Sunday, October 24, 2010

Furthest north of South America

Riohacha
19/10 Leave the pleasant village of Minca for the unpleasant city of Riohacha (river of the axe?!). Mission is to reach the northern most point of South America, Punta Gallinas, and Riohacha is a useful stopover (eg last place to get cash/laid etc). I had been to the furthest south back in March, and thought may as well go to the north, not having anything better to do. Though in short my advice is don't bother, unless you're into turtle conservation, or a glutten for punishment. That said it was an interesting experience, and the photos will make it look like I was having a great time, as usual.

I stay at strange fortress building sharing a dump of a room with a couple and an Austrian girl. The couple have already attempted the trip I'm about to make, and recount tales of robbery and failure (they didn't get too far the route is closed by land in rain season and there are hardly any boats going). Not deterred I persuade the Austrian to join me on the adventure (no, I was a good boy) and we set off the next morning.


Cabo de la Vela
20/10 Get cash, stock up on johnnies (you never know), grab a collectivo to Uribia (a dry dusty market town reminded me of Bolivia), then a 4x4 collectivo for the bumpy ride to Cabo de la Vela. Arrive late afternoon, check-in to a hammock, swim, then stroll the village looking for other tourists to form a group to share the cost of a boat hire. No luck here, village almost desserted, but we found some friendly parrots and chilled Venezuelan beer.

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There are boat-owning local Wayuus offering the trip for the equivalent of 500 cold beers, return. However you do the maths, it makes no sense. They claim the petrol for the trip is expensive, but that makes no sense either - it's smuggled cheaply from Venezuela, and they use it to power the generators that keeps the beer cold, which they can then afford to sell for less than 50p. My conclusion was they just can't be bothered, why work when you can just sit?

Punta Gallinas
21/10 Slept quite well in a comfy Chinchorro (a meshy hammock), morning swim in the sea, followed by bucket&cup shower (no running water in the village). Gave in and phoned Francisco, a local tour operator, for help in getting to Punta Gallinas. We exchanged words like "call me back in 15 minutes and I'll pass you the name of the fisherman". So we had luck, a local was about to head out with a consignment of ice (for the fish i guess, or maybe to keep their beer cold, I didn't ask too many questions). The cost was 50 peso each, each way, so 200 total. We leg it down to a secluded bay, and wait.

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The boat ride is fast, about an hour or so, and we make it to Punta Gallinas for late afternoon, so time enough to check out the place. It's a dump. It faces two coastlines, to the south a lagoon, and the north the open caribean sea. The beaches on both sides are hardly pleasant, but the place has it's redeeming features, such as comfy chinchorro hammocks, cold beer, and fresh lobster.

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Dunas
22/10 Slept again fairly well in a chinchorro hammock. Coffee, eggs, arepes (fried cornfloor pancakes). A 10 year old guides us on a bike ride to the sand dunes, a nice enough idea but i make a mental note that there maybe a market for camels in this region. The ride is bumpy and sometimes through thick grassland (it's rain season), and having seen a snake the previous day, and having no brakes on my bike, i'm wary that some bumps might bite back. Several hours from the nearest clinic, I try to focus on the scenery ahead, herds of goats and the like.

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Two hours later, sweating the last of our water away, we plunge into the clear blue caribean waters.

Back to base, a shower (well a drip or two), and back into the hammock. I'm happy here with a good book to pass the time (The Da Vinci Code)

Meanwhile someone is doing some work. A biologist, Wilder, is measuring up some baby turtles. What are they protecting them from I ask, imagining the answer to be some local birds or wildlife. Answer, the locals.. who eat the turtle eggs, wolfing down a nest of 200 or so in a day or two. Life is tough out in the dessert, and they have big families to feed. Fortunately for the turtles, a coal mining company now pays them off instead, indirectly, via a protection scheme, in which they help out by looking after the turtle nests and then releasing the baby turtles into the sea. It's a new project, no volunteers yet, if you are interested in being stuck in the dessert i can pass you an email address.

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Return trip
23/10 A gift from God this morning. The locals have run out of decent drinking water, but the clouds become heavy and the rain follows. I fill up all my water bottles, which is handy as the boat is returning today, and it will be a long trip back through the dessert. The boat ride is a smoothe, and we avoid the free-divers who pop up occasionally from picking up lobster pots.

Back at the secluded bay there's no-one going anywhere in a hurry so we decide to start walking and try our luck at hitching. There's not a lot of trafic, an hour passes then a local appears and drops us at the next junction, which isn't that much busier, but it's shady and we've got all day, and hitching with a girl has it's advantages. She stops a miltary convoy, and the friendly gun-toting soldiers let us on. They turn out to be one of the anti-narcotics attack squads, sent out on clean-up missions wherever intelligence service direct them. Unlike the local fishermen, a typical catch for them is 5 tons, thats a lot of charlie.

Our luck runs out in Riohacha though, the bus we choose to take to Santa Marta breaks down and by nightfall no luck in fixing it. The company, "Rapido Ochoa", fails to live up to its rapido name and sends no support. We are stuck on the highway sleeping on the bus until the morning one passes by to collect us. A 3 hour ride becomes 15 hours!

But eventually I get back to Divanga Hotel in Taganga, a wonderful refuge where i sleep the day away by the pool.


Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Bolivian deserts and stuff

Border crossing
21/7 Leave Argentina, enter Bolivia, and persist with my new Mexican travel buddy, Ivette. She's a bit of a diva, so sometimes I'd call her Divette (Diva-Ivette). Later this helped me let her know when I'd like to pull her head off , without the bloodshed. I couldn't decide if I liked or loathed this girl, but I think she satisfied some need I had for a surrogate mother.



We crossed the border at La Quiaca, on foot, dragging our bags along the dusty road hoping then to catch the afternoon train to Tupiza up north. No luck, we were told the service was not running today, so we forced our way onto a chicken bus instead.

Bolivia is a poor but beautiful country, further sweetened by the cute little grannies and even cuter toddlers. Cute but grumpy. Much of the population is indigenous, and still speaks Quechua, the language of the incas.


Tupiza
22/7 Horse riding, lots of fun. We were lucky our horses were well behaved but keen gallopers.

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Got told off for galloping along the train tracks on the way back into town, someone was worried I might run over some old ladies dotted about town. No-one seemed to worry if they got run over by a train though.

Ivette becomes my spanish teacher, this pays for her travels, which is cheap in Bolivia, and the arrangement suits me too.

Back in town Ivette speeds off to check out transport and returns to persuade me that we leave on the evening train. There are 3 classes on the train, 1st, 2nd, and "popular"... which we take - clearly I'm not paying Ivette enough to teach me Spanish. But it turns out to be quite a fun experience. There are no tourists on popular class (even "shoe-string" backpackers can afford to travel first class in Bolivia), so we pile in with the locals, whole families with their pets and a years harvest, exchanging produce regularly through the windows whenever we stopped at villages - coca leaves, fruit, rice you name it.


I ponder how the energy exchanges work that enable someone in Europe to earn enough money in just a few minutes to travel by train for several hours in Bolivia.


Uyuni
23/7 We arrive at uyuni in the middle of night, well wrapped in woollies - we were warned it drops to minus 20 degrees here. Ivette stays with the bags and I roam the deathly quiet and cold streets on the town looking for somewhere to stay. I feel like i'm in the wild west, the place is pretty ghostly. But we're in luck, as is a Korean chap who was going to spend the night in the station, thinking the town too dangerous to venture into at night. Maybe it is, but we all arrived safe and in one piece with all our stuff.

We spend the day preparing for a trip to the salt plains, checking out tours and shopping for woollies.
We opt for a family-run agency that felt right, seemed pretty organised, and had detailed menus laid out. There are dozens of agencies and you really see this each morning when the tours head out.... a convoy of Toyota 4x4s hits the desert.

Salar Uyuni
24 July. Early start, a few french join us on the tour but otherwise it's a pleasant morning. The scenery all day is beautiful, and the sunset is spectacular.

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We pass a couple of breakdowns on the way. Someone looks more depressed than me.

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At night we settle into our salt-brick home on an island.

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I would definitely come back to Bolivia, buy a 4x4 in La Paz, and just roll.


Some desert, southern Bolivia
25/7 Next day heading south we are treated to more spectacular scenery and a flamingo dance-show, quite a sight. I'd show you but i cant find the video my internet is too slow.


Further south is less spectacular, the lakes have all but dried up, the national park entry is a rip-off, and its a long bumpy drive. Worth it if you're using a tour to cross the border with Chile or Argentina, but otherwise i'd recommend one night is enough - the salt flats and flamingoes did it for me, the rest was more punishment than passion.

That said, the geysers are impressive, if smelly. The accomodation however was cold and basic, so I was glad to have an arctic sleeping bag (well, a cheap supermarket one, extended with a fleece at a local tailors)


Chilly, near Chile
26/7 Chilly and early start. We're on a tight schedule to get back. But first some relief from the cold at a hot spring.


Its a long trip back. Ivette and I try to study for a bit but there's tension. I can't remember the details but she had said some things that I found condescending, and I felt treated as if a child. I told her so, and learnt about her being a bit of a diva as a child. We cleared the air. I think these little challenges were part of the reason for my travelling with her. Did I say I wanted a surrogate mother?

Back in town to shower and change and head straight onto the overnight train to Oruno.


Oruno
27/7 Dawn as the train appoaches Oruno. The carriage windows are thickly iced up. As they thaw we see it's a beautiful ride through the salt lakes. Flamingoes and other flocks of birds fill the sky and waters.


We spend the day at Oruno before catching a bus onto La Paz.

Spot the cute granny...

In La Paz, we do exactly what the guidebooks say not to do, get a cabbie to show us somewhere to stay. But this works out just fine, we get a decent private room for half the price of a hostel dorm bed, and best of all there are no backpackers.

Ok that's enough my head hurts. Coming up next.. Ivette locks me out of our hotel room.



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