Chachani - 6075m!!!!!!!!

This is very long and boring so dont read this if your not interested in mountains, I just wrote it to remind me later on!

So I decided I had to conquer a mountain and Arequipa was the place to do it. The mountain was actually a volcano called Chachani, 6075m high, although the otherone called Misti looks a lot cooler, the guide cheekily made it seem as if the higher hill was easier, it was not!

The first day was fairly relaxed, after weeks of acclimatisation in La Paz and up to 5000m on the Salt Flats, a 2 hour climb from 5,000 to 5,300 was easy going. In fact, it gave me a little too much confidence considering I was unsure if ide make it with the old asthma, leg and hepatitus... The day of our climb to base camp another group of 10 had already tried for the summit and only 3 made it with similar results expected for our group. The group was mainly french speaking, a french couple, 4 swedish guys, 2 of whom over twice my age, an american, 2 Venezualans and myself. The french couple were cool, the guy had a similar crevass story to myself - Him and a freind fell part way down before stopping themselves with their snowboards, digging them into the edge of the ice cliff. They waited 3 hours holding on before they were spotted by some skiers on another mountain, an hour later the rescue team coaxed them into jumping onto the hanging rope ladder, wow. Im not sure how the fell exactly when snowboarding down to stop themselves with snowboards in their hands but it may have been lost in translation. His girlfriend was a 4rth year medic in france paying less than a 3rd of my tuition fees! Anyway, After arriving at base camp we set up our tents and gear, I shared with the american, Christian (not English Christian from Argentina and Machu Picchu etc) who was one of about 4 suffering from alititude sickness along with the french girl and the Venezualans. We ate an early supper of chicken and veg soup before heading to bed which didnt exactly go as planned. The tent and my sleeping bag wouldnt zip up at all so all entrances were open to the wind giving me a nice 4 hours or so to lie there freezing whilste watching Christian sleep like a baby.

At 1am we got up to start the ascent in the starlight which was just amazing. Putting on all our gear was a little difficult under a pathetic head tourch but some swiz fellas helped me out. The first thing I noticed was that the pace was brilliant, each burst was just about long enough to keep warm without getting puffed out...dont get me wrong, that was pretty slow but I think excusable when factoring in the altitude. After about 40 minutes we passed the rocks and entered the snowline where we took our first break to fit on the crampones and ice axes etc. At this point we lost the French girl who I thought was fine but the altitude really got to her. The Venezualans also pulled out here but Christian looked much better than the climb to base camp.

Shortly after putting on our gear we had to scale accross a near vertical cliff edge for an hour with no trail to walk accross, just a thin line of footprints carefully placed and ice axe holes next to broken prints where the odd person slipped. Luckily it was too dark to see the drop very cleary but at this point we had begun to see the lights of Arequipa below us, the second largest city in Peru. The next 4 hours we pretty dark and long with the pace considerably faster than most of us could manage so the only noise was heavy breathing and crunching through ice. As the sun rose it revealed our toughest stretch up to 5,900 from 5,300 (having gone up to 5,700 and back down in the hours before). It was this stretch that almost ruined my climb, I had a mild asthma attack which made it a hundred times harder than before, falling from the leading position to about 30 metres back from the main group with is much longer than you would expect at that hieght. When I eventually got to the top of the peak, the guide told me 3 more hours to go and my heart sank, I was certain I had to turn back but he told me there was no point, it would be harder than carrying on! 10 minutes further and I saw it, the peak! A small hill in the middle of a gigantic mountain sitting in front of me, my determination kicked in and the rest of the group cheered me on as they waited at the base taking their first break since hitting the ice about 5 or more hours before. I took a much needed break and we waited another 20 minutes for Christian and the one of the older swiss guys to catch up.

The last burst to the peak was easier than the peak before because I´d had my first drink of water and a few nuts, it took about an hour but I made it to the summit! The view was incredible, the whole of Arequipa and the top of the neighbouring volcanoes including the active volcano Misti. We took some photos and just stood laughing for about 20 minutes before heading down, most of the group had made despite a couple of guys feeling very sick.

The way down was horrendous! My crampone broke metres from the summit which was "fixed" with elastic from my trousers. Every few steps it came off which for the first hour wasnt such a problem, once I reached the near vertical cliff the guides had no idea what to do. They agreed it was too dangerous for me to continue but might a not funny joke about the lack of a helicopter service in Peru. Crap. One guide followed me for about 20 minutes before leaving me on my own to catch up with the main group, everybody was completely out of sight and everytime I lifting my one foot witht he crompone I slipped a little, plunging the axe into the ice to prevent a 1000m drop. Christian came back for me when he saw the second guide pass him, realising I was alone and tried to create more of a track for me to cross but it didnt help too much. We both eventually arrived in base camp about 20 minutes behind the rest having been 2 hours behind when I finished crossing the cliff edge.

After another 45 minutes to the pick up point and packing up all the gear I finished the 12 hours of solid climbing, having conquered my mountain, woohoo!!!!!

Cruising the dunes with a board and a buggy...

We didn´t go to Cusco in the end, we decided to go to a place called Ica, and then on to a tiny town called Huacachima which is an Oasis in the middle of a sand desert. There are giant sand dunes surrounding the town which is all situated around a little lagoon. We got off the bus at 8am and went to grab some breakfast in Ica before heading to the mummy museum, it was full off shrunken heads and perfectly preserved bodies that still had ears and hair. They also had a miniture version of the Nazca lines, old drawings in the sand which you are supposed to fly over to get a good view... bit expensive for us so this was a nice alternative. We then got a taxi into Huacachima and booked into a hostel which gave us a discount for booking a sandboarding tour with them. The sandboarding involves a rollercoaster Dune buggy ride up to the top of the dunes where you sandboard (imagine snowboarding but on sand and with dodgy wooden boards and velcro straps) down and get picked up in the buggy again to take you to another dune. If you get bored of the traditional method it was way more fun to lie on the boards and go down on your front, this will all great until Drew got sand in his eyes and I managed to take a chunk of flesh out of my hand. Covered in sand and knackered by the end we watched the sunset over the dunes, it was pretty awesome, the sand dunes all turn pink just before the sun goes down. After that, headlights on we went for another crazy buggy ride before we were dropped back at our hostel. The next day we spent the morning in the small town chilling out in the hostel´s hammocks and walking round the lagoon before heading off to Ica again to catch our bus to Cusco where we had arranged to meet up with the big Bolivia group to do Machu Picchu. The morning was made interesting by two giant tortoises first fighting over lettice and then mating continuously for a few hours, it was quite painfully slow but very funny. (videos to follow).
We arrived in Cusco an afternoon before everyone else and productively slept for the majority of it. We found a relatively cheap hostel, the only downfall the disgusting smell of sewage, we checked out early the next morning and got ourselves a room in Loki, Cusco´s party hostel where we were meeting everyone else. This day was spent as productively as the last, after the morning spent hanging around to get our room, breakfast and a shower, we all decided to look around the city, this got us as far as the main square and a nearby restaurant. It was Georgie´s last night so we hit Cusco´s night life and got free drinks to last us through, this was great fun until 4am when the repetitive spanish songs got too much for us and we headed back. Monday was spent Machu Picchu tour shopping, another unproductive activity as after a few agencies we headed back to Loki and booked it through the tour agency there...

Peru

We arrived in Copacabana early evening, then had to spend quite a while searching for a hostel as most places were taken over by nationals ready to celebrate their national holiday. The town was completely packed out, stalls selling food drink and souveniers everywhere. It was quite a good night but the music went on till the early hours of the morning so we didn{t get much sleep. The next day we spent the morning looking at the town in daylight before getting a bus across to Peru that afternoon. We arrived in Puno at about 4pm and literally had just enough time to dump our stuff in a hostel before we were hearded straight out onto a tour of the floating islands on lake Titicaca. The floating islands were pretty amazing but very cold, they are made intirely from reeds and there were about 60 floating about. Their houses, beds, tables, boats, everything was made from the reeds and they let us look around. Their way of making money was to sell handicrafts to the tourists and when we arrived they were so happy to see us, all waving and smiling. We had booked the tour and hostel on the bus on the way there, we got quite a good deal on both of those but also booked a bus to take us to Arequipa the next morning, that was not quite such a good deal! The man said the bus left at 8 30 so we got a taxi to the bus station at 8 only to find that not only had we paid pretty much double for our tickets, but the bus had left at 8 and they wouldn{t put us on the next bus. Drew was feeling pretty ill at this point and I was left trying to explain to the tourist police (who were on our side) what had happened, he eventually got us a deal which meant we only had to pay one more fair rather than two but it was still an expensive journey! We arrived in Arequipa eary evening and looked around the city, its really beautiful with lovely colonial buildings, our hostel has a rooftop seating area which looks out over the whole city and the mountains, one of which Drew is currently climbing. I decided to stay in the city for the extra two days instead as there is alot to see and its really warm here which makes a change. Today i visited a monestry dating back to the early 1500s, its massive and they call it a city inside a city, it took me two hours to walk round the whole thing. It has little cobbled streets and bright flowers everywhere. Drew gets back tomorrow and i think we are going to get a bus to Cuzco tomorrow night.

Drunken ride with a deadly drop...

We managed to get our room in Loki hostel and it did turn out to be alot of fun, it has its own bar which is pretty cheap and is full of travellers. We met up with Christian and Richard, the guys we were travelling with in Sucre, and decided to go out with them that night. This was probably not the best plan as later that day we booked to go on Death Road with a company called Xtreme, we paid less than half the amount of Gravity which is the advised company with all the safety equiptment, 60quid though and we paid 25! The night out was fun, the next morning was not! We had to get up at 6 and drive up to the starting point of 4700m, we were both feeling pretty sick and the 3 other girls from our hostel who went with us were pretty glad they didn´t go out too. They gave us jackets and trousers to put over our clothes, and we got gloves and helmets so it was all safe enough. The bikes were in ok condition, not brilliant though and the brakes were not what I had hoped for. We started off on a practice run down a tarmac road which was a hell of alot safer than Death Road itself except there were quite a few cars who came round the corners a bit too quickly. It was strange as there was snow at the top of the mountain, yet when we had finished the ride it was warm jungle. At the top of Death Road we asked if there were many cars, our guide said no, two minutes later a car came speeding past us and down the mountain! The road was a dirt track, stupidly bumpy with a 1000m drop to our left. At one point we rode under a waterfall which was pretty amazing except the road was alot more slippery there and the drop to our left was just as big! After about 10 minutes all of our hands were stiff from holding the brakes non stop and our bums were seriously bruised from all the bumping. We rode past alot of graves on the way down, one for a bus crash which had killed 70 people and alot from bikers high on adrenaline. There was a cross in memory of an English biker who had died on the road in May this year, they had put up a couple of wooden bars across the place where he had fallen, to be honest I don´t think they will stop anyone else doing the same thing there. We finished the ride at 1100m in blazing sunshine, the views down the whole of the road were amazing (when you were brave enough to take your eyes off the road) but by the end we were all pretty tired.When we reached the bottom of the road and were taken by minibus to a hotel in Coroico and allowed showers before an awesome buffet lunch. We then headed back up Death Road in the minibus to La Paz. After the night before me and Drew were feeling pretty terrible, mountain biking apparently doesn´t cure hangovers, so 6pm and we went straight to bed. We have spent the past two days doing not alot in La Paz, I´m still not bored of the markets and there is an awesome Arabic restaurant with really cheap food which we have been to pretty much everyday. The market food is also really cheap and good, you can get a ball of mash potato with meat and onions in the middle for about 9p so we havn´t been spending too much while we have been here. Tomorrow we are off to Copacabana, a town on the bank of lake Titicaca. There is an island that you can go and visit from there which sounds quite cool, its quite small so you can walk from one side to the other and apparently the views are amazing. After that... PERU

Jungle Time

We spent one day in La Paz before booking our 20 hour dodgy bus ride Rurrenabaque, the town nearest to the jungle tours. We had heard some pretty bad things about the bus before hand but the only other option was to fly for 50quid so we decided to risk the bus as it only cost us 6. The bus set off 3 hours late, Bolivian timing is not up to Western standards, however, when the bus actually turned up it looked as if it had been dragged out of a lake and shoved on the road. They opened the door and water spilled out, the whole bus was dripping wet including our seats which had been double booked as it was so we ended up having to argue our way into different seats that they were reluctant to give us. Anyway we eventually set off up the mountain only to find that we were in fact at the top of Death road and were going to head down it in this soaking wet bus. At least the views were amazing! Our driver also seemed to have a death wish, instead of driving on the right away from the 1000m drop he decided to be gentalmanly and try to kill us by letting cars pass on the inside. 10 hours in and our bus broke down on the sketchy road and we spent a good two hours changing a few tyres and getting the engine to work again. We eventually arrived in Rurrenabaque and got mobbed by touts trying to sell us their pampas tour deals, we had met a group of 6 Irish guys on the coach and they gave us a pretty good deal for our group of 8. We set of an hour later after no sleep and covered in dust on the way to the river to begin our tour. The river was about 3 hours drive away and 10 of us crammed into a tiny jeep in the boiling heat (actually quite a nice change from the bitter cold of La Paz). About an hour into that and we broke down again and sat on the dusty road in the heat for another half an hour while our driver come mecanic fixed the jeep. We eventually arrived at the river and all piled into our little boat to go down the river to our accomodation, we got an animal tour on the way which was amazing within minutes we had seen at least 5 aligators and so many birds. On the way we went passed dolphins and turtles, fed some monkeys, and watched capybaras eat green leaves (yes dad its actually true). Our accomodation was little jungles huts set by the river with a watchtower to see the sunset, we also had a resident aligator called Fred who was semi friendly and Drew kind of stroked him. The next morning was possibly one of the worst of my life, a 3 hour anaconda search through knee high stinking sludge. After 2 and a half hours of no snakes our guide eventually dragged one out of the bushes and proceeded to wave it in our faces, a few people got to hold it, including Drew, until one guy let go of its head and it bit two people and was dropped on the ground way too close to me, the guy then picked it up again came towards me and put it right next to my feet, I don´t think I have ever been so scared in my life!!! Anyway, we eventually made it back to the boat through the disgusting mud and went back to the hut for lunch. The afternoon was amazing and definately made up for the morning, we went a bit down the river and swam with pink dolphins, they brushed passed our feet and were so close to us. It was a little bit disturbing as 100m away were aligators and crocodiles. The next morning we got up at 5 to see the sunrise and listen to all of the animals waking up. After breakfast we went pirranah fishing, our group caught 6 (4 caught by the guide) but neither me or Drew caught anything. It was quite cool though because they then cooked up our fish for lunch. After that we headed back down the river, into the jeep for a 4 hour journey back this time (flat tyre, again). We stayed in Rurrenabaque for a night before the 20 hour bus journey the next day back to La Paz. The town was quite cool, built pretty much just for tourists and they served some good and very strong cocktails. We are back in La Paz now, back to the cold and trying to get ourselves a room in Loki hostel, pretty much backpackers central with cheap alcohol and nice dorms. Was a bit strange as yesterday morning after getting off the bus staying at our hostel was this girl Jess who was at Toggs with us, small world, who new Bolivia was the place to be this summer? Think we are going to try and book to do Death Road for tomorow, this time on bikes, apparently on average there is only(lol) one death a year, they didn´t mention who many injuries though....

Drunken vomit, baby poo and Sucre

We decided to head out of Uyuni the next morning, we needed to get back to a warmer climate before our fingers fell off. That night we headed out to the only generater lit restaurant in town to get us some pizza. An hour of waiting and they finialy gave us menus, another hour and we got drinks, yet another hour and two of the people we were with got some pizza... half an hour on, apparently that was all that we ordered and we wern't getting anymore. Alot of fuss later and two more pizzas arrive, by this point we were so fed up we stayed just long enough to eat it before heading back to the hostel. The next morning we went to the terminal to get our bus to Sucre, a nice one turns up going to the same place but we are told we are not allowed to get on it and have to wait for another one. A clanky old thing arrives and we have to throw our bags up onto the roof before getting on. It's half 9 in the morning and there is a drunk local infront of us... great! 10 mins into our 14 hour journey and he is puking. We drive for about 5 minutes longer and run out of petrol, the bus now rolls down a dodgy mountain road and back to the petrol station before we continue on the journey. About half an hour later pukey is at it again this time all over my shoes and our rucksack, gross!! The little kid who doesn't get a seat is lying on the puke covered floor eating peanuts a la puke.... nice. His mother then proceeds to suffocate him with a plastic bag until he nearly collapses, she finds this hilarious! A little kid sitting a few seats away then craps himself stinking out the whole bus... not the best journey we have ever had.
We get to Potosi, the highest city in the world, pretty cool but we get about a 5minute view of it before we are hearded onto the next bus where we don't get seats... brilliant! Half an hour in and a few people get off so we can sit down, we met some cool english people on the bus called Christian and Richard. We got accomodation together and spent the next few days exploring the city with them, it was a pretty expensive place to stay though so we left after 2 days and arrived in La Paz this morning after a freezing 12 hour bus ride. We did get an all you can eat pancake breakfast at our hostel when we arrived though!

Riders on the Storm

After Vilazon we got on a bumpy crowded bus to Tupiza, the next town up on the way to Uyuni and the saltflats. After the bus we were pretty knackered and crossed the road from the terminal so the cheapest and most run down hostel we have probably stayed in so far, the whole thing stunk of pee. We were planning to buy a train ticket from there the next morning, but after being about 70th in the queue at the station we got to the front to find that the tickets had all sold out and the next train wasnt for 3 days! There were tours leaving from Tupiza, however, slightly more expensive and for 4days instead of 3 but we decided it was probably worth it as Tupiza wasn't the most exciting of towns to stick around in for so long. We stayed in a really cheap and nice hostel that night with the hottest shower so far, our door didn't have a handle though so when se shut it we realised we couldn't get out of the room and had to shout for a good 20mins before someone came to let us out with a pair of scissors.
The next morning we left on our salt flat tour with two Danish guys who were called, Jon and Peter, they were pretty funny and we were glad not to be put with some stuck up Frenchies who were leaving at the same time in a different jeep. We drove out of the town for about an hour before we came to an amazing canyon about 3500m up, you could see for miles over all the mountains it was really incredable. The roads were pretty sketchy though and there were a few time when we were sure we were going over the edge down a 1000m drop. Next stop was around 4000m up for lunch in a field of llamas, after chasing them and looking at their poo piles (they all crap in the same place then sleep on massive piles of their own shit) we decided to run up a near by hill, half way up and not used to the altitude we had to take a break before reaching the top. Then lunch, sandwiches and tamales (meat and corn mash wraped in corn leaves) was pretty good and definately raised the expectations for the rest of the meals...
We stayed in a really local and sweet little village that night, when we got there we decided to climb up another hill to look over at the surrounding, nearly at the top we found a little cave full of sheep with pink wool tags in their ears, we climbed in passed the poo piles to take some photos before climbing to the top of the hill. Dinner that night was a disappointment, hot-yes, salty-yes, edible-not so much. It gets dark at about 6 30 so after a few rounds of cards we were all in bed at about 9, ready for our 5am start, ouch! The next morning we drove for about an hour until we got to old Spanish ruins dating from about 1500, we stopped there to take photos and watch the sunrise. That day was probably the best of the whole trip, we entered into one of the Bolivian national parks and saw all of the lagoons, there were some hot springs to swim in if we wanted, I didn't but Drew and Peter decided to brave the bitter wind and get into the water. After that lunch and then on to Lagoona Verde, one of the most picturesque sights we have ever seen, the water is so green and behind it is a huge volcano, behind that, Chile. Apparently the water gets to around -55 without freezing. After another couple of hours drive we reached some geezers 5000m up in the mountains. They were increadble but by this point the wind was picking up so it was hard to stay outside for long. That night we stayed in some very rickety accomodation with a straw roof so full of holes that we could see the stars. It was freezing! We didn't realise at the time but we were also in the middle of a hurracane, the wind was so strong that night that all of the jeeps car alarms were set off at various intervals in the night, no sleep for us. The next day we didn't get to see alot as the wind was so strong all of the sand and dust was flying everywhere making it impossible to get out of the car. We did at one point to see some flamingoes braving the cold in a red lagoon, we didn't stay outside long, Peter could lean back into the wind and it would hold him up. After a dusty lunch sheltering behind rocks we were off again through the sand storm and on to our accomodation, that night a hotel made out of salt bricks, the floor was completely covered in salt and it was quite a bit warmer than the previous nights accomodation. However, the food seemed to have been made out of the walls, we got salt with a bit of broccoli and some canned meat. The table next to us had lasagne and red wine, we were seriously unimpressed and went very hungry!
The fourth day was another 5am start to see the sunrise over the saltflats. That was amazing and we spent hours taking some awesome perspective photographs. We had breakfast by an island made of coral and covered in cacti. There were little gray kittens running about and one climbed into my hood and slept there while i ate breakfast. After some more photos of the saltflats, and getting chased by an angry bolivian because we climbed on his salt piles, we had an 11 o'clock salty lunch and were dropped into Uyuni. It had been a good 4days without a shower so we deliberately picked and payed extra for a hotel with hot water. Turns out the hurracane had wiped out all electricity here and there was no hot water, stinky us!

Drew's tainted experience

Well.... Tupiza was really cool, cactisus were cool, hugged a fair few. The Salt flat tour itself was incredible but throwing up during a hurricane was a little bit strange, especially as there was no electricity to work my way to the toilet with a mouthful of regurgitated salt...tasty. Also, in my salty state, a managed to destroy the danes at their own card game rendering Peter an arsehole, reigning as King till the next day when they acted together in an act of treason to reduce me to the arsehole. I hope they feel good, picking on the guy with Hepatitus E. On the plus side, I have an awesome yellowy tan and I've heard people pay a lot for yellow contact lenses. But that aside, the tour was incredible and I managed to get out into the cold enough times, 15 seconds and you're shaking, Abi enjoyed the experience from the jeep most times, a wiser choice. 3 days without food and on a salt flat kind of screws with your perspective, everything looks a few meters away but takes half a days drive to reach, im certain I made it 500 miles before nearly blacking out, maybe a couple of metres, who knows. O yea, we found an Alpacca graveyard which was really cool, thousands of alpacca bones piled together. Too many cool things to write about, definately a life experience!!! A cold, salty, alpaccery life experience!!!