TUESDAY - THE LAST POST

Well, this is it – the last post for our fantastic adventure. It's just as well that it's the last post because I seem to have managed to leave the charger for my laptop in La Paz so, when the battery's dead, that will be that.

When we looked at our program for Santiago, they had us doing a city tour yesterday and today. I assumed that there were two different city tours but there aren't. It was a mysterious mistake so, instead of a second city tour, we did a group coach tour to Val Paraiso today, a coastal town about an hour and a half drive west of Santiago.

 

The water temperature in summer is 16 to 18 degrees and the sea lions like it. There is a swimming beach complete with lifeguards but there were only two people in the water. They were obviously very keen to have a swim There is nothing attractive about the beach or the water. The sand is very coarse. The town is also the port for Santiago with cargo ships in abundance.

 

The attraction of Val Paraiso is that it is Chile's second biggest city after Santiago and one half of the country's population live between Santiago and Val Paraiso. Part of it is also World heritage listed by Unesco because of its unique construction. The town is built on 42 hills with many of the very old houses being built on impossibly steep slopes. It is another town where you would have to be really fit to navigate the sets of steps which pass for streets in the town.

 

Tomorrow we get aboard our favourite accommodation/restaurant, a QF business class cabin and head for home. It's our favourite accommodation because, being in it means that we are heading away or heading home. We are delighted to be travelling either way.

MONDAY MORNING – BACK TO CIVILIZATION

We are back in beautiful civilized Santiago where everything is neat and tidy and the road rules are obeyed.

Yesterday was a waiting day. We waited for the car to collect us from the hotel. He had to park on the wrong side of the road between the stalls to pick us up, but at least he was on time and got us to the airport through the chaotic traffic very efficiently.

We waited at the airport for the check in counter to open. Then we waited in a different part of the airport for the immigration counter to open. Then we waited for the boarding call. Then we waited while the crew dealt with a medical issue with one of the passengers but the flight itself was fine.

We came to Santiago via Iquique which is a coastal town in the northern part of Chile. It looks like a desert towm located on a narrow strip of land between the ocean and the steeply rising mountains immediately behind. There we had to collect our luggage, go through immigration and customs and then hand our luggage back to go back on the aircraft, but, as usual, the arrangements worked perfectly in that there was a driver and guide waiting for us when we got to Santiago at about 11:00pm to bring us to the hotel.

Later today, we will be doing a city tour and we may try and do a day tour tomorrow before heading home on Wednesday.

SATURDAY – A RESTFUL DAY IN LA PAZ

Today we farewelled our guide Reni. The tour is over and he is heading back to Cusco for his next assignment. He was great value. Unfortunately, Trish is still affected by altitude sickness. She is OK as long as she doesn't exert herself but, when she walks up hills, she becomes unwell. It is very difficult to avoid hills here.

 

 

Thinking that she was OK, we set out this morning to find the red cable car. It's bottom station is about 10 to 15 minutes walk from here but, it is uphill. To her credit, Trish made it and we paid our three Bolivanos (about 50 cents) for a ticket and set off up the mountain.

The small vertical silver thing you can see embedded in the cliff to the left of centre in the picture above is a car which ran off the road above and careered down the cliff side. The picture below shows the car. The registration number written on the side of the car at the rear indicates that it was a taxi. History does not relate what happened to the occupants but it would not have been a happy ending.  

 

 

Tomorrow, we head for the low warm city of Santiago. Had we understood the impact of altitude sickness, we would have arranged to spend less time here.

FRIDAY – LA PAS – REDEEMING ITSELF

Yesterday we saw the negative aspects of Bolivia as we came into La Pas but today we saw its redeeming features. Even the market stalls outside our window don't appear as unruly as they appeared yesterday and the roads seem to be easier to navigate.

We started the day with a walking orientation tour of the city in the vicinity of our hotel. What is the feature of this area are the numerous stalls that are set up on the sides of the roads. Somehow the traffic and the pedestrians get through. There is an complex several blocks down the hill from us which consists of hundreds of market stalls selling everything you could possibly need.

One of the streets we explored is the oldest street in the town, only wide enough for pedestrians and consisting of heritage listed houses which can't be significantly altered or demolished. Note the suburban area spreading up the mountain in the background.

 

After the walking tour, we were collected by a van and taken to Moon Valley. The soil around Le Pas, including that on the sides of the very high mountains surrounding it consists of sandy clay which erodes like large drip castles thereby creating areas like Moon Valley. It also means that, in the right conditions, there is significant risk of landslides on the outskirts of the city.

In heading for Moon Valley, we saw a completely different Le Pas, a modern orderly city with wide streets, defined traffic lanes and traffic lights that people obey.

We were also able to use the most efficient public transport system one could devise for a city with the topographical challenges that Le Pas has - cable cars. There are a number with more being planned designed for use by commuters to get vehicles off the congested streets. We rode the green one as distinct from the yellow one or the red one which service different areas.

Tomorrow our Amazon and Inca tour officially ends and on Sunday, we head back to Santiago for a few days before heading for home. We have had a mostly fantastic experience but it will be good to get home.

THURSDAY – BOLIVIA – WHAT A DUMP

Hopefully our view of Bolivia will improve over the next day or so but, at this stage, the only thing welcoming about Bolivia is the sign. Unfortunately Trish's altitude sickness returned and we had to survive a three hour ordeal in queues to cross the border from Peru to Bolivia. On both sides of the border, they had a hopelessly inadequate number of processing personnel for the number of people wanting to cross.

 

Having survived the border crossing, we then went to he Tiwanaku archaeological site. Unfortunately we weren't in the most positive of moods so probably didn't do it justice. What made it different to the many others we have seen are the remains of the seven level pyramid which was built in pre Inca times.

The drive into La Paz was incredible. We have seen some pretty untidy towns in our travels but we drove through the stand out in untidy towns as we approached the city. Viacha would be about a 30 minute drive from La Paz if it wasn't for the traffic. It is effectively on the outskirts of suburban La Paz and the airport from which we fly out is located there but it is a complete mess in every sense of the word - traffic, buildings and the road system.

 

Our hotel is located in central La Paz, a remarkable city which s located in the base of a giant bowl but the roads are narrow and there are no traffic lights or indeed no rules. To compound the congestion, the roads around and in front of the hotel have stalls on both sides which means that cars and pedestrians are competing for the same space. The only word is chaos.

We have been left wondering why Peregrine brings its tour here. Hopefully something will happen tomorrow which might improve our view of the place.

WEDNESDAY – LAKE TITICACA

 When we arrived at Puno last night, it was raining, miserable and cold so we weren't sure what today would bring but it brought perfect weather for our day cruise on the lake. We didn't need the many layers of clothing we wore.

There are a fleet of boats which could best be described as floating buses and we spent the day on one with a guide John.

Our first stop and the undoubted highlight of the day was time spent on the floating reed islands of Uros. They are floating islands of which there are about 90 made of reeds on which people live in houses they construct, again from reeds. The islands are spongy to walk on but there is apparently three metres of floating reed structure on which everything else is constructed. The islands have a life of approximately 20 years after which they need to be abandoned and a new island constructed. There is no shortage of fresh water but the only power they have is what they can store in batteries from solar panels.

The people are wonderfully friendly and have developed an industry being visited by and entertaining tourists. They dressed us up in their traditional clothes and, as silly as we looked, it was a bit of fun.

 

 

They also took us for a ride in their traditional reed vessel. We later learnt that, to give the vessels a longer life, they are now built on a platform of used plastic bottles to give them greater buoyancy than they had when they were simply made of reeds.

 

 

It has become necessary to develop the tourist industry because their traditional life style of fishing is no longer viable. Of the 43 species which used to inhabit the lake, only three remain. The rest have been wiped out by trout and kingfish which were introduced.

They have schools and a church on the floating island. The one we visited had the community kindergarten located on it. It's hard to imagine how they live on the islands with babies and toddlers but they do.

 

From there, we went to Taqui Island where the inhabitants maintain a traditional lifestyle. There are no vehicles of any kind and anything which needs to be brought to the island has to be carried by hand up the very steep hills. The lake looks very much like the Mediterranean but, of course, it is all fresh water. It is so large that it feels that you are looking at the ocean. The water stretches to the horizon. Apparently there is a pollution problem but we saw no evidence of that.

 

 

Tomorrow, we visit our last country, Bolivia. Should be fun.

TUESDAY – ON THE ROAD AGAIN

After having a rest day in Cusco yesterday where the only event of interest was the inspection of the Inca Museum, we spent today on the road in a luxury coach and are now at Puno.

 

We had several stops along the way including the Pucara archaeological site above but the highlight of the day was the brief stop we had at the highest point being 4335 metres above sea level. At Puno, we have dropped down to 3827 metres, a little above Cusco which was 3400. Fortunately we have not had any recurrence of altitude sickness.

 

 

We are in a quaint but comfortable motel overlooking Lake Titicaca, apparently the highest navigable lake in the world. Note the two gum trees in the photo. Tomorrow, we will be spending the day on the lake. At this altitude, the weather is quite cool so some of our Antarctic gear might have to come out.

On Wednesday, we head into Bolivia for the last few days of this part of our adventure.

SUNDAY – MACHU PICCHI

 

Well it was everything it was described as being – truly spectacular. We got up at 4:00 am to be on one of the first buses to leave from Aqua Calientes and were succcessful in being close to the head of the queue. We were at the entrance to Machu Picchu, again close to the front of the queue shortly before 6:00am.

The only way to Machu Picchi is by bus from Aqua Calientes (or a several hour walk up the mountain range) and the only way to Aqua Calientes is by train from Ollantaytambo. There is no road access. Everything, including the buses used to transport people up the mountain, has to come in by train. The bus system is very efficient. I don't know how many buses they have but buses just keep coming and leave as soon as they are full. A large number of people can be transported up the steep curving mountain road in a very short time. The picture above shows a bus crossing the bridge before starting the climb. The photo below shows the train

 

Fortunately the complex is very large so, while there are an enormous number of people visiting the complex, we did not find any area particularly crowded.

 

We now know that the complex was being built around 1450 and abandoned during the second half of the 16^th century but it was never lost in that it was occasionally visited by local farmers. It attracted the attention of a Professor Hiram Bingham in 1911. The Peruvian government has been promoting conservation and research since the 1930's and the railway which opened it up for mass tourism was built in 1949.

 

The photo above shows the road winding its way up the mountain. The complex is truly worthy of its World Heritage listing.

We had a two hour guided tour with Jay. Reni had very cleverly arranged for us to meet him at the Guard House which is the building at the top of the photo above being the highest point of the main complex so all we had to do was to climb the hundreds of steps to get there and it was all down hill from there. There are outlying parts of the complex that you can walk/climb to including the Sun Gate, The Inca Bridge and the very high Wayna Picchu pictured in the background below but we didn't see the need to do any of those. What we did was sufficiently spectacular. We are now back in Cusco until tomorrow when we head for Puno.

The photo below is our delightful little tour group.

 

A humming bird felt the need to pose for us.

 

 

Llamas have free run of the site.

There has been a small amount of earthquake damage. We are told that this occurred prior to the restoration of the site.