunshine. We spent a week in-between Canoa and Montanita, the later one being my favourite. We just hang out on the beach, watched the surf, drank rum and smoked at our leisure, chatted away with the befriended local family which let us park in front of their house/hostel, played hacky… you know, wasting time J Once ready, we drove to Guayaquil for some supplies and there again, a local family invited us warmly to their house, showed us around town and fed with local specialties. Then we drove to Chimborazo. Within 24 hours we rose from the sea level to 4800m above sea level. Enough to say, it was a mistake. The first day that we spent hiking a bit around the volcano and just hanging out in the van, ended up for Mick with a sickening headache and for me with a smaller one, so we had an emergency drive-out at nite to some lower altitudes. We came back the next morning, thinking that we would be fine now. We were not. We hiked to 5300 and along with the afternoon, the headache was back. We didn’t wait too long after that. As the weather was just getting worse too, we decided to piss off to some hot springs. Unfortunately, the road we picked to Banos was impassable due to (I love that bit) volcano activity. They had this massive eruption in 2006 and I don’t know if that gap in the road that made us turn around, was a leftover of that or something more recent. Anyway, we spent that nite on that road and took a different road to Banos the next day.
Banos is touristy big time, but has this unreal location at the foot of an active volcano, and really nice hot springs. I liked their caldo the gallina for $1.50 which is a chicken soup with big piece of chicken inside. Caldo the patas wasn’t as nice, but I like pig feet (I know) so I still enjoyed it.
From Banos we drove south through the mountain again, to Cuenca which Mick liked a lot. We spent a couple of days hiking around Cuenca in a national park Las Cajas- beautiful rigid mountains with bare grassy hills, rocky ridges, ubiquitous lakes and creeks and meadows. The weather wasn’t on our side but we still had fun being out there on our own (no guides needed for once!), looking for trails, cheering the sun and admiring the country.
From there, it was a drive in mist and rain through Loja to Vilcabamba, a laid-back gringo town close to the boarder with Peru. This is where we are now. Tomorrow, we probably will cross over the boarder. There is not much more I can say about this town, others that it is a good base to relax with a book and write a blog.
Ecuador was great for me. It took me by surprise, I enjoyed it a lot and I will recall it very fondly when I am old and wrinkled, telling stories to my grandchildren.

Colombia- March 2010

I slacked again, never getting around telling you about Colombia, while I was fresh out of there. Now, it will have to be Colombia from the perspective of 3 weeks in Ecuador, which has been quite awesome, too. It might sound a bit different.

We arrived on the Caribbean coast of Colombia at the end of Feb 2010 and we spent 5 days in Cartagena waiting for our car to arrive; there was an earthquake in Chile, tsunami warnings everywhere, maybe that was why our boat was running late. Or maybe not, who knows, the fact was we were stuck in town and we were in a bit of a hurry…

It sure was an intro to Colombia, arriving to Getsemani suburb of Cartagena at 10pm with its drunks, pimps, whores, potheads and bums all out on the streets, local nite life at its best. We didn’t have a room to stay at this stage. I had to laugh when we were hurrying from one hostel to the other, me limping on my freshly bruised foot (souvenir from loading our car into a container in Panama), not being able to catch up with Mick racing ahead, just to get us out of the street asap. Eventually, we got ourselves a room with a clinic-like look but it had a fan which I made the most of during our time in town ‘cause it was fucking hot. There are attractions around Cartagena- mud volcano, pretty beaches- but we didn’t do much other than checking out the old town and hanging out in cooled interiors, reading books and sampling new cuisine; and waiting for the car... when it finally arrived, we did the paper work and immediately took off towards Bogota where my mate Santiago was to be found for just one more week before returning to Oz. It took us 2 days to get there- the country is huge. It’s huge and amazingly beautiful… the landscapes, the people, the food… Unfortunately, it was also expensive. Sometimes we would spend US$30 a day in tolls just for the roads, a gallon of petrol cost more than US$4 (we got a big motor, full tank cost us more than US$100). Food and booze were pricey as for regional standards and so was entry to attractions which we were interested in. This made our stay in Colombia very modest, so to say. Nevertheless it was very cool.

Bogota was good. Old town looked really pretty and I loved the hills around the city. There, we hang out with Santiago, in the evenings drank rum and gin with his mum, whose 70 birthday we celebrated that week; we sampled food, learnt about Colombia, met new people; we even climbed in a local gym...

After Santiago left, we were back on the road again. Went to Suesca for climbing which didn’t happen, from there thru some amazing mountain roads we drove to the coast to Medellin. I have fond memories from Borbur in the mountains, where we spent the nite hanging out with the local kids. Then was the coffee region- Manizales and Sierra de Ruiz with some groovy hot springs. In Santa Rosa, again, we had a fantastic welcome from a local family, and visited beautiful hot springs. Salento was a relaxed, backpacker’s town serving trout on every corner and nearby Valle de Corcora was this pretty valley with its waxing palms and rigid hills. Cali was very busy so we stayed there short, but Popayan was kind of nice with its nearby hot springs and the cool colonial one-way streets. We had our thrill when we had to skip a visit to Tierradentro archaeological site due to security situation with guerrillas. And so our last attraction in Colombia was the Sanctuary Las Lejas (groovy church on a cliff) and a guinea pig for lunch (looks intimidating but tastes OK; mind you, I also like liver, tripe and gizzard).

Crossing over to Ecuador went smooth as. We stayed in Colombia just over a month. The highlights for me was catching up with my friend, the rigid mountains and hot springs. I would love to come back to see and do more ‘cause it is an amazingly beautiful country… maybe one day I will; when I am reach and famous… or bumming around the world again…

February 2010- it's all about shipping

Another month on the road… a better half of it was stationary but more out of necessity then design- we had to organise shipping of the car to South America and it took a week of back’n’froing with emails in Costa Rica (camping at Francis and Jackie’s place), another half a week of paper work in Panama City and nearly a week of waiting for the ship to arrive in Cartagena, Colombia- fucking shippings!
What did we actually do in this past month others than that? Well, we spend some time driving dirt roads on Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica searching for (and finding some) surfing beaches, we grooved around for a couple of days on the Costa Rican Caribbean coast smoking pot and taking turns swinging in our hammock. We also visited in Panama a lovely town called El Valle which lies in the crater of an extinct volcano; it is very pretty up there, it’s got some warm springs and special mud to wallow in, there is a waterfall in the woods and I saw a very nice looking coffee shop; altogether, it was a nice visit.
Panama City was damn hot and damn muggy- shopping centres where the only escape from it. I think the Canal was about the only exciting place I’ve seen there. The we drove to Colon. The nite before we shipped our car from we stopped in a marina for the nite and that was really cool. It was half an hour out of Colon, to get there we drove through the locks on Panama Canal and once in the marina we got to use their hot showers and washing machines- each one a rarity for a traveller in those parts. And when it rained, I was ready to dance. I loved that place.
As for the shipping, well, the whole loading was of course more tiresome and complex than we thought with lots of waiting in between- waiting in a queue to pay, waiting for an inspection, waiting in a queue to pay again, waiting for another inspection, then the ramp shoot off from underneath our car when driving into the container, collecting my foot on its way, so the car was half stuck and I was bruised- more waiting. Then the crane couldn’t reach the container to place it on the ground as it was standing too deep under the roof- so we are waiting some more. And when our car was finally inside, it was such a close fit that the guys, who secure the car in the container, had to crawl on the roof and underneath it to do their job, hence it took them quite a while. 4 hours and 1 bruised limb later we were free to go. Relocating from Colon to Panama City and then to Tocumen airport by buses went really smooth. We got out of Cartagena airport by taxi and easily found a place to stay in town. We did it all in one day.
S we are in Cartagena de Indias now. I am sitting in our basic little hostel room under a fan where I spent most of the last 5 days. The boat had delay and we’ve been here longer than we planned. It’s a pretty place, I mean, the old town is pretty, and where we are staying (Getsemani) the street is kind of mix of bums, whores and backpackers- we make for an interesting crowd. There are cheap hostels here, cheap food, cheap beer, probably also cheap sex. Only alcohol is expensive. I don’t know about drugs, I just know they are there.
It is Wednesday today, 3 March 2010. So far, I discovered for myself in Colombia good coffee in the Juan Valdez chain, nice seafood dish called Cazuela de Mariscos, boca queso, blackberry milkshakes and freshly made lemonade. I’ve got a feeling there is much more to discover, but I am taking it slow- one step at the time. Too much excitement can kill and I am such a fragile girl.

Central America- January 2010

Here I come again with my road stories…

The month of January 2010 we spent mostly in Central America; a few days in Chiapas, Mexico, around a week of road tripping on the Yucatan Peninsula, still in Mexico, for a week we were indulging ourselves in Guatemala’s hot springs, lakes and coffee shops, 4days on El Salvadorian beaches, maybe 4 hours in Honduras but even that felt too long, 5days on beautiful Nicaraguan coast and on 1 Feb we crossed over to Costa Rica. The idea of this recki was to find some cool surfing beaches, where we could linger for a bit on our way back North. So far we found a couple of those- El Tunco in El Salvador and Playa Madera in Nicaragua. Hopefully, in Costa Rica there will be more.

Jan was good but it was not all peaches and cream. I couldn’t help feeling disappointed when I woke up on the Caribbean coast near Tulum and all I could see was developed for long kilometres beaches full of garbage. On the top of it, it was very windy hence chilly hence not really a swimming weather- so much for the hot tropical sea from the folders, heah. But it’s not like I had a bad time there- Mr Coffey and I hauled a bottle of Mezcal to the beach and worked on it till it was empty gossiping like schoolgirls on Friday nite sleepover; made me feel young again.

Guatemala was simply great and after reading all the travel advisory crap, it took us by surprise. Colourful, vibrant villages where people seem to live in tune with tradition, beautiful volcanic landscapes, great coffee and cakes, the food I tried was soooo good, that I wished I was a cow and had four stomachs. You know those groovy colourful blankets that they have in Mexico? I reckon that the Guatemalan blankets look even better. I still have a kick when I think that we bought one. I always wanted to have a blanket like this. Oh, yeah- last but not least, Guatemalan organic weed- maaaan… and I mean, maaaaaaaaan. It makes you incapable of any bad thoughts about yourself; no matter what you do, you just can’t go wrong. I bet this is all that their politicians smoke, because the same people have been screwing the country for decades.

The first day in El Salvador we found this fantastic surfing place in district of Libertad- El Tunco. It’s a laid back surf village, waves are just amazing and carry you so far that you actually don’t even need a board to have fun. And it’s cheap, cheap, cheap. After spending there a few days we were thinking that all the Salvadorian beaches were going to be as amazing. Having high hopes we arrived on the south coast of El Salvador where beaches were as disappointing as were the high prices and bogan residents. We spent the night on the gas station, squeezed in between two buses and a neon sign- still better option I thought; and the next morning we left the country.

And then came Honduras. We were made welcome to the country first thing on the boarder by a hospitable policeman, who was asking for different documents as long as found one we didn’t have, then took Mick’s passport and refused to give it back until somebody mentioned to us that $100 might make him change his mind or we have to return to El Salvador. The car in front of us with 4 Israeli managed to bring the bribe down to $50 but we didn’t want to pay. As I turned the car back to the bridge to El Salvador, for I had a plan how not to pay the Honduras bastards and still get into the country, there was a little commotion on the bridge (the Israeli squad in action) and while nobody was paying attention to us, I found myself holding our papers in one hand and reversing slowly the car from the bridge, back to Honduras. Later on, the Israeli did the impossible and got their money back from the Honduras police. And since we shared such a great experience together, we decided to share some more and team up for crossing Honduras having one objective in mind- to get out of there as soon as possible. It worked really well- whenever police stopped us and it was around 4 times, we all forgot the little Spanish we knew, played dumb smiling apologetically, magically grew in number and volume, looked cute and vulnerable or confident and unbreakable- whatever seemed to work. There wasn’t a shortage of effort on the side of Honduras police to pin us for whatever, safety triangle and extinguisher being among the favourite, but there was always something that made them let us go in the end without having to pay. We celebrated that nite in Nicaragua in a little beach town of Las Penitas, having dinner together, sipping Salvadorian vodka and Nicaraguan brew. Some two local kids were hanging out with us, trying to sell us some shells and checking out everything in our car. I made some funny deals that nite.

From Las Penitas we slowly rolled to Playa Las Cardones and even though we met there a cool family of local fisherman, we met them through their neighbour who invited us to stay at ‘his’ house and proved to be somewhat weird. He had some issues and didn’t deal very well with loneliness so he unloaded it all on us. Ouch! Language barrier wasn’t helping either. This could have been a great experience, but we left from there tired of our host and his confusing behaviour; but very fond of his neighbours, who were extremely hospitable, gave us some fresh fish for breakfast and were just a very cool couple.

After this full-on immersion in Nicaraguan culture we were after some more conventional tourist experience and we found it all 12km north of San Juan del Sur. When we arrived at Playa Madera, I could hardly imagine a destination that would be more desirable- a beautiful, quite beach with just enough interest from travellers to have a campsite with pit toilet under tamarind trees with direct access to the beach and a bar. Alleluia! We spent there 3 days hanging out with the fellow travellers, cooking and eating together, discussing our plans and experiences, just having a good time. I see there a potential for a fantastic month of surfing, some time in not too distant future.

On 1 Feb we crossed over to Costa Rica but I will leave it for another time.

My first year on the road

I’m writing this recollection of our first year on the road in hope it will prompt me to blog more often in the future, just to make it easier for you to remember how awesome I am. If you don’t need to be reminded, that’s even better. Either way, it’s kind of long so don’t feel like you have to read this.

Today it’s been a year since Mick and I hit the road. A year that has gone fast and furious and there was so much happening that it could easily fill up a few calendars. And all that happened seems like it was long time ago. Every place we visited became a separate stage- different vibe, different purpose; a different experience altogether. It feels like it hasn’t been one trip but many, one after another. And right now, all I know is what it means to be on the road; feels kind of cool, if you ask me.

We left Australia on 3 January 2009. Our first stop was Thailand. The arrival was a bit of a shocker as I had been too excited to plan anything beforehand and my strategy was based on blind faith that Mick knew what to do- he’d been there before. So we had a bit of an epic getting out of the airport with more luggage than we could carry and not enough know-how to avoid getting ripped off. But others than that, it was all good. Days in Bangkok went past on sampling its fantastic food and shopping on the markets. Then we took a train south. I liked travelling on trains in Thailand- very comfy beds and you get to see some cool countryside views. Beaches down south, Tonsai and Raily, were all about climbing and lazing around. I had a major mental struggle climbing there but luckily came around before we left and still enjoyed following Mick. Everybody who’s been to Tonsai knows that fruit shakes, bbq chicken and sticky rice with mango are the culinary highlights and living in a bamboo hut is just one of a kind experience; especially, when you also have your own hammock.
Altogether we spent in Thailand a month and even the nearly $100 fine for overstaying by 2 days didn’t spoil my good memories from there. Once more, it was good to have means in the absence of knowledge.

Second stop was Poland- only 2 weeks, but filled up tight with family and friend catch ups, which basically equals talking, drinking, eating and more drinking. It was pretty intense as there were so many people I wanted to see and so little time. I should have known better than scheduling such ridiculously short timeframe for visiting home after 3 years. A lesson learnt.

Our next stop was Canada. We arrived mid February, in the middle of moody winter which on regular basis swang its temperatures anywhere between +15 and -45 degrees of Celsius- not so good for skiing which was the main reason why we were there. We made our base at my godmother’s place on the outskirts of Calgary. The 3 months there we spent between working on the van we bought to fit it for camping (usually on weekends) and hanging out in the Bow valley, skiing in Sunshine Village, doing backcountry trips, soaking in hot tubs of Banff Centre, indoor climbing and zipping the awesome coffee in the Wild Flour cafe. Even though the backcountry conditions were kind of scary for unexperienced skiers like us, fitting the camper van in Canada turned into Mission Impossible3, and I lost a friendship, Mick and I also had a lot of fun together and it was great to get to know my godmother and her family.
But when the spring came, we were ready to hit the road- off to Alaska.

The Alaskan roadtrip lasted for 6 weeks. We spent the first week in British Columbia (BC), exploring its hot springs and beautiful landscapes and starting our bear count which by the end of the trip was somewhere in mid twenties. We got snowed in the middle of warm spring weather, our van stuck on the uphill forest road in mud and snow. Some beautiful people of BC helped us out and wouldn’t even accept any money, because this is what you do out there- you help each other. In the end, it turned into such a good experience. British Colombia is a very beautiful country.
In Prince Rupert we got on the Alaskan Ferry and our first stop was Juneau where we stayed 3 days. Their skiing resort was closed for the season but they didn’t mind people skiing there on their own. So we skinned up and from the top of their mountain we could see the ocean. It was the heaviest snow I have ever skied. Then there was this glacier we hiked to. Every so often a piece of sky-blue ice would break off and fall into the lake, so there were those blue icebergs floating all over the place. And the last day we did this hike through a beautiful spring forest along the coast full of hidden bays and pebble beaches; we started to meet those many people of Alaska who came in only for holidays and never left.
From Juneau the ferry took us over to Haynes. From there we continued our trip overland. I will remember Haynes for its magic trail to Seduction Point where we collected mussels at low tide and cooked them later in fire on the beach, we had our tent on this tiny peninsula overlooking 2 beaches in opposite directions at the same time and there was a sea otter that was checking us out from the water and the next day followed us along the trail. We met no people.
Then came Valdez where we just went for a little hike and marvelled the backcountry potential of surrounding mountains, especially the Thompson Pass. In Anchorage we just went off shopping gear, as you do when the price is right. Then it was a quickie to Homer but not much happened there as all the fun stuff was on the other side of the bay and prices to cross over by boat were a bit high, we thought.
Seward though had this really neat hike that we had to do in the middle of the night as the only time to get through the beach section was at low tide. At 4am we had to cross barefoot an ice-cold creek, along the way we saw some seals, otters and sea lions and at the sunrise we made fire on the beach and went to sleep on our thermarest mattresses. I think I got maybe 2 hours of sleep before three little sparkles melted holes in my bed- enough to say that sleeping on the stones was not the same… We had lunch in an abandoned Second World War fort and when the tide was low again early in the afternoon, we made our way back to town.
And then we went to Denali National Park- a 5 day wander in the pathless backcountry among bears, mammoths, caribous, moose (which we luckily didn’t meet) and the gophers (which made us move our camp, little bastards). Against the odds we had a fantastic weather and Denali with all its 20000 feet kept us company everywhere we went.
We drove in Alaska some pretty spectacular roads and met some really nice people. It took us a week to drive back from Denali through Yucon Territory back to Alberta; it is a long way but also they have some cool cities out there (Dawson City, White Horse) and of course the hot springs, of which Liard Hotsprings was my favouriteJ

The next stage was the US climbing trip. It started on 1 July, when we headed off from Calgary, and it finished end of October in Pheonix. We climbed in Squarmish in BC, Smith Rock in Oregon, Grand Tetons and Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, Boulder in Colorado, Mt Whitney, Tuolumne, Yosemite Valley and Joshua Tree in California, Red Rocks in Nevada, Moab and Indian Creek in Utah. We visited Yellowstone, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon, met up with Jen and Tash, and we climbed together for a month. A lot happened on the road. I found some beautiful places and met great people, you know, those who inspire you to live your life to the fullest. I had some highs and lows, normal everybody’s life stuff. But altogether things were simple. I like simplicity. All you had to worry about was a place to sleep, something to eat, what to climb today, when to climb it and an occasional phone call home. Our sleeping location ranged from the side of some noisy road to the top of the hill in the forest overlooking The Titons with everything in between, including Walmart parking lots, forest roads, desert and 2 weeks in the Yosemite campgrounds. As for cooking, I make mean goulash, not bad curries and stir-fries and nice fresh tomato spaghetti- cooking in just 2 pots you can’t go wrong.

Mexico was the last stage of our trip that happened during this first year on the road. Mexico is such a full-on, deep cultural experience that it takes years to fully understand it but already after these 2 months I appreciate it. Mick and I spent a week in the country with hardly any language and then took a month of Spanish in Guanajuato which made all the difference. Even though my Spanish now is really basic, I feel like I can communicate with people and express myself to some extent which is a fucking relief. In Mexico we visited Mexico City, climbed the volcano, Pico the Orizaba, spent a week on the Pacific beaches, visited some groovy ruins in Oaxaca, Teotihuacan and Palenque and cruised thru Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo- Golf of Mexico is flat as pancake and the Caribbean coast in Tulum was somewhat disappointing- resorts stretched for kilometres along the beach, crappiest road ever, lots of garbage and clouds and chilly wind so even though the water was clean and blue it didn’t tempt me to swim. But the prettiest sunrise I have ever seen and shooting tequila on the beach while talking bullshit with Mick- that was priceless. Altogether, I think I liked it there.
Now, what I liked best about Mexico was that people there when in doubt use common sense and everybody seems to take responsibility for their own actions. It gave me sense of freedom; it used to be like this in Poland, but now too often people hide behind often useless regulations. And I like how open people seem towards each other- simple and direct over vague and phoney totally works for me.

Where from here… I guess, we will slowly make our way south to Guatemala. Hopefully you will hear from me from there. Hopefully, my momentum theory will work and I will get to more regular rhythm of writing from the road. If not then talk to you again next year.