Last I communicated I was spending about 2 weeks relaxing in BA, staying with my friends ... I had a grand time there, people here are super hospitable and I also barely spoke English during my stay, getting to know the locals much better than the gringos, a nice change of pace for this part of the trip.
La Boca... part of Buenos Aires
The last night in BA I actually met up with Jennifer, a girl I hiked with in Patagonia, and it involved way too much alcohol and too little sleep, a tradeof when spending time with travelers that dont have to get up at a specific time the next morning. I left for Foz de Iguazu (largest waterfalls in the world, as big as the niagra falls, with gorgeous tropical backdrop!)....
Part of the falls...
The big momma!!
Everything s big here.. even the ants!!
The park...
I spent again more time there than anticipated...probably simply since the longer you travel, the slower you go, seeing new places becomes less important than just being out there and experiencing different cultures. Argentina is first rate and dirt-cheap, and the travellers and hostel staff just made me stay a few extra days... since it was low season there, there were about 5-7 staff members and not many more guests, Yamila, was so kind to show me the area around town and exercise the large knowledge she had aquired during tourism school... an offer too good to say no to.
I did have a pain to catch for Australia in three weeks time, so I traversed Paraguay pretty quickly and ended up flying to La Paz instead of taking the 50h, horrifying sleeper bus that travelers had warned me about... I m sure it would have been a good experience :)
Arriving in
After a few hours of checking out the possibilities it was all set, get acclimatized very fast (I really only had 48 h at 3500 meters, then was to ascend to 5200 meters for one night, and get the peak at 6088 meters the next day at dawn.....) Acclimatization isnt that hard for me, so I spent the good part of the day drinking tons of water and mate de coca, and getting my stuff ready for the trip. There was a great bit of anticipation in me, I had been above 5000 meters, but only over passes, and as we were climbing Huayana Potosi, and there was a 70 degree glacier right at the end, ice climbing at 6000 meters could not to be taken lightly. I got my gear, and since Marc, the second person coming along, felt stomach sick, I agreed to additionally carry our tent, which gave me a hefty 25-30 kg backpack that I needed to carry from the base at 4600 meters to the basecamp at 5200 meters.
Finally up there, after stunning views of the peak-to-climb, we put up the tent, ate dinner at 4 pm, and went to sleep at 5pm. Well we laid in the sleeping bag until midnight, sleep never came at that altitude and additionally there was a mean wind blowing, sounding like our tent was about to fly away with us in it! At
Uppedy up....
Roger over 6000m on top of Huaina Potosi...
After another 5 hours of descent we arrived in la paz later this afternoon, i pretty much went to bed right away (again at 5, only this time no 2 minutes needed to fall asleep!) and slept until my alarm clock woke me at 6 am.
I had another mission! Montainbiking down the worlds most dangerous road (150 deaths each year on a 65 km strech from La Paz cumbre (4700m) to Coroico (1500m). Nope, i dont have a death wish, but this is the road to the jungle in bolivia, and as i didnt want to fly both ways i decided biking down is safer than taking a bus with some sleep-deprived, drunken driver.
The day started as well as it ended... I had a great breakfast, got my material (a brand new trek bike with disc brakes), and found out i was the only one doing the trip, along came a bike guide and a driver (to bring my bags and food, etc...). Crazy, all that, 2 guys for a full day, a car, 2 first class mountainbikes and hearty breakfast and lunch (at a hotel-buffet!), cost me 40 US dollars, I do not know how these guys can still make money off of that, really!!
Being an avid mountainbiker i told my guide to give it what he got and not worry about me, i would be able to follow. I was happy to find that I was still in good enough shape and though we were careful at dangerous places (there are dozens of indications of fellow travellers with bikes or buses crased and died along the way) We made the trip in about 2.5 h instead of 6-7 as advertised, good for me, more fun, good for the guide/driver, much shorter work day.
A day later i took the overnight bus to rurrenabaque, down to the jungle in bolivia, this ride was absolutely NOTING for the faint of heart, they call that the easier part of the bus ride down into the jungle, but the Bus was on such a small, rutted road and was going at full speed into curves where I, at the end of the bus, sometimes saw nothing but the Jungle 1000 meters below,.... i arrived at 8.15 in the morning after a pretty unconfortable ride but decided as i was sweaty and dirty i may as well go into the junlge (actually called a pampa tour) for the three days, and as a group was leaving right at 8.30, i was able to save some time that i may need later to get back toSantiago....
For the next three days I was in a group with our guide, Einar the pampas man (great guide that grew up in the pampas and obviously knew every anymal that ever lived there), and an irish and american couple. After a four hour drive to the river, we proceeded to the middle of the pampa by a boat for another four hours, and started seeing the most amazing animals... many birds, some of the most colorful ones I have ever seen, a capibara (the worlds largest rodent, size of a grown pig but looks just like a rat :), crocodiles, aligators, river dolphins, and turtles. We swam with the dolpins, in the river that could not have been more brown, visibility 1 inch, not kidding you. Feels a bit weird swimming in a river with dolphins when alligators are all around, however the guide absolutely swore to us that no alligator comes close to the dolphins.. they swim in large groups and would bite a predator such as the alligator to death. God I believed so much on these travels!
Whats for dinner??
Minus two alligators...
Group foto with the anaconda...
Slimy...
Scary...
And here it goes again, Roger is just a bit too accident prone this trip, but i cant help it!! Roger's close encounter with death #3, last but not least. We discovered a very large turtle nest while cruising down river, and right then the fled out of fear. We knew we had disturbed it and needed to cover its nest so that the vultures would not devour the eggs. Einar asked who wanted to come on shore with him and sure enough I said yes, as always, just a little to eager to try everything. As we were doing this I must have stepped on a beehive. Within seconds there were several dozen bees hoovering all around me and kept attacking and stinging me.... what a nightmare!! Noone else nearby got stung, even though hundreds of bees surrounded us, I had disturbed the peace and I had to pay for it. With my shirt off I kept slapping around as much as I could, but got stung a lot my head, on my face, pretty much wherever i could not reach. Our guide fortunately was quick enough and screamed at everyone to get into the boat, and drove that thing as fast as he could down the river, they threw blankets over me until finally all the bees were gone. According to the guide, who was VERY freaked out, these killer bees can smell you at large distances, he had seen a friend of his get stung literally 150 times, spending 3 weeks in the hospital). I started to take out the stingers, I got stung "only" about 20 times, and as I am not allergic i just took an antihistamine and smeared toothpaste all over the areas, apperently it helps! I was totally dead that night, could barely move, joints were aching, heart war racing, may have been the histamine, the bees or just the adrenaline rush.....
The rest of the trip though I survived quite well, barely got stung by the millions of mosquitos, and had a blast looking for crocs, alligators, and found TWO anacondas!! The second anaconda we tracked down was almost 3 meters in length and it was just great seeing one of those in nature....
After that exciting outing in the jungle I flew to la paz in a military airplane, then made my way to Arica (northern chile), took another 30 h busride, man i am sick of those, and now i am awaiting my flight to new zealand in a few hours. South America has been phantastic, sure will not be the last time I have come here... but now I am looking forward to English speaking, English food (outch!) and 1st world tourism.. bring on New Zealand and Australia!!
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