Six Months in South America

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SIX MONTHS IN SOUTH AMERICA Wayne Stevens & Jeanine Langvik Alpaca and local on island in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia Wayne Stevens On the to New Zealand from - travelled by train and bus to Many days later after long hours on way Santiago, Chilewhere thecosts buses we arrived near the top of Chile Norway during the year before last, were a lot more reasonable. Santiago where thel landscape is totally different. is an interesting city, but very polluted. The Atacama Desert is one of the driest Jeanine and - decided to visit South AfterafewdaysinSantiago, weheaded places on earth, with saltlakes, pink south by train to the Lake District and flamingos, and cute little townships. America for six months. Our first PuertoMontt. Wemanogedtodosome We spent a number of days visiting the trampinginthelakeDistrictandpartially area, and enjoyed the diversity of the destination was Buenos Aires, climbed up the Volcan Osorno, getting landscapel in Chile, and thet friendliness some great views. of the people. Argentina. Our first impression of From Puerto Montt we flew south to After crossing the border into Peru we Argentina was one ofshock how Punta Arenas at the bottom of Chile. It caughtan.Aerof Peruflighttol Lima. Aero could things be SO expensive? The wasquitecoldinPuntaArenase asitwas Perumustbeoneofthel worst airlinesin midwinterand-206 degrees Celcius. The theworld, andisareal threat to Aeroflot answer was that Argentina had amount of snow, the coldness, and the for this "honour". Iwill never forget the lackoficeaxes etc. meantthato atramping terrified look on the air hostess' face, pegged its local currency to the US triptotheTorres del Painel National Park crossingherself fastheratlingoldplane was not possible. However, we did took off dollar at an overvalued rate. After travelnorthwards onboardacargoship headed back to Puerto Montt. The Lima at that stage was under curfew as recovering from the initial shock of views of the Torres del Paine National a civil war had been raging in Peru, and Parkandt thes southern coastlineofChile costing24,000lives. Bombswere the cost an attempted bag going are amazing, withbeautiful, deepfiords, off nightly in Lima and as ar result, there snatch on our first day, we were left bush, and snowy mountains. The were tanks, soldiers, and police southern coastal area of Chile is very everywhere. We made a short trip into wondering what we were doing in similar to Fiordland, and travelling by the town centre and were amazed to cargo ship with a friendly crew was a seet thatanumber ofthemain buildings South America. great way to see this area. either had bomb damage or had been TRAMPING & MOUNTAINEERING blown up. We decided it was wise to the Amazon, even having its own ending up at the spectacular Machu spend only a few days in Lima, SO we marvellous opera house, but we were Picchu. This area was certainly a lot flew north to the border with Ecuador. amazedtoseelargeocean-goingcargo safer than Lima and the fact that the We were glad to leave Lima and Aero ships travelling over 1500 km up the leader of the Sendero terrorists had Peru, and I was also glad to get away river into the middle of the South recently been caught seemed to make from certain Peruvian air "hostesses", American continent. However, at travelling att this stagei inl Perualots safer. especiallyonewhowascarryingapistol Manaus the river must be almost as in her pocket wide as the Cook Strait. After Manaus After spending a couple of weeks in we decided to travel again by riverboat Peru, we travelled back to Bolivia and We spent about a month in Ecuador. up towards the Bolivian border. Travel undertook a couple of tramps. The Not only was Ecuador really cheap but by riverboat wast fun and a great wayto Choro Trail and the Takesi Trail were there were many things to do, from meet locals, and to observe the life both great walks. They had the visiting beach areas, to shopping and whichcentres aroundtheriversinBrazil. advantage of starting up high in the studying Spanish. Riding on the roof of Itwasalsogreattositbackinahammock mountainsato over4 4500m, anddropping a steam train which went from the with an ice-cold "Antarctica" beer, and slowly over the nexti fewdays downinto mountains down through the jungle to watch thei jungle andi the river go on by. the jungle areas below. Occasional thes sea, was one ofthehighlightsofour After crossingt thel borderi intol Bolivia we condorscouldbeseen, andthe Andean visit to Ecuador. came across a number of American scenery was great. anti-drug agents who had been flying AfterleavingEcuadorwetravellednorth around the jungles of Bolivia and Peru We also visited other areas in Bolivia bybus into Colombia. Despite popular suchast thes silveri mines atl Potosi. These opinion, Colombia is not a country of mines date backto the 1500s, and over cocaine addicts and drug lords. "It was eight million people have died as However, it was obvious from the labourersi in them. After travelling! back to sit numerous searches we had to go great to La Paz to collect our mountain of throughthat drugsareamajorproblem. back in a baggage, we flew south to the Bolivia Wevisitedanumberofinterestingareas Brazil border in thel Pantanal area. We inColombia, includingthecolonialtown hammock with then caught buses down through the of Popayan which was incredibly Pantanal, during which we saw a beautiful. After a couple of weeks, we an ice-cold number of crocodiles in the swampy decided to head off to see the River river areas neart the road. We travelled Amazon. The only possible way to Antarctica' down to the Iguazu Falls on the Brazil, reach the Amazon: from Colombia isl by II Argentina, and Paraguay borders. air, so we flew from Cali to Bogota and beer e on to Leticia, on the Colombian border The Iguazu Falls were amazing and SO with Brazil and Peru. onsomesortofcovertanti-drugmission. huge. Wed alsovisitedtheworld'slargest Foramomentitseemedwehadwalked dam at Itaipu after which we made a Ourt firsti impression off the Amazon was into some Vietnam movie, with Yanks brief trip up to Asuncion, Paraguay, one of amazement, as despite being running around in tatty camouflage where we went on another steam train thousands of kilometres from the sea, uniforms carrying machine guns. Well, ride. We also visited the sights of old the river was very wide. We undertook theseguysturnedouttober veryfriendly Jesuitr missionsi int the: southo ofParaguay at three day jungle tour from Leticia and andthey explainedtoushowtheywere before travelling down to thel beaches saw: some amazing sights. We stayed in South America tryingt to stop thet flow of Florianopolis. inlocal Indianvillages and experienced of drugs. Unfortunately, they were not something of the local lifestyle. We ablet toc convincetheBolivian: Airl Forceto The beaches at Florianopolis were, couldn'thelp but be impressed by how allow US to travel on their helicopter according to other Westerners we had the Indian people in the Amazon have gunships out of the jungle area, SO met, better than the beaches of Rio. adapted to the local environment and instead we flew on a Bolivian Air Force They proved to be really nice and we live in the jungle. It also amazed me plane up to La Paz. enjoyedbeinglazyinthe: sunforaweek how much wildlife is in the Amazon, or so Wayne eternally amazed at the withits manys species ofbirds, monkeys, Lal Paz, at 4000m is the highest capital Brazilian piece-of-string bathing suit. crocodiles, snakes, andnastyp piranhas. in the world and we certainly noticed One good thing about doing a jungle the altitude after our bouncy ride up After leaving Florianopolis we travelled tour, was that all these animals were from the lowland jungle. After a few to Montevideo, Uruguay for al brief visit encountered at some stage. daysrestwetravelleduptoLake Titicaca before heading back to Buenos Aires andcontinuedintol Peru. We visitedthe with all our acquired gear, and flying There are no roads out of this remote floating islands of Lake Titicaca and overtheAntarcticandontoNew2 Zealand area oft the Amazon sO we travelled by wentr northt to Cuzco, the oldIncacapital. where little white dots of wool greeted riverboat to Manaus in the centre of The Inca Trail was great, with many US from down below Wayne felt like Brazil. Manausisquiteamajortown.on excellentviewsandamazinglncazingIncaruins, home TRAMPING & MOUNTAINEERING