Extreme Sports

       It's been a bit since I've posted but it really is to much trouble to deal with.  I've borrowed a buddies laptop from Ireland and am begging for more time with it.  Here are some pics of the last few weeks.  I will post more on Facebook because it seems to run a lot faster. 

Sandboarding has serious consequences!!!

Sunset hike in Valley of the Moon, San Pedro de Atacama, Chili.

Rockclimbing wall in Cordoba, Argentina.  To easy!

Linda paragliding in Mendoza, Argentina!!!  Crazy best time of my life

We kept saying we needed some activity and we got it.  Today we toured the Bodega's of Mendoza and tasted some of the best Malbec in the world.  Oh...and we did it all on bikes!  Life is about to slow down as Linda leaves in 10 days and I head south to Patagonia for some serious trekking and camping.  I'm more than ready to leave the cities behind and get back to these incredible mountains and glaciers. 

More pics will be on Facebook so check it out.  More writing later when I really have time.  At least my journal is slowly filling up. 

Salar de Uyuni

       A four day journey through the salt flats of Uyuni, Bolivia.  They are the worlds largest stretching 6479 square miles.  Beyond that is tens of thousands of miles of volcanic minerals reaching as high as 15,000 feet.  I am going to let the pictures speak of the trip but there is one story to tell.
      

       The Toyota Landcruiser is arguably one of the best off road vehicle in the world.  Tough, reliable and durable under tremendous stress both from driver and terrain.  I have owned two myself and have never been disappointed.  You could even call me a bit of an enthusiast.  My old FJ55 was a 1971.  To this day it is my favorite car I´ve ever owned.

       You can imagine my excitement when we arrived via tourist bus to Uyuni, Bolivia only to discover that all the tours were taken by Landcruiser.  Although none dated back as far as my FJ55, many of the older ones were FJ60 and FJ62 which date back to 1989.  The newer cruisers (which we were in) were more luxury vehicles in the U.S.  The rounded body and high roofs lent themselves to the Baby Boomers and would comfortably seat 7-8 people fr family travel.  I have always laughed at these trucks thinking of them more as an expenisve mini-van than an actual off-road vehicle.  I couldn´t have been more wrong.

       Our driver, Raul, was a sort and capable man of few words.  I don´t think I ever saw him without his sunglasses on or without a fiendish grin on his face.  He was born to race to Baja 500, only he had no idea what that was.  He adorned a full body aviator suit every time he climbed onto the roof to load our gear and food supplies.  He was, I would say, a Bolivian bad-ass.

       Day two of our trip commenced at 8am with the usual bread, jelly and tea.  Raul loaded up the packs and hearded us into the truck.  Along with Linda and myself were four Irish guys on a break between school and the world of work.  They were cordial and polite, not at all like the other Irish we had met along the way.  Ny that I mean that they were mostly sober and a bit reserved.  We loved them and were fascinated by their shy nature.

       And that was how day two began.  I was a little tired and spinning from the constant climb in altitude.  Our average elevation was around 12,500 ft.  I´m not sure if I was daydreaming about U.S. comforts long gone or trying to take a picture but I was jarred by the sudden halt of te truck only ten miles outsdie of camp.  Even after only one day we had pretty much become accustomed to the violent rolling of washboard roads at 110 kph (68mph) which our calm but psychotic guide seemed to enjoy.  Even at times when an experienced driver might switch to Low Gear, Raul prefered gasoline and speed.  I prayed for his suspension system and tires.

       Why were we stopped?  Raul put the truck in park, lifted his sunglasses (for the first and only time) and turned around to look at me.  We had no common language with which to communicate but I understood at once what he was saying by his hand signals.  He pointed at me and began to turn his hands as if holding a steering wheel.  He wanted me to drive!

       In any other situation I think I would have paused for a moment to ask myself why.  But here we were, six travellers lost in world´s largest salt flat somewhere in the Bolivian desert and our dear Raul was handing command of the mother ship to me!  I was out of the truck and around to the driver´s side before he could tip his sunglasses back down.  He tried to expalin the gears but I already had the truck moving.  "Sesenta!  Sesenta, no mas!"  He would yell.  60 km per hour is only 37mph and I know good old Raul never travelled any slower than about 80 km.  He was trying to keep me honest.  I rolled the truck foward, excellerated and took my first really good look at the road ahead.

       If you´ve ever seen old animal trails you know that they diverge.  They branch off and splinter every hundred yards in multiple directions only to meander back to an original path.  This was no different.  I wondered about gaining speed when every minute a new road appeared.  I looked back at Raul, now sitting next to Linda, for some advice but his hand signals simply motioned me foward; he seemed not to care where I went.  As best I could tell Raul wanted me to go about 70 mles ahead and to the southeast of a mountain that shared a border with Bolivia and Chili.  That was at best an educated guess.  The Irish boys remained cautiously quiet and I decided to see what this truck could deliver.

       Before passing out on Linda´s shoulder Raul informed us that yesturday was his birthday and he was too tired to drive.  That would explain the music and playful groans of a woman we had heard late into the night before.  With that, he was asleep.  Linda said he stunk of booze.  Good for Raul!  Hate the player not the game.  If a man, in this vast desert, can get can a piece of ass, why not?  Who were we to judge?  Hit it and quit it from Bolivia to Chili!  Raul who was about to party, we salute you!  I think all the men (and maybe even Linda), were more than little jealous. 
       For now there was the road to think about, or lack there of.  By now we were beyond the salt flats.  Volcanic ash and dried mud from the rainy season formed deep grooves in the road.  I used these tracks from last season´s treks to find my direction the best I could. 

       In the far distance, up along the mountains and directly ahead, we noticed some lumps in the landscape.  We all agreed that it must be a town.  Road or not we were going to head towards it and see if we couldn´t buy some water.  On this decision Raul was quite passive and we took his snoring as a sign of agreement.  Tracks in the mud would veer off to the left and right but everything seemed to be taking us in that direction.  And it was none to early.  We needed our daily dose of Coke and Pringles.  The hearty were already talking about a noon glass of red wine and piece of bread.  I had long ago rolled down the window and started smoking, acting the part and demanding to be tipped in Bolivian Pesos for my role as tour guide.

       In hindsight I´m not sure if the road became more difficult or I just started to proceed with more caution because this group of buildings was definetly not a town.  A dozen or so oval structures took shape.  They were lined in a very organized fashion and had a short five foot wall encasing the entire area.  As I had never seen any round architecture before anywhere in South America (other than a church dome) I believed them to be tents.  In my mind this could only mean one thing.  Military.

       Up until this point we had been pretty jovial.  We snapped shots of Raul passed out and I swirved the truck west to east just to watch him sway in his sleep.  Bastard that he was, he remained asleep and stoic like an Incan stone artifact.  There was no denying what we were looking at though.  The road was even and I could tell it had been pushed to the side by a machine and grated.  The lack of rock made the tires quiet and the road took on an ominous sound.  White rock began lining either side of the road escorting us to a gate ahead.  Signs in Spanish gave directions but we had no idea what they said.  We did notice that they were not pedestrian in nature.  I felt as though we were entering area 51.  It´s one thing to see the familiar yellow signs with the sillhouette of a woman and child dashing across the road.  It´s another thing entirely when they have barbed wire, rifles and landmines on them.

       I reduced the speed of the Landcruiser to 30km and approached a clay hovel that had a decrepid wooden post blocking our way.  Along the mounside gypsm had been used to write the words Bolivian Militaria in giant script.  The Irish boys clutched their ipods and I could almost here U2´s Sunday Bloody Sunday coming from the earphones.  Linda was knudging Raul harder now but he was lost in the slumber of his birthday.  As the driver of precious cargo I tried to appear as though all was normal but I too, couldn´t mask my fear.

       Outside the gate were 3 young guards.  They couldn´t have been any older than eighteen and they all had Russian built AK47´s losely slung across their shoulders.  As I rolled the truck to a stop at the gate, I´m not sure what was noticed first, their amazement to see me driving or my fear of imprisionment and death.  The commander looked at me, then at the tour truck and back to me.  He furrowed his young brow; I could see this made no sense to him.  He may have tightened his grip on his rifle a bit when he motioned me closer.  I thought I was goig to be shot with only four Irish kids who loved the Beatles to bear witness.

       Linda knocked Raul so hard his head almost hit the window.  He didn´t need to raise his sunglasses for me to see the surprise on his face.  I think he dropped the pringles that had been nestled in his lap.  Feigning that all was as it should be Raul laughed, offered an hello and motioned the guard to the other side of the truck.  The guard wasn´t as confindent as Raul but he came around the back side to where the door had been opened.  Another guard took his place at my side and said nothing.
       It´s customary for guides to come upon check points or toll roads where they pay a fee which has already been included in our price.  They show ID, pay the money and off we all go.  This was a little different.  Raul fumbled around for his identification and then produced a rather large sum of cash.  He seemed a little out of sorts but cross cultural differences are hard to decipher.  Once the money had changed hands the tone of the entire scene altered.  The guards snickered at the fact that I was driving and made friendly eye contact.  A few even raised their hand in a welcoming gesture.
       The gate was lifted and we were allowed to pass through.  What exactly we crossed I´ll never know.  Raul laughed loud with a sense of new found ease, muttered something in Spanish and was back to his dreaming within minutes.  Not sure what to do, I kicked the truck into gear and proceeded towards Chili.  Not 3 miles down the road Raul woke and motioned for me to stop.  My day as a Bolivian Tour Guide was at an end.  Militia or no, I was sad to relinquish the wheel.

Here are pictures of Salar de Uyuni and the surrounding area:

      

    

uyuni - Create slideshow

La Paz

       La Paz.  With her dizzing off balance height, her whirlwind of traffic, people and vendors.  Her music never stops; locals and tourists alike delight in her sounds until the morning light is at arm´s length.  She is alluring like a woman engaged in an exotic and foreign dance and dangerous like a dark alley with to many encroaching shadows.  She takes your breath away.  Literally.  At 12,007 feet she sits as Inca once did overlooking her people, all the while grining at being the heighest city in the world.  
       As the locals sit selling their wares, chewing the medicinal and mythical coca leaf, tourists race like out of focus neon lights prepping their noses for the cheap cocaine.  La Paz is where you set your clock to noon so you know when to rise from a comotose slumber.  There is an old poem that says, ¨where the Inca shall find comfort and healing and prosperity from the coca leaf, the white man, when he attempts to let it enter his body, shall find only pain and his veins will run through his body in chaos.  He shall encounter only poison and a shattered mind.¨ That is a rough paraphrase but what an accurate prediction of the future.

       It is early today when I wake.  I sip on some coca tea that I bought from and exteremly kind mother who was selling on the street.  My head faintly pounds from the music and costumes of last night´s festivities.  I am toying with the idea of a brief walk down to the Witches Market where an exhilar for any aliment can be purchased.  Dried llama fetus´s hang everywhere.  When a new home is purchased they are burried in the front to wash the house clean and ward off evil spirits.  It is impossible not to stare at the tiny creatures, dried up with eyes wide open.  Such a brief moment they had in this world.  Their first breath was immediately followed by their last and in those eyes I see them screaming, ¨Wait!  I want to be a blessing in life before you make me a martyr in death.¨ Tiny forepaws that aren´t yet totally developed stretch up to cover their face rather than hang down to take a first step on dry soil and stumble to drink their mother´s milk.  I don´t know whether they are still born or untimely ripped from their mother´s womb.  I suspect the latter.  So hang the hundreds of MacDuff´s, killers of Macbeth just as the witches prophesied.
      My eyes wander over them, past the armadillos and charm braclets of animal claws and teeth.  Thousands of tiny viles filled with liquids and powders fill the stalls, promising to to cure everything from poor digestion to fertility.  I stop just for a moment to examine one witche´s brew a little closer.  It is enhance the size of a man´s member.  Hmmm....who couldn´t use an extra inch or two?  But the hag will not sell to foreigners and she cast an evil eye on me while I snap a photo and move on.
       I  stumbe and try to catch my breath on the steep cobblestone streets.  Around the corner is the famous black market.  Here in what consumes dozens of city blocks a person can buy anything from fabric to stereo equipment.  Tobacco, alcohol, toys, hardware supplies etc.  All of it seems neatly packaged and ready for Western consumption.  But it will never make the western shore.  Pirated, it now sells for pennies on the dollar in La Paz.  I had to pick up some Camel smokes since they were only four dollars for 10 packs!  I am amazed at the vast amount of toilets, faucets and piping s this whole continent seems to be void of any sort of septic system or sanitation.
       Tonight Linda and I have a ten hour bus ride that will herd us and hundreds of other weary travellors out of La Paz and south Uyuni where the world´s largest salt flats reside.  We will spend three quiet days in a Landcruiser touring southern Bolivia and camping in mud villages along the way.  It will be a welcome change to the disharmony of Bolivia´s capital.  I prefer the quiet open space and dirt roads of the country to the dazzling cities and throngs of local buses spewing out endless amounts of carbon minoxide.  When I go to wash my face and clean my nails, I like to know that I am washing simple soils rather than soot and exhaust fumes.


Adios La Paz.  Adios Boliva.
Estoy consados y debil con su enfermo.
Gracias para su casa y comida y personas,
Estoy caminando a la Sol.
Bienvendios Chili!

Oh Bolivia.

1-11-09

       It just occured to me to put the dates of when these were written because I don´t post them for days after. The sequence is European, day/month/year. It´s amazing how backwards the states are in everything. My fellow travelers look at me with glazed eyes when I tell them how many miles I´ve travelled or how high we are in feet. Why couldn´t King whoever have had a ten inch foot! We´d all be in the same page.

       Anyway...it´s 9:30 pm and Linda and I are rushing like mad lamas to make our bus from Cusco to Copacobana, Bolivia.  We have not travelled by bus yet but were quite accurate in assuming that it would be a mad house.  The station is cold and buzzing with an uncontrolled, incohearant level of noise and excitement.  We seem to be the only two travellers lost in its sea of irrational composition.  But when I slow down, breath deep and let the noise fade and the movement slow, I see another picture.  I begin to see the other scared faces speckled throughout the crowd;  travellers like us, who have no clue where they are supposed to be.  We are all clutching our packs, white knuckling it through the mass of locals, dogs, vendors and pick pockets trying to find our platform.

       Linda manages to find the right line and we make our way onto the bus.  One quick prayer for my luggage and on I go.  It´s now 10:50 and we were supposed to be on our way at ten.  We have learned not to be early now.  Licky for us our double decker bus is full of fellow nomads, weary and scared.  We feel safe enough to let our guard down and go to sleep, hoping that our day packs will be there under our seats when we awake.  The tempature drops to 50 degrees in the bus and now I am angry that I declined a blanket.  Such is life and the learning process begins.

       I am awoken to our caretaker hurrying us to get off the bus.  Peeking through the thin drapes, I peer out the window expecting to find the sleepy town of Copacobana on the shores of Lake Titicaca.  Instead I see desert.  Miles of dry and barren land in every direction.  Why are we being ushered off our bus?  Our bags are already on the dirt waiting for us.  One by one we gather our things and are directed to a very small bus, a van really.  It looks older than any Inca ruin I have seen but the motor is running so we get on.  Our driver takes us to the border of Peru and Bolivia and seems annoyed that he has to wait for me to get a Visa.  No other forgeiners need a Visa for Bolivia but since America declared a war on drugs (Bolivia´s number one export, and 80% of it to the U.S.A., this is how they responded).  Another 40 minutes to Lake Titicaca.  A small Bolivian boy and his father, who we squeezed in along the way, sit facing me and stare with faint interest at my skin and fair color.
       Finally we arrive and gather our belongings to begin a short hike up hill to our Hostel.  Copacobana is a quiet religious town thriving only because it sits next to Lake Titicaca.  The lake is a massive body of water at 3820m (12,532 feet) with two notable islands.  Isle del Sol is the birthplace of the sun in Incan mythology.  After staying one night in Copacobana we will take a two hour boat ride on the worlds highest navigable body of water and stay on the island. 

       At Copacobana near our hostel we found a local church that was built with a Moorish influence between 1605 and 1820.  The locals make long pilgrimages to see the monk who blesses them for health and prosperity.  I snuck a picture here while he was meditating (highly discouraged).  There is a chasm behind the church where for hundreds of years they light candles in hommage to the Virgin Mary.  Wax covers the floors and the walls are black with soot.  It is called Capilla de Vellos and if you ever visit, don´t miss it. 

       Linda and I will spend a quiet night here watching the sun dip over one of the world´s highest lakes.  We have no idea what to expect but have been told that for $5 U.S. we can get a room with a view of the lake.  We have to be willing to lug or packs up 200 meters of stairs but why not?  We are used to the abuse!

Vagabonding Life

It occurs to me now that I have always underestimated the value of toilet paper. It is unheard of in the public bathrooms and restaurants that I visit. I have learned to keep a stash readily available in my daypack and I´m finding that I use it more than anything else I have brought with me. And with a frequency that almost scares me.

To be caught without toilet paper can cause quite an emergency here. At a local market a man charged me .50 soles (.33 U.S.) to use the toilet. When I entered the tiny room I found it to be little more than a hole in the ground. No flushing required right? Looking around I found that there was no toilet paper. I left to find the kind man who had taken my money and inquire about my situation only to find him gone. Missing in action just like my toilet paper!

Moving on....what about mosquitos? We all hate them. They are tiny, fast and have an addicts taste for gringo blood. See my leg in this picture! That happened in about 30 seconds after changing into shorts at a patio cafe in Aguas Caliente, Peru. I ran my hand innocently down my leg to find it covered in blood. Twelve hours later my leg looked like this! Deet 100% is the common cologne for all smart travellers. Linda brought along a full body mosquito suit but I have yet to see her wear it.

Machu Picchu

Where to begin. This magnificient community was never mentioned in the records of the conquering Spanairds and its location was only known by the local Quechuas until 1911 when it is said that a small boy took an American historian by the name of Hiram Bingham up the now famous Inca Trail.
Today over 1000 people vistit the site daily in the high season and it is the undeniable gem of South America. My friend Linda Batista, who is with me for six weeks began the 33 mile trek with me just past Ollantaytambo at 8502 feet and had an easy six hour accent to the first camp 12km away. Our site was on a womans farm. Dogs and Burros followed us everywhere while the senora offered to sell us everything from water to Coke to Cusquena, the local Peruvian beer. After the porters had unpacked our gear they engaged in a game of futbol. Some of the braver Europeans joined in but were quickly put to shame. This seemed to be a great source of humor for the local children.
After watching the game for a bit I climbed up to a small peak that overlooked the valley below to wait for sunset. Some local children were playing in the dirt so I snapped a few photos of them for fun. When they noticed what I was doing they immediately ran over to see what I was up to. I showed them the pictures and they errupted in laughter and exclaimed, "Es Domingo! Es Rodrigo!" I don´t know if they had ever seen their own reflection before. I blew up a few balloons for them and wandered back down to my tent.




The next day was by far the most difficult. We climbed to 13,779 feet in a few short hours, besting what has come to be known as Dead Woman´s Pass. The air was thin and cold and the wind found every opportunity to invade our clothing, leaving us gasping for breath and freezing. In the excitement of our accomplishment we hardly seemed to notice.





Day three I took a turn for the worse. Lack of sleep and dehydration took hold and left me vomiting on the trail running for a bathroom (which there were none). Although it was sunny and easily 75 degrees, I was shivering with cold and sweating at the same time. Todays hike was relatively easy in terms of altitude gain but it was also an 8 mile stretch. Up until this point I had ussualy been in the lead and was almost always the first to arrive at rest points but now I had fallen behind just trying to get one foot to follow the other, slowly leading me through the jungle towards my tent where I might get some rest.




Wilfredo was our assistant guide and he stopped me and made me get on my knees. I watched with suspicion as took from his bag two small viles and mixed the contents together in his hands. Without warning he threw his hands up in my face and yelled for me to breath in. The stench was indescribable and I fell to the dirt vomiting. Then he took the top of my head in his hands and began to chant. Other trekers watched while Wilfredo commanded the sickness to leave my body and return to darker shadows in the jungle where the Puma hunts. By the next morning I was fine.

The fourth and final treking day our guide Yuves woke us at 3:30am for coca tea. In total darkness we began our climb towards the Sun Gate, the ancient entrance for the Incas into Machu Picchu. What a spectacle! As the sun blanketed the jungle, we could almost see the orchids tip their heads up. Rain water from the previous night evaporated into a mist and vines unravelled from tree trunks to dangle at our heads.

We had arrived. There are moments in life that seem to transcend time. Moments that take on a life of their own and become spiritual. Standing on Inca built terraces, looking down at the lost city, I had such a moment. Its grandeur and elequence defied the architectural technology of the time and it left me amazed and asking how? How did they manage to build such a complex system of irrigation, worship temples and terraces so high? Unlike almost every other major society in history, the Incas never engaged in slavery. Every citizen was expected to make a contribution and for that they were fed and kept safe. The Incas did not conquer surrounding tribes as much as they requested that they join and enjoy the fruits of the society. That said, no tribe was allowed to say no.

There is far to much to write about and my words can´t do it justice. I´m trying to get a slideshow up but these computers aren´t updated and nothing works correctly. Here are a few...

Machu Picchu - Create slideshows online