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A couple of weeks have passed and I am now in La Paz, Bolivia suffering from quite bad altitude sickness. I have just returned from Lake Titicaca where I spent 2 nights and yesterday walked the entire length of the `sun island`which may have something to do with why I was so sick last night as the altitude is over 4000m. I have seen and done some amazing things in the last couple of weeks. The day that I wrote my last blog I found out that when I had changed money at the Ecuador border
It has been a few months since my last blog entry but as my trip is drawing to a close I feel as though I should at least sum up some of the events that have happened since the last time.
A few hours after writing my last blog I was shocked to find that the money I had changed earlier that day was in fact fake and so i was stuck with about $50 in unusable money. Then to top things off the following day I fell into a scam and was robbed another $50. Robbed twice in 2 days in Peru... I met some cool people which made up for it and i spent a day looking around Lima. The coastline of Peru in bus was really amazing, a seemingly endless desert.
From Lima I got on a bus to a place called Huacachina, which is an oasis in the sanddunes just south of Lima. I spent a day relaxing by the lagoon and walking on the sand dunes. There were some amazing views from the top.
From there I went to Arequipa in the south of Peru where i spent a couple of days seeing the city and meeting people.
To get to Bolivia I took a detour through Arica in the north of Chile in order to go to the beach for a couple of days.
I then crossed over to Bolivia, on the bus the only other foreigner was in the seat next to me and just happened to be a guy from Melbourne. After spending so long talking in Spanish it was good to speak in English for a while and get an update on Australia (the truth is Australia doesnt even get a mention in the news outside australia).
Arriving into Bolivia was quite an amazing experience, the border crossing was one of the most scenic, imagine 3 snow capped mountains reflecting in a perfectly still lagoon full of ducks and flamingos and in front of the lagoon alpacas and llamas. Arriving into La Paz was also really amazing, after driving along the high plains for 5 hours suddenly you decend into what appears like a crater in the Earth with the city located inside. I stayed in la paz 3 days and got to know a lot of different places. The city was really interesting and the craziness somehow was not overwhelming. I met up with a guy from Switzerland and with the other australian we went to a south american film festival that was running in the cinema and then went out for some drinks with a Bolivian girl who gave us some insights into some of the local culture.
I then went up north to Lake Titicaca, one of the highest lakes in the world at about 4000m. I spent the following day hiking isla del sol which seemed like a good idea at the time but I was left incredibly sick afterwards from such exersion with so little oxygen. I spent the next few nights unable to sleep and unable to breath before deciding that I would have to get down to a much lower altitude.
For that reason I started heading south in Bolivia to Uyuni where there is the remnants of an old inland sea in the form of the largest salt flats in the world. Who would have thought that an endless expanse of salt would invoke such interests in tourists and cause a desire to take millions of perspective photos. I personally have one of me eating a car... and a person. It was exactly the result I was hoping for as the altitude was still around 3700 m so I decided it was time to get to brave the roads in Bolivia one last time and head for Argentina.
I arrived on the border with Argentina after about 10 hours travelling on continuosly bumpy road. I had decided that I would skip the north of Argentina in order to get to Buenos Aires where I was to be staying with my friend Martin from Argentina that I had met in Europe in order to rest a few days. The following 2 days on the bus were an absolute nightmare. The bus itself was good but I was the most sick I have ever been and was throwing up constantly and lost feeling in my hands. I dont whether it was from going down in altitude so quickly or maybe something I ate in Bolivia. I was forced to tell the bus driver that i needed to go to the hospital but he told me to come sit in the drivers cabin (in argentina the buses have 2 levels and the drivers are well separated from the passengers) so the whole second day I spent up front and although it helped a little I still slept for the follwing 2 days after arriving in Buenos Aires.
I find it hard to describe my experience in Buenos Aires. It really was one of my favourite cities in the world but its hard to decide why that was. Maybe it was because I was staying with my friend and his sisters who were all incredible. Maybe the fact that the lifestyle was completely different, we ate dinner at midnight, went to bed at 4am slept til 1pm, or on the weekens we went to bed at 7 or 8 in the morning and slept til 5pm. There was the asados (Argetinian bbq`s). the european feel of the city, the place where i was staying which was extremely central, the beauty of the city, tree lined streets, innumerable plazas, an endless amount of places to discover or maybe it was the activities, I went to my first Soccer game at La Boca, went sailing in the river, went to my first catwalk (my friends sister is a model), went for a night tour on bikes of the city, went to a refuge for street kids. Or maybe it was everything put together. But the 3 weeks I spent in BA were 3 of the best weeks of the year. But all good things have to come to an end.
From BA I took the bus to Bariloche in Patagonia in the South of Argentina. It is part of the lake district and from the outskirts of the city there are some incredible view points where you can see the majority of the 7 lakes in the area. From there I went to the otherside of the lake to a place called villa la angonstura which is amazing for being the flower capital of the region and the architecture of log cabins and rock houses. From there to San Martin de los Andes where I stayed the night before attemping to get to Chile.
I had gotten to San Martin de los Andes at 11 at night to find all the hostels either closed or full, by the time I found a place to stay it was 1am and the only bus to Chile leaves at 6am each day so I made the decision to try hitchhiking. The first part wasnt too hard, I made it to the next town Junin de los Andes in about an hour and then was lucky enough to get a ride out to the main road leading to the border with Chile. The people I met were all travllers and all had story to share with me so it started off as a good day, also I had received advice that the road is quite popular so it should be too hard to get a ride... it was wrong. I started walking towrds the border into an incredibly strong wind coming straight at me and after the first hour of walking without seeing a single car I started thinking maybe the road was closed up ahead or something similar. It was then i realised all i had was 500ml of water and a tub of dulce de leche (a bit like caramel), but no other food. It was only 11am so I decided to keep walking in hope of getting picked up. After the second hour passed with only 1 car and 1 motorbike passing in the direction of the border but a lot more coming from the border I still had a slight bit of hope. I think i may have forgot to mention i was walking in the desert! After walking 6 km carrying all my gear which weighs more then 30kg, i had to start walking back as there was no longer much hope. I made it all the way back to where I had started (another 6 km) and then another 4km to the road back to the city. After making it to the road I was picked up by a french fly fisherman whoi took me back to the city, and also told me that he had gone to Chile in the morning and would have taken me had i been there early. In total that day i walked over 30km carrying over 30 kg.
The next day, unable to walk, I caught the bus to Chile and arrived in Valdivia in the afternoon to stay with a friend that I had met in Colombia who is now studying in Chile. She was busy with her boyfriend as he was leaving to go to the US for 6 months 2 days later. So i stayed with her friend. We all went out that night and had a really good time, i had my first and later second third.... piscola. And we danced all through the night in spite of the immense pain i was feeling in my legs. I stayed another night and i saw a bit of the city, and we went to the botanic gardens. In the city along the banks of the river there are sea lions that lie on the shore all day long. We went to the beach, which was good except the water was freezing and then in the night I got the bus to Santiago.
I arrived in Santiago at 9am in the morning and was met at the bus station by the husband of a friend of my aunt in Australia who were going to take me into there house but the apartment was quite full so I am staying with a couchsurfer close by instead and have an open invitation to there house for lunch and in the afternoons I have been hanging out with the grandson who has been really good at showing me around. 2 days ago I met up with a Chilean that I met when I was travelling through Laos and then last night I went to visit another guy that I met in Beijing. It has been good to catch up with people and find out how there trips went after I met them so long ago.
I have 5 days before i leave south america and 1 weeks before I arrive in Australia. I will write another blog to sum everything up before I come back. I am excited to see everyone again and find what has been happening.
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