San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni

San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni – 05/06/13 to 07/06/13

We booked ourselves a 3 day tour to go from San Pedro de Atacama in Chile to Uyuni in Bolivia.
We were picked up from our guesthouse early in the morning by minibus and got dropped off first at immigration in San Pedro and then 10km away at the Bolivian border to get our passport stamped. The Bolivian border was in the middle of nowhere surrounded by lovely mountains and snow. It was quite chilly but the driver prepared a breakfast for us with cakes, bread, ham, cheese and nice, warm coffee. From there our other jeep driver was waiting for us and our 3 amazing days started from there.

We were with another German couple the same age as us, Christian and Cristina. We crossed some amazing landscapes, first of all passing by 2 different Lagos, Verde, rojo y Blanco (green, red and white)
Then we crossed the desert of Dali. It is named like this as the landscape looks like some of Salvador Dali’s surrealist paintings, although legend has it Dali never came here.

Just before lunch we had a quick and nice dip into a nice warm ‘thermas’ (just a quick one, as due to the altitude it was difficult to stay longer than 20 minutes without our heads spinning around).

After the lunch that our guide prepared for us, we were off to the Geiser Sol de Manana. As we kept going up and up, Flora felt a bit sick with a massive headache (obviously it’s not every day that you experience being almost 5,000m above sea level). She decided to ask our guide for some coca leaves for me to chew (as it’s the local medicine for altitude sickness and much more) and eventually, she felt fine. After a long drive and more stunning views (including the amazing red lake of Lago Colorada) we reached our guesthouse in the small village of Villa Mar.

The next day, after a quick guided tour of some Inca ruins by a man from the village, off again we were in our jeep. We went to see the ‘Tree of Stone’, the desert of Siloli and Lake Chearkhota, where we could see lots of flamingos and llamas living together in peace.
This day was another great day and we finished the day at our hotel, which was 90% made with salt (even the bed was in salt, although not the mattress of course). After a nice meal (including the local quinoa soup) and a game of cards we had an early night and slept very well and even got very warm during the night… we guess the blocks of salt were good for insolation.

The day after, we got up very early to make sure we could see the sunrise over the Salar de Uyuni (the biggest salt flat in the world at over 12,000 sq km in area).
It was impressive to discover the whiteness and the flatness as the sun raised. Then it was time for ‘Fotos Locos’ as we took a few funny pictures and magic eyes as it is the custom when people come here. The fact that it is very flat and white makes it difficult to get a sense of depth when you take a picture with a foreground and a background together. Unfortunately for us, the German couple who we were with didn’t really get the idea of the perspective so we couldn’t go really crazy with ideas (even if we had lots) and we didn’t really get good pictures with the two of us.

We finished our 3 day tour in by visiting this quirky place called the Train Graveyard, where old trains and bits of coaches had been rusting there for years before heading to our final destination of Uyuni, a small town, with lots of dust and markets. We stayed there for a couple of days to rest and wait for the raincoat that Flora had forgotten the day before at the salt hotel.

Summary of Chile

REPUBLIC OF CHILE

Distance travelled: 6,080 km  (3,930 overland, 2,150 by air)

Pisco Sours drunk: a few

Favourite Wine: Carmeniere

Food we will try to make at home: Pastel del Choclo, Curanto, Chorrillana, Charquican, Ceviche, Fried sushi rolls

Cleanest Room in Providencia: The Pazs’ living room (it gets hovered 3 times per day)

Most patient Spanish teacher: Karen

Favourite Places: Valparaiso, Pucon, Chiloe, Torres Del Paine

Funniest moment: Dave’s 190° tumble at the beginning of the 4 day trek in TDP.

Modes of transport: bus, trolley bus, ferry, car, trekking, bicycle, aeroplane, metro, funicular train.

Our Route:

San Pedro de Atacama

02/06/13 to 04/06/13 - The next morning at 7am was our bus to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Again, it was another magnificent journey. The bus worked its way up a huge mountain to 4870 metres (higher than the Mont Blanc), and some people on the bus were suffering from altitude sickness. Once we were up on the plain we went driving across the Altiplano through amazing scenery. We made it to the Argentine customs check in the middle of nowhere up at 4000metres. It was mid-afternoon and despite hot sunshine burning our skin, it was still icy cold when we stretched our legs to get our passport stamped.  It was another 150km to the Chilean border, and another 2 hours drive downhill in between volcanoes and ice fields to the desert plain where we saw San Pedro in the distance. The first stop was not the bus station but Chilean immigration in the town itself.

San Pedro was small and had a couple of touristy streets with tour agencies and restaurants and shops selling hats and gloves. Despite this being the driest desert in the world, by night it is icy cold and we struggled to sleep under 5 blankets and with no heating. All the buildings are made of stone and mud and are really designed for hot days and not wintery nights. We were still up at 2000m. Once the sun was up it was pleasantly warm until midday when it was really hot and dry. We walked to the old Inca fort on the edge of town, and had to buy water when we arrived as we were so thirsty. We booked ourselves on a jeep tour to Bolivia for the following day after checking the comments book at Tourist Info to find a reliable agency.

By 6pm it was cold again and we dashed home to change into warmer clothes and find a bite to eat before we made our way out into the middle of the desert to an observatory. Here we were given a tour of the sky by a Canadian astronomer, (explaining how the Incas used the stars for daily life) and we were able to see constellations, nebula and even a close-up of Saturn. This is the 2nd best place in the world for astronomy due to clear nights, high altitude and minimal interference in the sky. Even better was the hot chocolate at the end.

Summary of Argentina

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC

Distance travelled:  4,014  km

Best Exchange rate offered: 9.0 Pesos / USD (Buenos Aires)

Best Exchange rate traded: 8.6 Pesos / USD (Buenos Aires)

Matés drunk: few

Malbecs drunk: more

Modes of transport: bus, ferry, taxi (one lucky taxi driver), car.

Best Asados/Steaks: Puerto Iguazu schoolyard, Colors’ restaurant in Puerto Iguazu and Seb’s brother’s place in Buenos Aires.

We didn’t just eat steak, we also ate: Humitas, lots of Cream Crackers (thanks to the bus companies), Alfajores, Facturas, Estafado de Llama.

Best Dancing: Fer’s show “Women that must be loved”.

Our Route:

Salta

29/05/13 to 02/06/13 - We arrived in Salta in the early morning, quickly found a hostel, and then it was time to warm up. Salta is a small city, 1000 m above sea level, and is warm by day but chilly by night. We spent a day wandering around the city, eating at the market and going up in a cable car to the top of the mountain that overlooks the city. It wasn't an amazing view (then again we have been rather spoilt) but there were a lot of people doing aerobics and jogging at the top.


You can notice a change here from the rest of Argentina, the faces of people are different, looking much more Andean or indigenous and there are different food choices other than just steak, empanadas or pizza. We saw for the first time the colourful flag of the campesinos (peasant farmers) that we would see much more of in the coming weeks.




We decided to hire a car for 3 days to explore the countryside around, which was a good decision. On day 1 we drove to the village of Cachi, about 150km west of Salta. The trip took 4 hours and we just had time to eat a lunch (llama stew) before leaving to return to Salta before dark. The real treat was the drive though, as we wound our way up switchbacks, through rainbow coloured rocks and mountains and up onto plains filled with cactus and occasional llamas and vicuna. We reached an altitude of 3700m and could feel it was harder to breathe and the air was much cooler. We needed to acclimatise and it was good practice. The roads were just gravel in places, but generally okay if a little dusty.

The next day we went to the district of Juy-juy, and to the village of Tilcara, where there was a ruined Inca fort and the Devil's Throat, a deep gorge through the mountain. Again though, the highlight was the drive, winding around hillsides above lakes and up through giant mud-mountains reminiscent of huge termite mounds. There was also a botanical gardens in Tilcara, with nothing but hundreds of varieties of cactus.

The biggest attraction near Salta is the famous Tren de las Nubes (train to the clouds). The tickets were really expensive and a lady in Tourist Information told us we could follow the same.route by car, so we did for our final day. Again it was a nice journey up through mountains, and across high plains up to 4200m to the Polvorilla viaduct. This was a feat of engineering when it was built and is still impressive now as it curves across the valley 70m above. We saw the train roll in for its final stop, where hundreds of handicraft sellers and their llamas had turned up to just in time to sell to the tourists who were hopping off the train. Half an hour later they were all packed up and making their way home across the ridge to seemingly the middle of nowhere.

We returned to Salta, returned our car (covered in dust) and spent our last Argentine pesos on a kilo of fillet steak, a bottle of Malbec and some potatoes for our last proper Argentine meal which we cooked in the hostel.

Summary of Brazil

FEDERATIVE REPUBLIC OF BRAZIL

Distance travelled:  3,675 km

Coaties encountered: several

Butterflies encountered: hundreds

Caipirinhas drunk: a few

Modes of transport: bus, boat, ferry, party bus, taxi, funicular train

Our Route:

Foz do Iguaçu - Puerto Iguazu

25/05/13 to 28/05/13 - After twelve hours on a night bus, we arrived early in the morning at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil and after our final per kilo buffet breakfast we decided to go straight to see the Iguassu falls.  At the entrance of the falls, we could put our big bags in a locker, which was a relief.  Then a small bus drove us another 15km or so to different spots within the park (for boat trips, guided tours, and walking trails). We went straight to the walking trails by the falls as we knew that the other activities were quite pricey and less impressive on this side of the falls than the Argentinian side.

We walked along the trail by the river Iguassu, and as we walked, we discovered step by step the beauty of these natural phenomena. The two hour walk was nice and the sunny weather made some stunning rainbows in the mist of the waterfalls. We walked along a boardwalk across the top of the lower section of the falls right into the bowl of the ‘Devil’s Throat’ of the upper falls. Luckily we had our rain jackets as we got soaked, and it was funny to watch everybody try to take pictures without getting their cameras wet.





That same day, in the afternoon we crossed the border which was only 30 minutes away by bus and arrived in Argentina in the town of Puerto Iguazu. We found a cheap guest house and rested for the rest of the afternoon. The next day we sorted out a few bits and pieces, like changing money again on the “blue market”. We asked few people in town as well as an official “casa de cambio”, who were willing to make the exchange 5.2 pesos verbally, but passed us a piece of paper over the counter which read 7.5 Argentinian Pesos for a dollar instead. We thought we could do better, and we finally exchanged at a slightly better rate with “Rambo” in a suit shop at the back of a small alleyway. We then booked a bus ticket for Salta for two days’ time (we wanted to fly, but for some reason ‘Crazy Cristina’ has decided to charge foreigners 3 times the price to foreigners for air tickets).





We walked around the small town of Puerto Iguazu some more and noticed some smoke coming from behind the walls of a school. We peered around the wall and there were some people grilling lots of whole chickens, sausages and various cuts of steak. It was Sunday and that means Asado day. We went inside and for 60 pesos we had a quarter of a chicken, two strips of beef ribs, two chorizo sausages and a small steak, accompanied by some steamed yams and Chimi-churri sauce. This was an excellent find and we had to walk off the lunch and burn some calories, so we walked to where the 2 rivers of Rio Iguassu and Rio Parana meet, the “Golden Triangle” where there is the 3-way frontier between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

The day after, we woke up quite early in the morning to go to see the Iguassu falls on the Argentinian side this time and it was really amazing, with lots and lots of falls. There was much more things to see than the Brazilian side, so we walked around 6 hours on the trails to contemplate this beauty.

Rio de Janeiro - Curitiba

17/05/13 to 24/05/13 - Despite reports of Rio cabbies being crooked and trying to rip people off, we seemed to find a good one to take us from the bus station (he was too preoccupied watching TV soaps on his Sat Nav).

We had terrible weather for the first two days, with the kind of all day long drizzle we get in a typical English autumn. The weather finally improved and we could venture outside of the hostel and visit more than just the per-kilo buffets (a very fair charging system) that line the Copacabana main street.

We took a bus to the Barra district for a surfing competition, but we didn't know where to get off. Some helpful locals took some time to show (and walk us) to another bus stop, where a second bus took us to the beach. Unfortunately we arrived too late and missed the competition, but it was still a nice beach with an awesome sunset with the sea mist turning orange in front of the ‘two sisters’ mountains.


The next day was sunny so we took the train up Corcovado mountain to stand next to the statue of Christ the Redeemer and take in the view. The panorama is amazing and this must be the best natural location for a city anywhere in the world.

We made our way to Ipanema beach for sunset, where we bumped into one of Flora's friends from Paris on the seafront. We sat with a beer at one of the many beachfront bars and admired the skills of the locals playing beach volleyball... with their feet.

That night we had a rodizio grill where waiters brought endless skewers of meat to our table until we told them to stop (by turning over a disc from green side up to red side up). There we bumped into Kerry and Betty from our hostel in Barra de Lagoa a week or so before, so we joined them for a chat.

Next morning we walked up the Lapa steps and up to Santa Teresa on top of a hill with another good view. Santa Teresa used to be a favela, but is now a wealthy area, probably due to the nice views. Most other favelas occupy some stunning locations on the hillsides, but the buildings are ramshackle, made of cheap bricks and concrete. The lanes up to them are narrow and it’s dangerous to go in them without a guide. We can imagine that one day they will all be prime real estate, and could be developed into quirky little neighbourhoods (with some paint and renovations). For now though they are controlled by drug lords and we could hear fireworks from time to time throughout the city. These are usually to warn that police are nearby or that drugs have arrived.

We took a tour of Centro, visiting some museums and old buildings before taking the ferry to Niteroi and the MAC (Museum of Contemporary Arts), which looked like a flying saucer and with great views at sunset. We took the boat back and had a few drinks and snacks in Lapa.

The next day we went to the Botanic Gardens, and after escaping the groups of school kids, we saw an amazing small green bird hovering above a stream. Then it was off to Leblon for a walk on the beach before dinner.

The bad weather returned and the forecast looked ominous for the next few days so we decided to leave the following night for Curitiba on a night bus. We stayed just one day in Curitiba, really just to break up the journey from Rio to Foz do Iguaçu. We visited the Museum of Contemporary Art (designed by the same architect as the one in Rio, but this time in the shape of an eye rather than a flying saucer). There was an Escher exhibition there and we had some fun in the interactive installations. Then it was back to the bus station and on to Iguaçu.