Well, just over 2 weeks has passed since my
last post, and it all seems a bit of a blur!
From leaving India, arriving in London, 3 days catching up with everyone
including Christmas Markets, Covent Garden, Christmas lunch and accommodation
courtesy of Casa d’Bromy (muchos gracias guys!), 29 hours travel to get to
Puerto Maldonado four planes later to meet Pete and Andy, 5 minutes at the
hostel before heading out for a 5 day Amazon jungle tour, plus of course
Christmas and soon to be New Years, it’s been quite a couple of weeks!
So, that’s the overview, now for the
detail. The trip from London was
mega! 9 hours to New York, where I had to disembark, go through
customs, get my bag, and then recheck in, go back through customs again, and
then get back on the plane to Lima! No,
not the same plane, but nonetheless – clearly the US don’t trust the UK’s
customs checks! Then it was onto Lima
where I was really hoping I would sleep, but sadly nothing doing, so I had
plenty of time to practice my Spanish – which despite great intentions for the
long haul travel in India with CD’s downloaded and notes printed, nothing had
been touched so it was now cram time. It
helped that I was being schooled by a super-hot Chilean guy, I’m not going to
lie! From Lima it was another transfer
to eventually meet up with Pete and Andy who I was meant to be meeting in Lima, but they’d heard there wasn’t much
there so had made other plans. I had
been told that my pack would go all the way through to Puerto Maldanado, but
thankfully we had to walk past the luggage turn-style to go through customs in
Lima, and even more thankfully I decided to just double check my bag wasn’t on
there, which it turned out it was!
Lucky, lucky! So from Lima to
Cuzco, and lastly Cuzco to Puerto Maldanado on the eastern border of Peru I
finally made it to the hostel, excited ‘Hola’s’ with Pete and Andy and Pete’s
mate Jason who had joined them, I was told that we were off to the jungle
immediately! Here I was hoping for a
quiet catch up, maybe a beer, and a whole lot of sleep; what eventuated was a 5
minute turn-around where I was allowed to change my clothes, go to the bathroom
and get some cash, and we were on our way to the jungle by boat down the
Amazon. Dazed and confused I blindly
followed them onto the boat, and the adventure began!
On making to our jungle accommodation we
were told we had an hour to chill and then we were off on a night-walk. She who never sleeps during the day begged
off to bed for a grand total of 40 minutes, awoken far too soon by Andy to get
ready for then walk. I really can’t
remember what we saw I was so exhausted, although I do remember the tarantula
that our guide proceeded to poke with a stick to try and make him come further
out of his hidey-hole in a tree. Pete
and then eventually I also had a go, and our hilarious guide Estoban grabbed my
leg from behind and making me scream to high heaven – that part I do
remember! No sympathy for the tired
girl!
The following day, after a very early
night, it was up at 6.30am for a 6 hour trek through the jungle. The scenery was immensely beautiful, and
although possibly a little light on wildlife our guide was very knowledgeable
and interesting, so it was great nonetheless.
One of the highlights were Pete and I eating termites – you can put your
finger in their nest and they will rebuild it in a couple of ours the efficient
wee things, and if you are ever lost in the jungle you will be pleased to know
that you can eat them – they taste woody!
Another highlight was on seeing a snake, watching Estoban chase after it
and catch it with his bare hands!
Six hours later, having eaten some awful
jungle fruit, one basically like eating a lemon, the other like sweet
nothingness, and we were back to our lodge with a small bit of down-time before
we were off to stay overnight fully in the jungle tent-styles so that we could
get up at 4.30am to go to the claylicks where parrots go to feed. Then it was a spot of fishing where we caught
approximately nothing (the boat driver caught one fish that was too small to
keep), all before breakfast! After
another fascinating walk where we were explained many medicinal uses for the
different flora and fauna in the jungle, and at the boys’ absolute insistence
we threw lines down in a swamp that was meant to have good fish to see if
anything would bite. This turned out
even more disastrous than our first attempt, after about 40 minutes of pretty
much no bites, to everyone’s horror Andy pulled up a turtle! Thankfully, we think he had just latched onto
the bait and not actually got hooked, and after swinging him round for a bit
not knowing what to do, she eventually lowered him back to the water and then
the line was free.
The following morning, slightly worse for
wear after a few and then a few more beers with Pete and Estoban, we were back
in the boat to return to Puerto Maldonado from where we would head to a
beautiful lake home to amazing and massive otters! The weather was pretty shoddy, and got
progressively worse on our hour or so walk to get to the lake and the
boat. It was, of course, once we got to
the boat and into the open lake when the rain really kicked in. We seemed to be the only ones on the massive
lake, the only ones silly enough to be on a boat surrounded by water in almost
torrential downpour. It seemed the
animals were also not silly enough to be braving the elements, and after a
couple of hours of paddling in circles with not an otter in sight, it was time
to call it a day and accept that the otters had gotten one over us.
After hot showers all around it was time
for dinner and was meant to be our ‘final Amazon night’ celebrations. Unfortunately after food the party atmosphere
that was meant to be cranking was somewhat missing, in the others, who decided
to defer the party night for the following night - Jason’s last night. As Estoban had come to meet us specially, I
braved the elements and went out for a drink with him, where after bar hopping
for a little bit we ended up in a cute little place playing live local music
with dancers, which was pretty cool.
With the tour having ended, the following
day we were left to our own devices to explore Puerto Maldonado – a very quaint
and cute little town full of colour and atmosphere and local charm. After lunch we got a taxi out to a place that
was meant to have a swimming pool and water slides as well as a lake. Unfortunately the pool was empty, but the
lake was not, so it was beers, cards and a quiet lake paddle to pass the rest
of the afternoon.
On returning to our hostel we had a quick
turn-around to change and eat before meeting Estoban again for the real “last
night festivities”. We were already
pretty “well-oiled” from the lake, so it was game on! Dinner, bar complete with swings, karaoke
including a particularly special rendition of “My Way”, then to a club and
finally back to our hostel where someone produced Whiskey whilst lying in
hammocks, it was only when the hostel owners eventually kicked us into our
rooms about 4.30am that the party finally ceased. It would be fair to say that when the alarm
went off at 8am the following morning for us to endure a ten hour bus-ride
enroute to Cuzco that it were clear the festivities had taken its toll. It also became clear that just rocking up to
a bus station having not booked tickets is not the smartest way to travel, but
thankfully we managed to find an agency with a bus going our way and managed to
book the last 3 seats on the bus!
Testament to how Andy and I were feeling,
when on arrival at our hostel “Eco-packers” (in name only) we were offered a
free Pisco Sour we very promptly turned it down. Pete didn’t quite have it in him! The following day was Christmas Eve, the main
Christmas celebration in Peru. After a
day’s exploring the town of Cuzco including Christmas
Markets, santa hat and all, it was time to get our Christmas party on! We had visited the supermercardo for some
pre-drinks to try not to completely blow the budget, and I had some perfectly
drinkable £1.70 Malbec which got transferred into Pete’s water thermos and was
my companion for the night. After a
series of misses with a couple of mates Pete and Andy had met in their travels,
we resigned ourselves to the fact that we weren’t going to find them, walked
around for a bit in fairly average weather, and eventually ended up back at our
hostel. Pete and I were most
disappointed the live band playing wouldn’t let us do a rendition of Metallica
– we’d gone to get laptops to ensure we nailed the lyrics and everything!
The following day again was not spent in
100% condition. A lot of hungover bodies
mooched around the hostel, ours included, and it could have been any other day
of the year which was a bit odd. I
worked most of the day, Pete faffed on his laptop, Andy watched Dexter on their
Nexus – not an ounce of Christmas spirit between us. We managed to get through the day, and at 9pm
it was time to head to the bus station to endure another 10 hour bus ride, this
one heading to Copacabana in Bolivia.
Unfortunately I got basically no sleep on the journey, and by the time
we got to Puno 7 hours into the trip where we needed to switch buses I was
feeling dreadful. As the hours passed
and international borders were crossed, I was going downhill at a fairly rapid
clip, and by the time we arrived I was nigh on green and struggling to make
myself move. We managed to book our trip
to Isla del Sol the following day – an ancient and important landmark in Incan
history, on Lake TIticaca, the world’s highest altitude lake – as well as our
bus the following day learning from experience, and whilst payment was
happening with me sprawling on the agencies couch, I bolted for the door and
proceeded to throw up all over the pavement outside! Classy!!
With the payment made, Pete and Andy were kind enough to go hostel
hunting whilst I retreated back to the agencies couch, and thankfully we ended
up staying across the road from where we were.
Disappointingly I was incapacitated for the rest of the day and stayed
in bed while Pete and Andy went to explore and eat. Deciding it was altitude sickness they
returned with some pills from the pharmacy, and thankfully the next day I was
well enough to make the 2 hour boat journey and 6 hour trek to explore Isla del
Sol. To add to the fun for the first
hour the weather was pretty soggy, but happily turned better the second half
and we were actually able to appreciate some ‘Sol’ (sun in Spanish).
After the return journey of the slowest
boat ride in history – it would have been a close race versus my swimming the
distance - it was across to the bus station, this time enroute to the beautiful
La Paz, the Bolivian capital, and thankfully only a 4 hour trip. The ride was uneventful except for one
Bolivian quirk where we needed to all get off the bus for it to get on a “bus
ferry” (using the term very loosely!), whilst we were all jetted across in a
speed boat. It wasn’t too long after
that we were checking into another hostel – Adventure Brew – and for the 2nd
time in a week on being offered a free beer we turned it down! The following day was all about finding a
company in order to do “Death Road” – named “the most dangerous road in the
world” (TWMDR) due to it’s famed statistic of having had more deaths on it than
any other road on the planet! So why not
mountain-bike down it, right? No uphills
to climb, just 64km straight down!
Yahoo!! Once we’d managed to book
that and our salt flat tour in Uyuni for 2nd Jan after checking out
a few different operators, there was only time for a quick squizz around the
city before it was time to pick up our washing at ocho hora (8pm) – glamorous,
I know! Again, we turned down free beer,
and it was early nights all around so we were fighting fit and ready to smash
(not literally) Death Road the following morning!
Regrettably for Andy, fighting fit was
something that she was not, sadly contracting food-poisoning from some dodgy
lunch-time chicken. So it was Pete and I
going it alone, neither of us having managed to slept much and skulling early
morning coffee whilst we waited 45 minutes longer than expected to be picked up
for our ride! Apparently the van that
was taking us had gotten not 1, but 2 flat tyres on its way to pick us up – a
great omen – as was the name of the company – Overdose!! The drive to TWMDR was stunning, the weather
was far better than it had been the day before although still a bit wet and
plenty cloudy, the pump-up tunes were cranking, and everyone was psyched! When we got to our departure point, the bikes
were unloaded, the layers went on (at least mine did – I looked like Michelin
Man wearing practically everything in my pack, but I wasn’t wet through nor
cold so had no regrets with my attire decisions – (Mum, you’d have been
proud!). On handing out our equipment
the guides then realised they’d forgotten our helmets – we were meant to be in
full faced motorbike helmets but all they had were scooter helmets, another
great omen, and then on jumping on my bike my gears weren’t shifting – our
careful research on tour company based primarily on bike and equipment quality
seemed to be fast-unravelling!
But there was no way that I wasn’t going,
and the mechanic did eventually get them changing a little better, and of
course there wasn’t any real need for more than one gear whilst hurtling
downhill at 100mph, and we were lined up for our first photo opp and set of
instructions, excited anxiety coursing through me – was I a good enough rider
for this? Feel the fear and do it
anyway!! The first 30 or so minutes was
just across tar-sealed normal road, and despite the rain the tyres were sturdy
and the breaks strong, and I was both pleased and relieved that I was riding
well within my comfort zone being part of the “fast” group – the guide, a
Brazilian guy who had done a lot of riding and was a trickster which got to be
a little unnerving at times, Pete, and myself.
Of course that was on tarmac, a surface I had plenty of experience on
from all my tri training on Princess (my road bike – currently on her way
across the Pacific by boat). But how
would I fare on gravel road, when the real “Death Road” riding would
commence? Naturally there was only one
way I was going to find out. My first
gravel foray was a little tentative, but the bouncing suspension held and I
decided I just had to have faith in the bike and my riding instincts and go for
it! I’m not sure if we’ll have the
photos and video back from the agency by the time I post this, but I will
definitely upload them once I have them –four hours of narrow gravel passes
with a sheer drop of 200m straight down in fairly steady rain with mud and at
times hail flying straight into the eyes was pretty intense riding to say the
least!! Plus the guide’s tendency to
stop us before all the “really dangerous” bits, urging us to be careful because
X amount of people had died there in the past – really, he gave the most
uplifting and encouraging pep-talks! But
it was a completely awesome and amazing experience and so much fun – it’s fair
to say my excitement and resolve to get into mountain-biking once I’m home is
now off the scale – particularly if we have gravity assisted tracks where
there’s none of the pesky uphill riding and just all the extreme fun of the
downhill!
Having made it to the bottom, both
completely pumped and exhausted as well as dripping wet, we were treated to a
tepid shower and a hottish lunch before heading back to La Paz which was now 3
hours away given we were on the other side of the mountain, again after which
we were straight to the bus terminal for another overnight bus to Sucre, a
small colonial town enroute to Uruni where we are to spend New Years’ and be
ready for the salt flats.
It would be fair to say there wasn’t huge
amounts going on in Sucre on a Sunday, but it was a very pretty and charming
town, known for its chocolates and not much else. After walking through the markets we decided
to celebrate the sun which we had not seen much of, and have a wee Vino Tinto
de la Casa in a restaurant overlooking the Plaza. Andy, still not feeling wonderful stayed away
from the wine, so it was vino para dos.
Of course, being Pete and I, one bottle turned into 2 which turned into
3 (Andy left after the first one to lie down), and we have a new version of
sh!thead (card game) involving 500 cards (11, 12 and 13), which I’m not sure
was good or the wine was just taking effect.
Either way, with the new rules and the increasing inebriation, either I
got worse or Pete got better or a bit of both and the card-schooling I was
giving him eventually equalised.
Which brings us back to the present moment,
sitting on another 10 bus ride on our way to Uruni, surprisingly not hungover
(although maybe not surprisingly, I went to bed at 7am!), with a tiny Bolivian
woman asleep on me, Andy and Pete sweltering across the aisle from me as it
seems the bus has it’s heater on, me lucky enough to be sitting next to an open
window with the breeze flowing through my mane, stunning scenery passing before
my eyes, camera and laptop on my lap happily tapping and snapping away. Once off the bus it will be a quick
turn-around to find a hostel, dump our gear, get changed, and get out, as its
New Year’s Eve baby, and I’m ready to party!!
What a year of change 2012 has been! Quitting my job and turning my career on its
head, packing up from London and turning my life on its head, and travelling 2
continents solo, I’m looking forward to what 2013 has instore for me. For those of you that had a great year, be
thankful and I hope for you that long may it continue. For those whom 2012 was less than ideal, I am
sure 2013 will be better. I wish you all
a fantastic New Year, and hope that 2013 brings you all that you desire.
Namaste, Hasta Luega, and Good Luck!!
xxxx
 |
| The Mighty Amazonas! |
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