Climbing Chachani (6075m / 19931 foot)

As described in the last blog, we are staying in the Casa de los Pinguinos and we update our blog for a special reason..
We started our expedition to mount chachani last monday morning at 08.30, being picked up by a 4x4 car. At Quechua Explorers (our tour agency) we met Alfredo (our tour guide) and we packed up tent and all other equipment we needed to bring to the mountain (incl. 5 l of water for each person). After a bumpy ride to the end of the street in the national park, we shouldered our backpacks and walked from about 5000m to our base camp (about 5200m) for about 2 hours.
Setting up the tent, unrolling our sleeping bags and waiting for "dinner" we spent the next two hours since dinner is at 16.30 (asparagus soup made by Knorr with nodules and spaghetti with tuna sauce) we prepared for the night... we went to "bed" at around 17.30 and to give you a feeling how it is: windy, cold and not very comfortable lying in a tent that is about 1.85 m long ;-)
the night was cold and not too long since we had to get up at 01.20 for breakfast and tea (coca tea) and we started our way up at about 01.45. Walking during the night, headlights on, following our guide (who seemed to have no problems at all climbing up the mountain since he was whistling on the way up) we climbed meter for meter up into the dark.
The fist highlight was after about 1.5 h since we cached up with the other group that has left 30 minutes before us :-)
At about 04.30 the second highlight: sunrise...and we saw that the summit is still some meters away
the third highlight was then, after climbing 900 m to reach a point close to the summit (about 6000m high) shortly before 06.00 am. From there, we climbed the last 75 meters up to the top (where it was pretty windy)! 
So all in all, we needed about 4h 30min to climb the mountain and we rushed down in about 45 minutes since there is a straight way down :-)

Packing our stuff

View to the top

On the top

On the top

view on the top

downhill

Our track on the GPS Tracker
So now, we relax this day in Arequipa and prepare for our next part. We adjust our plan and we head south, direction Arica (in Chile) to visit a national park there and from there we probably head north again direction of Bolivia. But we'll check the details once we know more!

Hiking the Colca Canon

As mentionned in the last blog from earlier today (http://chrisgoessouthamerica.blogspot.com/2011/10/cusco-puno-high-altitude-training.html) we didn't have good internet connection the last few days, therefore we updated our blog not regularly. But today in Arequipa, we sit in the Casa de los Pinguinos and do our updates... outside is about 25 to 30 degrees, pretty hot! But back to the last week:
We stayed one night in the Patchamama hostal in Cabanaconde where we got an additional map of the Colca Canon with the paths you can hike and how long it takes approximately. Ready for it, we started next morning with direction of Llahuar (the other way what all tourist groups do).The GPS tracker traced most of the trail, but apparently the battery was not working at the end of day 3 / morning of day 4 so it misses the last path back to Cabanaconde, but ok..

Here you find the map!

So after 5 hours of hiking in the dry beauty of the canon, where a lot of cacti grow, but nothing else, we arrived the a lodge where we stayed the night. It's pretty basic: a wooden hut with a bed and (surprisingly) electric light. A cool shower can be taken and there is 2 hot pools (25 and 35 degree) close to the colca river. So we relaxed there and waited for dinner, before we went early to bed. The next day would be a bit tougher than the first one (descent of about 1200 meters only).

With pancakes as breakfast (06.00 am) we started with direction Llatica - Fure (about 2800 m) so we had to climb about 800m. Luckily, it's not too warm in the morning and the sun is not yet burning down, so we arrived in fure at 10.00, where we left our backpacks at a hostal and continued to the waterfall of Huacana (2 h there and back, additional 100 m up and down). After lunch, we continued up and down to the view point and further back to the colca river to the Oasis. The Oasis consists of 5 larger lodges where all tourists stop (they hike up from there to Cabanaconde, 1200 m uphill).

The next day, we continued our tour to Tapay (2900 m) where we planned to have lunch, but since this is not on the tourist trail, there is only few hostels and the only server dinner, no lunch. So we had to change the plan (we wanted to stay there till 15.00 to avoid the midday sun) and we walked back to the colca river. We stopped at a hostel, but nobody was there and we had to rearrange again... fortunately and incidentally, I met on the way down to the river, checking if there is other hostels in this "town", a lady with a dog and 2 donkeys. Fortunately because she hosts the Colca-garden hostel, which can not be found easily. She's very kind (we got lunch at 14.30) and we decided to spent the night there.
(Actually, at first it was a bit strange, following this lady down a little, narrow path, not knowing what to expect there... in TV stories sometimes end with: "and that was the last time where he was seen") ;-)
But it was actually a great evening at this hostel, we met a cool tourist group (guide, 1 Canadian, 1 Dutch, 1 Swiss) and we spent the evening talking at the campfire...
Our last day we started with breakfast at 05.00 with pancakes (btw. at the Oasis, you don't get breakfast at that time so the tourists have to start hiking without food...) and we hiked up to the top of the canon (1200 uphill) in about 2h 45minutes and we were not exhausted after :-) there was another group, but the looked very tired at the end of the trail :-)
In the afternoon, we went to see condors at the Cruz del Condor and we were lucky to see some pretty close (actually there is many of them)!

Last night in Pachamama with (actually really great wood-oven) pizza, we left Cabanaconde by public bus at 11.30. The bus was picking up people till it is "full". This means: people are standing in the aisle pairwise, hardly able to breathe, and nobody can move for or back anymore ;-) luckily, we had a seat but we were relieved when we left the bus at Chivay.
We spent some time in the hot-springs in Chivay to relax (around 38 degrees and a lot of sulfur that you can smell) and left the town next morning with another (full) bus with direction Arequipa where we are at the moment....

What's next? Chachani is planned for Monday (tomorrow) and then we'll see if we stay longer in Arequipa or if we head of to Bolivia...

Cusco - Puno: High Altitude Training

After a longer period without real internet connection, we are now able to update the blog again, so what has happened?

Firstly, when we visited Huchuy Qosqo we took also some pictures, here an example

The last day in Cusco we visited the Chocolate Museum (small but very nice) and we found an interesting figure: according to estimations, about 90 % of the Coca leaf production is not used for tea and other legal products but is used "otherwhise"  ;-) We wonder what this might be :-D But besides Coca, Cacao seems to be a fairly good alternative to get money, Switzerland is one of the top buyer from Peruvian Cacao and Swiss eat about 11.7 kg Chocolate per year...
In the afternoon we attended the City tour of Cusco, but we were not really happy with it: It was a mainstream show of sights around Cusco (the sights are awesome) where a lot of tourists in many small buses get carried to the places where the Peruvian ladies wait and try to sell "stuff" ("baby alpaca pullover's, gloves, lockets and MANY other things"), the tourguide gives a 5 min speak about what this is, you have 5 more minutes to walk around and take pictures, back to the bus to the next stop and finally you end up in a Alpaca Store for 30 minutes where you can buy more alpaca stuff... the funniest thing with this is: it works! at least 4 from our group did really buy something there.... :-) good business I guess for the sellers...

Cusco City - Not the Cathedral ;-)

Sacsayhuaman

So we decided to have an great dinner in the evening, but the restaurant we wanted to go was already full, so we went to the same one as we did the last time in Jan and had a very tasty piece of meat.

Well, what else...? oh, right I went to the barber to get rid of my beard :-) nice experience but I'm not posting a picture how I looked afterwards, just while he was doing his work ...

So we were ready to take the bus to Puno (actually we wanted to take the train, but a train ticket that cost's 220US Dollars per person was though a little expensive, so we took the 50 Soles bus instead). On the way to Puno we've seen a lot of different special things (old VW Beetle's, little remote villages, the train to Puno, road construction sites and many things more... ) and we arrived in the evening in Puno (a touristy city at the lago Titicaca).

Puno at Sunset

We had 2 options in mind, going to the Islas Taquile or visiting Sillustani, but apparently all tour opperators that visit the island stop at the "human zoo", the floating islands of the Uros... and since we didn't want to go with a tour like that, we decided to catch a cab in the morning that drives us out to the ancient tombs-hill of Sillustani. 
It's actually a really nice place and you don't need to come by a tour bus, since some of the statements that the guides said was just wrong! So we spent a day on this peninsula before we took a collectivo (8 people in a car) back to the main road and then a small bus back to Puno.

Sillustani

From Puno, we organized a tour to Chivay, the village with hot thermal baths and the entrance to the Colca Canon (where you have to buy a tourist ticket for 35 Soles, just to be there). We took a tour that stops at some places for pictures and you have a guide telling you some stories about this area (pretty good, although we declined the offer to try alpaca meat at 08.00 in the morning at a trucker restaurant).
At lunch we arrived in Chivay and after some food, we went to the "high altitude rescue team" in Chivay (similar to the REGA in Switzerland) where we asked for hiking information about the Colca Canon. One of the gave us willingly information and the other guy kept watching TV (what a cool job!) and we took a local bus to Cabanaconde (3287 m) where we spent the night in a Backpacker hostal (12 Soles per person, incl. breakfast) and where we got ready for our tour through the Canon... but this is in the next blog entry...

Jungle-Camp and days in cusco

As mentioned, we've done a jungle trip to the reserved zone in the Manu National Park (twice as big as Switzerland). The reserved zone is an area where tourism is possible (~3000 visits a year) but with tight restrictions on what you can do, so don't expect a 5 star hotel but rather a little bungalow (4 walls, 1 roof, 2 beds and 2 mosquito nets).

The full trail can be seen on : Jungle Trail tracker

Day 1: Pick up at the hostel, meeting the other passengers: 2 Kiwi's, 1 American, 1 Dutch and a Dutch/Swedish couple (one didn't feel well) and via Airport (to pick up another passenger) towards the Andean passes... but a landslide stopped us, so we had to go another way to Pisac to cross the Andes. After 6-7 h we arrived at our Lodge in the cloud forest.

Day 2: Get up early 5.30 and bus trip to Atalaya the town where we changed to a boat, followed by an 5 h boat ride to our second lodge. The boat is pretty good to spot animals:
Caimans, birds, birds, birds, red howler monkeys (the one below is a woolen monkey, hold as a pet..) and some Trees.... well, a lot of trees..

The lodges are simple but have showers (cold/not heated) and toilets and little bungalows to sleep in. After the shower and dinner, we had a night walk to spot grasshoppers, frogs, flying and non flying insects, a tarantula and some other animals..

Day 3: one passenger is (still) sick, so the guide had to organize the back transport and we had a late start to move to the Eco-lodge in the Reserved Zone. On the way, we have seen the earth biggest rat (about 50 kg). In the afternoon we did a jungle walk to a lake and we've seen a family of giant otters and another passenger got sick, but we were ok).

Day 4: We all spent a full day in the untouched reserved zone (no one sick anymore) and used a wooden catamaran on lake salvador to watch birds, followed by a jungle trail, and the visit of a platform (25m) to watch birds and the giant otters again (and we've had a Gecko in the platform) and we have seen woolen monkeys :-)
 

Day 5: early start as usual (around 05.30) then downstream out of zona reserva  (3-4 h) to another lake to watch the macaws and other birds: (German speakers: Das sind Blau/Gelbe und Blau/Rote Aras).

Day 6: Very early morning to get to the "macaw clay lick" for 4 hours (a place where parrots go and eat clay), so we have seen a lot of parrots :-) that day! In the afternoon we visited a platform in the canopy on one of the giant trees in the rain forest (btw. we just had 1 little rain during the whole trip).

Day 7+Day 8: back upstream and last night in a jungle lodge with a very nice dinner, followed by a very early start (05.00) to a long journey back to Cusco (Sunday seems to be Coca leaf drying day)... but as said, this is all legal (and therefore, the expensive looking, brand new Jeep XYZ with 4 strange looking guys must have been from government to collect the coca leafs there :-) )
Back in Cusco, we spent a relaxing day with the laundry, sitting around and caring our insect bites we've brought back from the Jungle and we planned the next few days. So we decided to take a little collectivo (a van with 12 seats) to go to Lamay and hike up the hill there (about 700 m) to visit an Inca site. Luckily we had a "former formula 1 pilot" in the driver's seat, so our jurney was just 1h not 1.5 h as planned ;-)
The way up was pretty tough but we managed it and it was worth it since there were hardly no other tourists up there (no road = no tourists) :-) On the way back we used another, slower collectivo (but this means it is full with people :-) )


see the path we took... satelite is bad but terrain is good :-)

Now, our plan is to have one more day in Cusco and head than to Puno for 2 nights before we go and visit the "Earth deepest canyon" (how to measure: take the highest peak of a mountain and compare it with the lowest part in the canyon :-) )

Back from the Jungle...

8 days in the jungle have left its traces... we didn't meet a lot of mosquito's but there is more than one animal that can bite and/or sting :-) but besides this, it was a great experience to see the wildlife so close...
Monkeys, small and bigger birds, parrots, otters, turtles, butterflies, dragonflies, ... all was there and we tried to picture them as good as possible...

since we are now back in Cuzco, we are planning the next 2-3 days. So, we'll upload more information in the next few days... but you can have a look at the trail:

Jungle Trip

Furthermore, we have uploaded some pictures in the Nazca blog...

First week over, Lima - Paracas - Nazca - Cuzco

We were on time at the airport and had no problems to get our flight to Amsterdam and Lima. Fortunately, we could choose a special seat at the very end of the plane where just 2 seats are in one row :-) and, as we thought, boarding a large aircraft is done from back to front, so we would be the first ones to board... (well, this didn't happen).
Most of the people don't understand this concept... this means that when the first call was done to boad the plane, literally EVERYONE rushed down the finger-dock and queued up ;-) so we waited untill all others were in the plane before we joined in.

 The flight was long and we had some turbulance, but nothing to worry about, more like a giant roller-coster :-) and we arrived pretty tired in Lima. Fortunately, we have booked the rooms already, so we just went to Miraflores, had dinner and went straight to bed.

Next day was planned easy going: having breakfast, getting to the beach, testing the GPS sensor (hey, it's actually great!) and buying things we might need. As Swiss people are used to hike, we wanted to buy a map of the colca canon, but it's diffucult to get them; we had to go to the National Geographical Institute (where a solider is checking the entrance) and we finaly managed to get them. The last thing we did was visiting an ancient pyramide, made before the inka emire arouse, in Lima.

Next morning, we cached the Cruz del Sur bus to Paracas, where we have been awaited by Alfredo (a guy that sells everything: accomodation, tours, events, etc) and we signed up for a boat trip to the Islas Ballestas, a national park which is hosting thousands of birds, sea lions, seals, etc. In short, a very nice trip for 2 hours. After that Alfredo wanted to sell us a tour to the Peninsula de Paracas, a desert national park, but we decided to hick (which is IMPOSSIBLE as Alfredo said, it's too far! you have to book a tour! ;-) ) but we managed to get there and back and we enjoyed it a lot (the GPS was on as well) ! Although we did not see everything, we have seen pretty nice spots...

Our next stop was Nazca, well known for it's lineas de nazca, Maria Reiche, Erich von Daeniken, and a very dry desert... and we can agree, it is dry there... 4 h by bus throught something you usually entitle as "the middle of nowhere" ending up in a (ugly) city that lives from farming (there is a river close) and from the Nazca lines... so what to do there? in the evening we went to a presentation about the theories of the lines and figures in the hotel where Maria Reiche lived for about 25 years (very nice and private show, 3 visitors). So we were prepared to next day's task: flying over the lines:

First of all: it's a very big area, so you just get to see some of the figures and there is liturally hunderts of lines and squares in the desert! and it's amazing to see!

Secondly, it's even more fun, when your are not quite sure if the captain of the plan is really sober or if he just had a bad day (he looked ok but a bit grumpy) and it's getting better, whe he and his co-pilot both start hunting the wasp in the little 4-seat plane while flying... but it went well in the end. and to see the lines and e.g. the Monkey they are doing pretty hard turns to show you the lines... cool!

Last but not least, it's even more fun to have 2 people "filling the paper bags" next to you (we were fine but the two others had a fragile stomac) but nevertheless, it was a great experience (and NO, I didn't take a picture of the puking guys!)

After the flight we spent a lot of time to organize our trip to the jungle: we'll leave tomorrow for 8 days into the rain forrest, so keep an eye on the gps tracker, before we return to Cuzco where we are at the moment. So don't be astonished if we don't update the blog or answer mails since we are going to a place where addresses can't be found with google-maps and google street view hasn't been there...

 

Jungle Trail

And "One more thing": we had a 14 hour night-bus trip from Nazca to Cuzco... it's actually a bit lengthy and I'd say the sharp turns of the bus while you try to sleep are more challenging for you stomac than the nazca flight ;-) but we handled it well but we are tired now!