Backpacking

Roraima is one of the most interesting treks in South America and one that Eden has wanted to do since last year. It is the highest of the table-top mountains in southern Venezuela, and was the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World".

The tepuis (table-top mountains) are among the oldest rocks on earth and were formed before Africa separated from South America. Because the tops of the mountains are isolated from the Grand Savannah below, a large number of endemic plants have adapted to this environment and exist nowhere else. They are a kind of "Galapagos Islands" in the middle of a continent. The fact that most of the tepuis are unclimbable, due to 1000m cliffs, has enticed travellers and locals alike. The indigenous Pimon people believe that Roraima was a great tree that their ancestors fell in order to get its fruit. A large volume of water sprung from the trunk and flooded the land. When the water subsided all that was left was this huge stump (and it actually looks like a stump if you have a bit of an imagination). Some of the most interresting species on top are the carnivorous plants and black frogs that are more similar to frogs in Africa than those in South America.

While the trail to the top of the mountain is easy to follow, the top is a maze of eroded rocks, boggy areas and the shifting clouds make things disorrientating. For this reason most tourists go on a guided tour.

We began our trip at a small town nearby, and set off after a quick lunch. The path was through rolling grassland, and around 2pm it started to pour. The sky was dark and beautiful. Two hours later we arrived at camp in soggy boots and wet underwear but our raincovers had saved everything else. We quickly set up our tent and then hung up our clothes to dry.

The Gran Sabanna is very hot and dry and by 9am it was already 35C. We forded two rivers, stopping for a swim at the second and then a 2 hour siesta after lunch on the way to "base" camp. Given the temperature, it didn't take long for our boots to dry out.

The third day we began our ascent of Roraima up "the ramp". At first the mountain appears unclimbable, but a British expedition discovered this route in the 19th century. However, the jungle was so thick at the time that they were unable to get close enough to verify this. It wasn't until a large part of the jungle was burned (accidently by the Pimon) some 50 years later that the first two Westerners climbed to the top of the mountain. This was the hardest day, with an ascent of over 1200m. The top of the mountain is shaped by wind and rain into various shapes. Very little of it can be considered flat. One of the most prominent rocks is shaped like a car and is easily recognized from below. The two nights on the top we stayed at one of the "hotels". These are large rock overhangs large enough to accomodate several tents.

The fourth day we explored the tepui climbing the car, swimming in the jacuzzis (cold pools with quartz crystals on the bottom), and some other areas. The fifth day we went back to our first camp site. The sand flies and mosquitos were bad this day and we had a lot of distance to cover. And the sixth day we walked the final 12km back to where the Landcruisers were waiting for us with lunch and cold beer

Excellent trek, excellent people, 50km logged, 5 more nights in a tent. To date over 800km trekked and 70 nights in our tent.

Here we are in Brazil! We have covered A LOT of ground since we last wrote. I have tried to keep things brief. The people in Brazil have been extremely friendly -moreso than in any other place we have visited. One problem, however -neither Josh nor I speak any Portuguese! Just when we were getting pretty comfortable with Spanish, we cross the border and BAM! We are deaf and dumb again. Written Portuguese is similar to Spanish but the pronunciation is something else! It sounds like how a child speaks when they are pretending to speak a language they do not know.

At the border between Venezuela and Brazil, we were kindly offered a ride to the nearest city, Boa Vista, by a man working in the customs office. The trip was supposed to take about 4 hours because the road is so pot-holely, but our driver, drove an average of 160 km/hr with a maximum of 200km/hr!! This was while he was swerving to avoid pot holes and telling us about all the people smuggling cheap gas from Venezuela whose cars expolde like bombs if they are in an accident! Great! I cut my thumb while frantically digging under the back seat searching for the seat belt. It had been removed! Luckily, Josh had a belt in the front seat.

We arrived safely in Boa Vista and hopped a night bus to Manaus. Manaus is a large city in the middle of the jungle on the Amazon River. It was a really rich place during the rubber boom and has some beautiful colonial buildings and a grand opera house. What is even more amazing is that everything in Manaus -all the building supplies, food etc. is sent via the Amazon River. There are no roads connecting it to the coast.

From Manaus we went on a 4-day excursion into the Amazon Jungle. There we went pirranha fishing, saw fresh water dolphins, monkeys, caiman (alligators) and sloths and spent two nights sleeping in hammocks in the jungle. It was a lot of fun and we emerged from the jungle VERY dirty and covered with mosquito bites...and some sort of rash that could not be identified. Signs of a successful trip!!

After our nights in the jungle, we decided we hadn't had enough nights in hammocks so we boarded a boat headed for Belem, on the coast. The trip is at least 4 nights to Belem but we decided to break up the trip and stay in Santa Rem, a town half way that has a beautiful amazon beach. Unfortunately, when we got to Santa Rem, we were informed that the next boat to Belem wouldn't be for about a week, so we had to leave that day for Belem. The boat ride itself was pretty uneventful. There were about 100 passengers, mostly locals, and we all hung our hammocks together on the middle deck. It was really cramped so the old lady beside me kept kicking me all night from her hammock and the baby beside Josh kept sprawling on him -the baby also kept pooping her underwear and crying. I guess her mother though she was toilet trained, but she obviously was not! I'm not sure how often children usually poop in one day, but this one was a pro. The Amazon River is so big and wide that for the most part, you don't really see much besides water -except for the odd dolphin. At one point our boat broke down so we were marooned in a little town for about a day before we set out again. The most interesting part of the trip was when our boat went through some narrow passages. Natives from the jungle heard the boat and came out in their canoes -even really tiny kids were manuevering their canoes through the wake of the boat! Passengers from our boat threw plastic bags of food, clothes or whatever to the natives and they quickly paddled around to collect them. A couple people even threw a hooks from their canoes to our boat and hitched a free ride. It was a very special experience.

We arrived in Belem and spent a couple of days exploring the city. It also has a lot of old, colonial architecture and quite a bit of charm. It was so hot that we tried to find some respite in a couple of botanical gardens. The gardens were beautiful, but it was still about 40 degrees and humid! The port area was very interesting and we bought mangoes in the market and ate them while listening to a live band.

From Belem, we headed to São Luis. It is another historical city with amazing colonial buildings. Most of them, however, are in some form of disrepair or completely decrepit and inhabited by stray cats! It is still quite beautiful though to see these grand buildings being swallowed up by time and the tropical climate. The near-by Island of Alcantara was much the same but had fewer people and a real "ghost town" feel.

From São Luis we headed to Natal to hit the beach. We stayed in a suburb called Ponto Negro which has a nice beach with HUGE dunes! We spent a day jumping in the waves and then headed south to Praia de Pipa. Pipa is an old hippie town so it is very laid back. The beaches are beautiful too! We spent three days there playing in the water, swimming with dolphins, walking on the beach and eating mangoes. From Pipa we headed further south to another couple of beaches, south of Recife, at Porto de Galinhas (port of chickens!). Here they had natural coral pools in the ocean that you could snorkel around and of course, beautiful aqua-blue water. From there we headed south to Maceio and, you guessed it-another beach, Praia do Gunga. Gunga is amazing and is exactly how you picture an idyllic, tropical paradise in your head -complete with chilled coconuts to sip from.

We thought after all that beach time, we needed a bit more culture, so on to Salvador! Salvador has a very strong African culture. Many, many slaves were brought there from all over Africa and they have kept some of their own traditions, religions and have, of course, modified them to suit the Brazilian environment. The streets are busy with artists, musicians, dancing and food/beer vendors. Very interesting were the capoeira (sp?) performances. Capoeira is a martial art that is performed as more of an extremely aerobic dance between two people. It looks like break dancing with lots of head stands, spins and high kicks. Amazing!

From Salvador we are making our way to Rio de Janeiro. The bus ride is about 30+ hours so we have stopped half way at Porto Seguro for a day of beach. Tomorrow we hop another long bus all the way to Rio.

After descending from the chilly Andes, we decided that we needed some time in the sun. Unfortunately, coastal fog covers nearly the whole Pacific coast of the continent for much of the year. The exception is Mancora, which for some reason has year-round sun. We shacked up in a cheap hotel $13 with a pool (yay) and took surf lessons the second day. It wasn't too difficult, but that's because our instructors had on flippers and were giving us a good push. When we rented (smaller boards, the only available) in the afternoon, things weren't as successful.

So the next day we switched to boogie boards, the waves were much larger, and we had more fun. Other than enjoying the beach all we did was eat lots of fresh seafood--including ceviche (fish cooked in lemon juice).

We then headed to Guayaquil, Ecuador to book a Galapagos cruise. In the three days before our flight (to the Galapagos) we went to Puerto Lopez where we were able to see humpback whales. They come up here to mate every year and the males breach over and over again to impress the females. It was awesome.

Click on the whale photo to go to our flickr site. We have the Galapagos photos there but haven't had the time to write about it yet.

We've been lugging around most of our trekking gear for the past two months with one destination in mind, the Cordillera Blanca. In an area 150km long and only 20km wide it contains 22 6,000m peaks and 50-something peaks over 5,700m. In comparison only three peaks in North America are over 5,700m--Mt. McKinley (6,194m), Mt. Logan (5,956m), and Mt. Orizaba, Mexico (5700m). The area attracts serious mountaineers (think ice axes and crampons) along with trekkers who spend anywhere from a few days to several weeks in the valleys and up and over passes ranging from 4,600 to 5,000m.

We arrived in Huaraz on the night bus from Lima and spent two days acclimatizing in town drinking french press fair-trade, organic coffee by the litre, and eating apple pie and reading magazines at the lovely Cafe Andino. The third day we headed up to The Way Inn at 3700m to further acclimatize and do a couple day treks before heading out for the 4-day, 50-km Santa Cruz trek. After catching the local minibus (combi) to the closest town, we walked for about 2-hrs to the lodge and set up our tent. With some daylight hours still remaining, we made a dash up to Laguna Churup--a 5 hr return trip and most popular day hike from Huaraz. Unfortunately we weren't fully acclimatized and got headaches on the way up to the lake at 4450m. After returning to the lodge Eden vomited and started shivering and we took a taxi back down to Huaraz.

Altitude sickness is a serious danger in the mountains so we spent two more days deliberating whether we wanted to do the Santa Cruz trek while acclimatizing at our favourite cafe.

Deciding to do the trek, we set out early in the morning catching a combi to Caraz, 90 minutes away. From there we got a shared taxi to the trailhead at Cashabamba and were on the trail by 10AM. The first day of the trek was relatively unimpressive. The trail was quite degraded from organized trekking parties and their donkey trains (we counted 15 donkeys and 1 horse for one group of 8 trekkers. I don't know why people would need so much equipment and are so lazy that most don't even carry a day pack.) Because of the steep valley walls, only brown/black dry mountains were visible until we arrived at the first campsite, Llamacorral, at 2PM. This is where the trekking agency groups camp and was full of donkey poop so we decided to go onto the next camp an hour away.

The second day we woke up reasonably early but didn't leave camp until 9:30. It was an easy hour and a half to a river junction where we had some snacks before climbing up the steep switchbacks on the way to the Alpamayo base camp. The views from here were stunning. We then turned around and cut across a traverse to the second campsite at Taulipampa. This site was beautiful. Surrounded by glaciated peaks. Again, however, there was lots of mess from the organized trekking groups.

The third day we climbed up to the Punta Union pass at 4760m with relative ease. It wasn't nearly as difficult for me as our 5000m passes on the Ausangate trek and I was carrying far more for this trek. We then continued down the trail for 5 hours to the campsite at Huaripampa.

The following morning we woke up early, walked for 3.5 hours to Vaqueria and caught one of the minibuses back to Yungay.

It's nice to be back in Peru. As chaotic as it is, it is still more chilled than Bolivia.

From La Paz, Bolivia, Josh and I headed to Puno, Peru. Puno is right on the shore of Lake Titicaca. One of the main attractions there, besides the lake itself, are the floating Uros Islands of the Uro people. This indigenous group many years ago were in constant threat of Incan attacks, not to mention the Spanish later on. They had always used tortora reeds for making boats but they decided, to be safe, they would make huge floating reed islands, far from the shores of Lake Titicaca, and live on them. They have lived that way since then even though there are no "pure" Uros left. Every year they pile new reeds on top of their islands as the ones on the bottom rot away.

The Islands were so interesting to visit. Walking on them was soft and springy. The children there will probably never experience a scraped knee! Many Islands contained just one extended family and they rely heavily on tourist dollars now for survival. Many inhabitants sell handicrafts and rides in their reed boats and the children sing songs for tips and candy.

After Puno, we headed to Arequipa for a second time. It is a nice city where you can buy a huge plate of Chinese food for just over a dollar! That wasn't our main reason for returning, however. We wanted to hike in the Colca Canyon -2nd deepest canyon in the world and more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States! Our trek was only three days in total. The first day we hiked deep into the canyon and slept in a small village. The villagers grow lots of fruit that cannot be grown outside of the canyon because of the altitude and colder climate. The second day we hiked to the bottom of the canyon to a glorious oasis! We swam and relaxed in the sun -but only until about 3:30pm-afterwhich the sun disappeared behind the canyon walls! That night, we left the oasis at about 3am to start the long hike UP and OUT of the canyon! We got to the top in time to watch the sunrise. After that, we took a bus to a part of the canyon (Cruz del Condor) where we watched the huge condors playing in the up-drafts from the canyon. It was amazing how close the condors came to us while soaring by.

From Arequipa, we headed to Ica and then the near-by oasis of Huacachina. It is a relatively small oasis completely surrounded by HUGE sand dunes. We spent a couple of lazy days there hanging out by the pool and walking on the dunes. It was such a nice change from the cold weather we were used to. After a couple of days, we headed back to Ica and took a boat tour around the Ballesta Islands. There we saw tons of birds, including Humboldt penguins and pellicans, and lots of sea lions relaxing in the sun. It was a great tour of what is also referred to as the "poor man's Galapagos".

Needing to keep on keeping on, we headed for Lima. Winter in Lima means coastal fog! Even though it is only about 9 degrees from the equator, it was a cool 15-18 degrees during the day and foggy foggy foggy! It was strange to be in a desert that was so muggy! We enjoyed our time there and basically just pigged out the whole time. Because we hadn't had North American food for a while and figuring we wont be in a big, international city like that for another long while, we justified our binge. We ate at Pizza Hut, had massive sandwiches at TGI Friday's, ribs at Tony Roma's and Cinnabons for lunch! We left with our arteries a little more clogged and a few pounds heavier but happily satiated by American food