Sailing to Panama, Friday

Were just back from a 5 day trek in the jungle. Spendign afew more days in Cartagena before sailing to Panama and the san blas islands on Friday.
Will write a proper blog entry then, watch this space!

Now for something sort of related

Sean Kelly, Irish cycling legend and favourite cyclist of Lucho, who put us up for free in his casa de cyclistas in Trujillo, Peru.

Climbing Vallanaraju (5688m)

From Vallanraju

When we arrived in Huaraz and met up with Tom and Dave we had a bit of a chat about what we´d get up to. As it was most definitely still rainy season with regular afternoon downpours hiking one of the 4 to 8 day circuits didn´t sound like a good idea as after day 2 all our clothes would be wet and the hiking might not be so enjoyable. We´d all wanted to summit a decent sized mountain so we asked round and settled on what looked like the most reputable agency to hike one of the peaks that could be summited year round.
At the hostel there was an english girl who´d done a bit of hiking and seemed at a bit of a loose end, so Dave invited her along on a day hike we were doing to a glacial lake for some acclimatisation. I guess we had our doubts about her being able to hack the summit hike but she seemed to be able to cope well enough with the hike to Lake 69. A bus dropped us out to the start of the hike and we made the lake in two and a half hours, two Chinese lads came along with us and despite their suffering a bit with the altitude were a good laugh, hiking in jeans and wellies with their golf umbrella. I´d have to say the scenery wasn´t too spectacular on that hike, we´d seen more impressive glacial lakes in Patagonia.
Next day we went to the tour agency´s office, collected our gear and then travelled in a minivan to the base of the mountain, 90 minutes away in a remote valley. For some reason the guides wanted to camp right where the bus left us off and add 5 hours to the next days hike, we were immediately suspicious, the plan back at the office was to make the base camp at 4000m that day and then start hiking at 1am so we´d get up and down the glacier on frozen snow before the sun made going difficult or at worst dangerous. The summit hike was supposed to take 7 hours up and 4 to 5 down so leaving this extra bit of hiking to be done in the same day would mean we wouldn´t have time to summit before the sun rose and started making the snow on the glacier melt. We insisted on making base camp that day rather than sit around doing nothing for the day.
We hiked up a steep path, everyone well loaded down as we were all sharing the load of food, cooking gear, tents and our own clothes. After 3 hours we reached the base camp as the end of the glacier moraine. Unfortunately the weather was closing in and it had started to rain, sleet and then snow, along with the snow melting this made the base camp extremely cold and we all rushed to put our tents up on the sodden campground among the rocks. Unfortunately I´d sent my good mountain tent home in exchange for a bigger, better vented tent that was more suitable for hot climates so Paul and I were relying on the agency´s tent. It turned out to be a leaky piece of crap more suitable for a summer in France than a cold, wet night at 4000m so we didn´t have the greatest nights sleep. All the floor of the tent was wet and we had to watch out so our down sleeping bags didn´t soak water and lose their insulation. The girl that was on the hike with us pitched her tent in a puddle and ended up bawling at the guides. We were all pretty cold with the usual white fingers and toes, it was a bit early to be losing the head but she eventually got sorted out. Our genius guides were using our stoves as they were better than the agency´s but had forgotten to bring matches and had to ask myself and Paul if we had some. The guides even ended up cooking in Tom and Dave´s tent as it was better than the guides. Hardly confidence inspiring seeing as we were relying on these guys to guide us across a glacier to the summit the next day. I´d have to admit I had a good think that night about whether it was wise to go ahead with these cowboys leading us. I figured in the end that we were only a 3 hour hike from a road and weren´t in any danger at the moment and would give it a try the next day, keeping an eye on the guides and being prepared to call a halt to things if they got too hairy next day.
After some hot food we warmed up a bit but because of the altitude we weren´t that hungry. It was an awful nights camping with the leaky tent, and even though our down sleeping bags were well warm the damp of the tent and water on the floor made it really uncomfortable. When the guides called us for breakfast at 1am we were glad to get going and not really sure if we´d slept much at all.
We packed light, leaving the sleeping and cooking gear behind and once we hit the glacier we put on our crampons and were roped up into two teams of 4 and 3. The first team was one of the guides followed by the English girl then Paul and Dave. The next team was a guide, myself and then Tom who was some distance back on a long rope. It seemed harsh on the English girl to be second in the line up as she kept falling over on the fresh snow tracks and might have had an easier time further back on the rope but when we complained to the guides they did nothing. Was this a tactic to slow us down or was it a safety measure to put the weakest climber second on the rope so if they slipped the team would have a better chance of halting the fall?

Luckily there was a full moon out and cloud cover had dropped so we could see the rest of the peaks beside us. It was magical to see all the peaks around us, such epic scenery. Add to that the fun of trudging up the snow on the 40 degree slope, picking your footsteps and testing that the snow would take your weight. Some times the snow would hold your weight, some times the powder would collapse to knee or waist height and you´d have to haul yourself up and get going again. The fact that I was the heaviest of the group meant I had to tread carefully, taking shorter steps. What might support the lads would give way under me.

Heavy Going on the way up From Vallanraju

Over the next few hours we trudged along at a slow pace, taking breaks, and each snow hill we crossed on the glacier led to another before after about 4 hours we could see the twin peaks of the summit rising ahead of us. Excited to see the summit, but I guess realistic as even at home the last bit to reach a peak could take hours and with the slow pace of the snow making heavy going and the altitude it would take a while. Plus it was really cold. My gore tex jacket and rucksack, both wet from the night before were frozen stiff on me, everyone´s water bottles were icing up and it was hard to drink the icy water even though we were thirsty. Too much cold water would lower your core temperature and could even push you towards hypothermia.

Thankfully though my trusty old boots were still dry, keeping my toes warm and safe from frostbite and the alpine mitts I´d hauled on my bike since the start of the trip were keeping my hands nice and toasty. Everyone bar the English girl were in good spirits, Tom joking about being so far behind our team of 3 as his rope was so long and Dave keeping a bit of banter going. Despite Tom and I having dose of the peru belly we were keeping on trucking.

From Vallanraju

After another 5 hours climbing it was 7am, beginning to get light and we started to cross some crevasses and wound our way up towards the peak. It was hard to see where we were actually going to end up summiting from but we had to trust the guides to lead us along a safe route. Some parts were really steep, one snow hill was about 60 degrees so it was a lot of work to crunch steps into the hill and even harder work if the step went as you stood on it and you had to flounder your way back to your feet using the powder round you.
One really annoying thing the guides did was to lie to us about how far we´left. As we neared the summit there was about 4 times when they told us we only had a hour or half hour left only to hear the same or more the next time someone asked them. We could have coped with being told the truth as we only needed to know how much we had to pace ourselves, it certainly didn´t improve our confidence in the guides and I guess was to play a major part in the decision we made later on in the day.
After about 5 hours climbing in the snow we were tired but all the lads seemed good to go. Tom and I had sick stomachs and were nauseous, not sure from altitude or from the guides crap cooking. Paul and I had altitude headaches as we´d spent a few days down at sea level surfing and weren´t as well acclimatised as Tom and Dave who´d cycled along the spine of the Andes to get here. But our biggest problem was the English girl who was getting emotional, occasionally crying, saying she couldn´t go on and looking wobbly on her legs.

We climbed some very steep snow hills to reach a set of crevasses over two hours, unfortunately at the crevasse the bridge of snow that normally spanned the crevasse was gone, leaving us with two options to make the summit, a tempting 300m above us. The guide, myself and Tom went right to investigate a route to the right of the crevasse but the ridge we were travelling on narrowed too much for it to be safe, two crevassess either side seemed bottomless, plus the snow on top was very powdery and liable to break off so we retreated back to where the other rope team was trying to climb an impossibly steep slope of powder snow and not making too much progress. The english girl was crying again and in a bit of a state and with the lads struggling to make uphill progress it looked like we were stuck.

Even if we managed it up that snow hill they way back down would be treacherous because at the bottom of the hill, to the left and right of the 3 metre wide bridge they´d used to cross a crevasse were two steep drops into nothing. If anyone took a tumble on the steep powder slope doing down, it would be hard for the rest of the people on the rope to dig their ice axes in enough to stop the fall into the crevasse. Id climbed a volcano in Chile over ice and we´d done a half hour´s practice of falling on our ice axes to arrest a fall but it just occurred to me that the rest of the group had done no training the day before as promised by the tour agency, base camp had been too cold. 80% of accidents happen on the way down a mountain.
I asked the guides how long it would take to summit as at 9am the sun was rising and starting to melt the snow on the glacier, we were going to be tight for time to make it back down before we´d be taking a big risk on the snow not caving in on some of the trickier bridges we´d crossed.
The guides gave their standard answer of one of them saying a half hour and the other an hour. ´

I´d heard this all before, these guys either didn´t know the time it would take or couldn´t give a straight answer, the sun was getting hotter, a bank of cloud was edging its way up the mountain and would soon be at our level so I decided it was time someone called a halt to the climb, it was getting too dangerous and the english girl looked like she was going to struggle to make it down. The rest of the lads seemed up for climbing the rest of the snow but I could see they all knew that the girl was in no state to continue and then make it back. I think we all knew that by bringing her along we had a responsibility to get her off the hill, even if it was her decision to come.
The guides were gung ho to try the steep slope but at this stage we were beyond having any respect for their advice.

So we took some pictures, ate a few sugary sweets and then started trudging down hill along the increasingly soft snow in silence, we were all fairly dissapointed and tired.

From Vallanraju

Meanwhile with tired legs after 7 hours of climbing we trudged downhill. The snow had meted considerably and it was warm enough to hike in a base layer. The going was tough, we were glad we taken the decision to come down as the snow would have been absolute mush 2 hours later. One the way up my jacket was frozen stiff, now it was warm enought to hike in just a base layer.

On the way up one of the guides had led us to the right of an ice cliff along some snow and I´d noticed, being 2nd last on the line of climbers that one footstep had revealed a hollow underneath, we´d crossed a thin layer of snow and if someone went through we were in trouble so I´d told the guide leading our rope team and marked the snow after this section to indicate danger ahead.
Unfortunately I was so tired on the way down that I must have walked past the marker and over the hollow. But when Tom behind me sunk his boot into snow and shouted that he couldn´t get it out even digging with his ice axe I realised where we were and that Tom might slip through. I went back and freed Tom with a lot of careful digging and then told the second rope team to go take a wide berth of the dodgy area, in hindsight the guide on our rope should have had someone from the other rope team rescue Tom as if Tom and I were roped together and fell through to the drop below there was no way the guide on the other end of our rope was stopping the weight of the two of us falling. Even though it wasn´t that big a drop, only 2 to 3 metres it made me realise how stupid and badly trained the guides were.

By mid day we reached the bottom of the glacier, took off our crampons and walked slowly into base camp where the tents were still up. We´d been on the go for 10 hours with no more than 5 minutes break at a time and we all fell into our tents for a nap while the guides cooked something up.
I was woken by the guide and the english girl outside our tent, she was in tears and shouting at him in english and he was trying to talk to Paul and I. In an unbelievable mess up the guides thought we were going to stay at the base camp for another night, they thought when we booked a days rock climbing as well as the summit attempt that we were going to stay on the mountain for rock climbing and had no transport arranged for later on in the day at the bottom of the hill.

Plus their mobile phone had no credit so even if they could get some coverage they couldn´t call a lift. The nearest village was 12km from the base of the mountains and everybody was too wrecked to walk that far. This tour company, MontTrek was really living on their past glories if they had gotten good reviews in the lonely planet as this expedition was an absolute shambles.
Luckily I´d brought my mobile with me so I said we´d call a lift and get off the mountain as none of us had enough dry clothes and I didn´t fancy spending another night lying in a puddle at 4000m. We calmed the english girl down, told her to stay in her tent and the guide and I went searching for signal, eventually after the agency weren´t answering their phone he managed to call two other people to send a car.
We ate some hot food and then packed up to get off the mountain, as we started our descent with wet and heavy packs a cloud hit the mountain and it started to snow, making the path treacherously slippy and with the big drops at the edge of the path we all edged down cautiously. We each took a tumble on the way down, thankfully the only casualty was the knee of Paul´s wet pants which he ripped, a testament to how slippy it was and how tired we were as he usually never slips.
We reached the bottom at around 4pm and to my surprise the guide insisted the two of us walked out the valley to get phone signal and call again for a lift home as he wasn´t sure if a minivan was en route or if the villager who manned the gate on the way in would let the van in if it arrived. There was no way we´d be able to stay where we were for the night so I hiked the 5km out to the village with him leaving the others at the base of the mountain, trying to get phone signal on the way and eventually getting through and meeting the van at the village gate.

We were all wrecked by the time the guide and I returned with the van, I´d been on the go from 2am till 6pm without much of a break and was glad we were heading to civilisation, everybody in one piece and bar some tears from the english lady the rest of us were in good form. It had been some adventure, we´d enjoyed the climb despite being disgusted with the agency. We dropped the gear back to the agency and headed to the comfort of hostel churrup, all we wanted was a hot shower, dry clothes and a feed, Monttrek would get an earful tomorrow.

If you´re reading this article and thinking of climbing I´d recommend the climb, it was a great experience but I´d definitely be wary of the agency you go with. Don´t go with Monttrek who weren´t very professional and talk to the lads at the churrup hostel who regularly hear reports of people in their hostel using agencies and know the good companies. Make sure they give you registered mountain guides not just porters trying to work as guides, ask to see their certs as they should have them and insist on some training on the glacier before the day of the summit attempt.

Roll on the next peak, we´ll be passing loads before we hit the Caribbean for some sailing!

Motorbiking to Machiu Pichu

When I arrived in Cusco all the lads had already been and I wasn´t too pushed on repeating their hike anyhow, it wouldn´t be anything new as I´d heard their antics over a few beers. Paul had just been told he´d need 5 more days in Cusco before the doctor would let him travel on by bus so I had a bit of time to kill.

Down the street from our hostel were a couple of motorbike rental companies. Since we´d met the two NZ motorbikers crossing the straights of magellan I´d been impressed with using motorbikes for travel. They covered 550km the day after we met them, on those roads we were only doing 80km a day so the motorbikes were looking like a good option for the next trip when time not be so plentiful.

I hired a bike for 4 days, ignoring the voice in my head that said it might not be a good idea after the fall from the mountain bike, feck it, I was here for an adventure, not to take the bloody bus with the tourists.
The guy at the shop gave me a map, told me two places I could stay on the route and keep the bike secured, then showed me where to buy clean petrol on the route.
I´d done a bit of time on my cousin Kev´s motobike in the forest, but not a whole pile really so I figured if I could get out of the street with the rental company on it I´d be grand, how hard could it be. So I got on the bike with my rucksack strapped to the back, eased the clutch out, took off and was on my way to see the sacred valley of the incas by motorbike.
First stop was for petrol, I filled the tank for about 4 euro, then hit the road again, getting used to the bike, missing the odd gear and trying to remember to brake with my right hand, not wind the trottle open if somehing went wrong as I´d done a few times in the forest at home!

First site I visited was Sacsayhuaywaman, I couldn´t help but think how handy it was to park the motorbike up, then just walk into the site as opposed to needing to take a rest from cycling. The site was amazing, such huge stones fitted together with such precision, unfortunately, my camera was on the blink so have a look at this link for some photos of the site.
I hit the road again, winding down hill into the sacred valley proper, rich green farmland and a decent warm breeze, really enjoying myself on the bike and asking the odd local for the directions to the pisac ruins. Had to say no thank you when some local builders offered me a big mug of spirits on their lunch break.

In pisac after winding up a section of tight hairpins, I saw some inca farming terrances and some old cut stone buildings built high into the hillside. Very impressive the effort they went to as the hills were steep and the work was so good all the buildings are still standing. Next I headed along the valley to the last ruins of the day and my stop for the night Ollayantambo. I had a quick walk round the site and then drove the scrambler up the narrow inca streets to find my hostel where the lovely hostel owner Katy showed me where to park the bike out back and pointed me towards the best pizza in town. I was starving and after all the adrenaline of the day a family size pizza put me away and I slept like a log.

Next day was to be toughest day on the bike, I had two mountain ranges to cross to get to the town where I´d hike to machiu pichu from. The first mountain was paved roads reaching 4000m plus but with a lot of avalanches on the far side and the second mountain range was all dirt roads with no barriers so I´d need to concentrate or suffer the consequences.

I hit the road at 7am, eating my breakfast of bread and bananas from the market on a grass verge by the side of the road before riding the bike up the mountain side. I wasn´t long climbing before the rain started and I had to slow right down, by the time I reached the top of the pass I was an expert at taking hairpins

Hairpins on the way up From Machiu Pichu and the Sacred Valley

I wanted to get down from 4300m to the warm valley and out of the fog so I could see where I was going better. Amazing how cold you get when you´re just sitting on a motorbike as opposed to cycling.

4316m and freezing cold From Machiu Pichu and the Sacred Valley

The avalanches on the far side blocked half the road in spots, in some parts the road was undermined so I had to keep a watch out for yellow tape marking the road. The swollen river crossings were a good laugh, I eventually found the only way to keep my boots dry while crossing was to lift my feet up and gun the bike across the river in first, all the balance from the cycling came in handy.

The next valley was like a jungle and I warmed up as the gravel roads wound downhill, all sorts of trees growing by the side of the road. I reached the town of Santa Maria by noon and bought lunch of soup and stew from a nice old dear while her husband watched the bike outside. After a fill of petrol for the next mountain I left town and took a wrong turn, realising when I looked at my GPS that macchiu pichu getting further away was probably the wrong road, theyd don´t do sign posts in rural Peru and I guess tourists aren´t meant to try getting into macchiu pichu by the backroads.

After I crossed the river beside town and was on the right road I was wrecked tired. I´d been 5 hours on the bike already and between the cold, wet and fog of the mountain pass I was well tired from riding so I pulled over by the side of the road laid out my bike jacket on some gravel and with my drybag of clothes as a pillow, went to sleep for 40 minutes. A local dog woke me before my phone alarm did and his owner, amused with the gringo sleeping by the side of the road had a laugh and came over to chat. Like I´d been told, the new road to Santa Theresa was blocked by an avalanche and I´d have to take the old mountain road to get there. Nice fella, even if his directions to find the mountain road were a bit hazy. It used to be that Paul and I doubted our spanish at the start of the trip but at this stage I´d have to say that the locals are useless at giving directions, a general rough idea is all you´ll ever get and don´t even bother asking distances or time as it will mostly be wrong, nice people just useless at giving directions and of course, they run on south american time.

After 40 winks I was good to go and hit off on the bike, which thankfully started on the button every time. After about 10 minutes I came to a major junction in the dirt roads, I´d no idea which road to take so I decided I´d wait till someone came along and ask directions rather than take the wrong road. After 10 minutes a local fella came put putting along on an old bike and said I could follow him to the village as he was going there himself. Besides he said, he´d no brakes on his bike so I´d be able to keep up with him. So we took off in convoy on the narrow dirt road, winding up tight hairpins and climbing the mountain with just a few bushes or a bit of a grass verge between the dirt road and the steep drop into the valley. I reckon if the local fella had brakes he´d win the dakar as there was no way I was going to be able to keep with him, the road was muddy in spots and I wasn´t going to take any chances with the drop off so near. Plus hiaces full of people tended to appear from nowhere making it a tight squeeze between the van and the drop off.
So for about two and a half hours I rode up the mountains on the dirt roads, enjoying every minute of the great views, getting used to the motorbike on gravel and passing through the mountain villages. A local kid even ran out on the road to give me a high 5.

About 30 minutes from Santa Theresa I had to cross a flooded river fording, a combi van full of people had barely just made it across so I had a good look at the lay of the land before making my attempt. Worst thing that could happen would be for the flow to take the bike and for me to drop it in the river running, I´d have some fun trying to dry out the engine without tools. I stuck the bike in first and gunned it across, having to fight the stream with the front wheel mid way but making dry land on the other side eventually with clouds of steam rising from the engine.

Flooded Rver crossing From Machiu Pichu and the Sacred Valley

By 5pm I rode into the village and met the hostel owner who let me roll the bike into the back of his restauraunt.

Next day I got a taxi to the next town as it´s forbidden to drive along the private road to machiu pichu, don´t ask me why but I suspect it´s because the rail company have a monopoly on getting to machiu pichu. Anyhow I enjoyed the 12k hike along the railway, this was real jungle country with the rail line winding through dense vegetation along the bottom of the steep sided valleys.

Rather than get the bus at the end of the rail line I hiked uphill for 2 hours to reach machiu pichu, after three hours walking in such humid conditions I didn´t mind being fleeced for a coca cola with ice, it tasted great.

Inside the site I haggled with a local guide and paid him 10 dollars for an hour tour of the impressive site. From the endge of the ruins I could see the rail line I´d hiked along as it wound through the valleys, man I´d walked a lot to get to Machiu Pichu considering how close I´d been as the crow flew! To see the quality of the craftsman ship that allowed them to perch walls along 45 degree rock faces and the amount of work it must have taken to live and cultivate food at such a height was very impressive, equally so it was worth paying the guide to find out how the city of the incas was organised, how the buildings were laid out to catch the sun at points of the day and year, well worth the hike and bike ride.

I hiked back along the rail lines after rain covered Machiu Picchu and sent the tourists running for the rain shelters. I met a local fella walking home along the rail lines, we chatted had a coke at the end of the rail line and then shared a taxi back to Santa Theresa. He was studying tourism in Cusco and the 2 hour walk along the rail lines was his normal way home at the weekend.

I sent word to Paul that I might be a day late getting back to Cusco, some other motorbikers had arrived in the dark that evening as the rain had tuned the mountain roads to mud and it had taken them 12 hours to reach ollayantambo.

Luckily though the rain held off I hit the road at 7 next ay, enjoying the scenery even more and well in control of the bike. I took a few photos and videos, only the rivers were much lower this time round. I reached the half way point of Ollayantambo by lunch time, stopped in the square and chatted to the local police chief as the pizzeria was beside the station. I reckon he spent most of the day listening to music as he had classical music filling up the square and when he found out I was Irish he put on the wild rover, bit of a character.

I hit the road again, it was Saturday and without going fast I´d the idea in the back of my head to reach town and head out for Saturday night beers with Paul and the south african lads we´d met on our travels.

Moray terraces, From Machiu Pichu and the Sacred Valley

I reached the cultivated terraces of moray and had a walk around the site at 4pm, some of the valleys were spectacular, and the sun was well low in the sky when I reached the old market town of chinchero.

It was getting dark bt the time I left chinchero but the road was paved again, my gps didn´t have this road on it but it said I was about 13 km as the crow flies from Cusco and at 800m lower so I hadn´t that far to go, the bike had lights and I was itching to make town and head out so I headed off into the dusk, eventually reaching cusco and finding my way along the windy streets in busy traffic to the town square for two laps of honour before I dropped off the bike nearby and headed to the hostel to shower and clean up.

Myself Paul the two South africans Mike and Grant headed to a live music bar 7 Angelitos to see a live reggae band and sink a few cubra libres, we had a great night, the band played really lively stuff and we made the most of the happy hour. We even bumped into a two Irish girls I´d met in the hostel in La Paz while I was injured, Joan and Merissa and headed to a club later when the band finished.

I´d have to say the 4 days on the bike and the hike to machiu pichu was a great adventure. Don´t get me wrong, touring by bicycle is great, you always end up in the middle of nowhere as you can only cycle so far in a day so there´s definitely more adventure in cycling. But if I was going on a shorter trip with less time I´d definitely use a motorbike to see more places.

Breaking into Machiu Pichu

While I was trying to keep my leg straight and not bust the stitches on the knee, Paul and the 3 lads we met on the road cycling; Tom Dave and Ollie headed to cusco and then hit for machiu pichu.
Seeing as none of them had reserved the inca trail hike and they didn´t feel like paying top dollar for the train out they got a bus through the mountains of the sacred valley, then next day hiked 12k along the railway tracks at 1am, then climbed up through the jungle to try and sneak into machiu pichu at dawn for free, more in the name of adventure than trying to avoid paying. Paul is going to write up something on their hike so watch this space.

1 bike due north last week, no bikes due north this week

While I was waiting for my knee to heal in La Paz, Paul and the 3 English lads cycled on towards Cusco in Peru. Tom got sick at the Peruvian border and had to bus the last bit into Cusco but they all regrouped to hike up to Machiu Pichu in the middle of the night and get in for free.

While the 3 English lads headed on into the Peruvian mountains Paul stayed put so we could sort out our flights home. Last I heard Paul had to go to hospital in Cusco for a minor operation, not sure for what but he´ll be out of action for a week at least. Hopefully he´s ok.

My doc gave my knee the all clear to bus to Cusco today, I might be able to cycle in a weeks time. Good thing is at least I can bend my knee enough to load the bike on a bus so I´m headed up to Cusco to check out my cycling buddy.

So no bikes going anywhere this week or next week bar in the luggage compartment of a bus. Hopefully Paul´s ok and we´ll both be good to travel after we recover.

New Photos Added

Paul has just uploaded some new photos from our recent travels.


Click on the Photo to view Pauls photo albums, to see the latest photos order by date

Video of us cycling from Salta to Juyjuy

Not surviving the road of Death

After 5 days in La Paz I was itching for some adventure. La Paz was fun but with all the Irish and English we were mixing with it may as well have been a bar in Dublin.
I´d booked myself a mountain bike tour on the worlds most dangerous road. No way I was going to rattle my own touring bike to bits only to have it fall apart in the Peruvian mountains. The rest of the lads didn´t want to spend the money and thought the scenery would be worth it so I was on my own.

I booked a company that had decent bikes with good suspension and decent brakes for stopping power. Kitted out with everything bar knee and elbow pads we started out at 9 am with two guides and a group of about 14 of us, a wide mix from fellas my age to ladies who hadn´t done much cycling at all.

From Random phone photos

The first section of the road was mostly asphalt and very cold because of the rain, fog and altitude. On the next section there as an 8km climb so the guide and I pushed on ahead, eventually racing to the top with me beating him by a good 500m, we were having a good laugh. On the next section the road was gravel and we just let the bikes roll down,using the brakes on the corners that had a cliff edge on the outside and letting the bikes drift a bit on the corners with the hillside behind them.

As we descended the temperature became noticeably warmer and the cold fog cleared to show the green valleys. The scenery was impressive to say the least. Some of the small villages would have have been tough to live in, like the Kerry man said "Its a nice view but you can´t eat it", so I found myself wondering how the people living in these low timber houses survived the cold and made a living.

The road itself was crazy, windy bends with no barriers on the outside to stop traffic falling off the cliff, on some sections big rock ledges overhung the road sending waterfalls down the gravel and eating away at what little road there was.

On the next section we went a bit faster, myself, the guide and a friendly Australian called Alex who´d done a bit of dirt bike riding and knew how to handle a bike were having good fun, overtaking, getting good lines and drifting the bikes on the gravel on the bends that didn´t have a cliff on the outside.

All was going well with the cycling till I over cooked it on one corner with the hillside on the outside of the bend and ran out of road. I dunno why but I was reluctant to turn in a bit quicker, I guess all the months with panniers on the front of my bike had programmed me to turn in slow or cause a speed wobble. Anyhow my bike went into a small drainage ditch about a foot deep with 45 degree sides, fine I thought I´ll drop some speed and then try use momentum to get back on the road, only when I did the back wheel lost grip and I went down, knee first then hip and elbow.
It wasn´t that big and impact so I got up and dusted myself off. If it had been on clay at home I´d have been fine. Only the faces on the guys who´d stopped behind me told me a different story. You could see the white of the bone as the skin had been lifted off like peeling an orange, my cycling was finished. I walked to a nearby bridge and lay on the road with my leg elevated to slow the bleeding until the support van arrived. As I lay there I was just thinking feck, hope this hasn´t finished the cycle tour.

The guide gave me some bandages to wrap the knee up and stop the bleeding and loaded me into the hiace van to take me to the hsopital at the end of the road, I lay on the ground with my foot up high to stop the bleeding. 5 minutes down the road the driver came to a sudden stop and blessed himself. I lifted my head up and saw 3 people hauling a rope over the cliff side. I turned out a tourist had gone clean off the cliff, fallen 15 metres along scree and luckily grabbed a tree on the way down to stop him falling another 50m. As I´d lain on the ground Alex the ozzie had said in typical ozzie humour : " at least your didn´t fall off the other side mate", irony not lost on me as we saw the Dutch fella hanging from the rope. I met him later at our hostel and luckily he only had some bruised ribs.
After an hour of bumping along the bad road the van climbed the terraces of Corioco town and reached the hospital. Really it was more of a small clinic, the first thing I noticed was that the floor was dirty, my Mum would have had the mop out pronto if the kitchen at home was that bad. I was on the alert, sitting up on the hospital bed and watching what they were doing, making sure they were using fresh needles. My knee was wide open with a lot of dirt inside from what I´d seen earlier and needed to be cleaned properly else I´d have serious trouble. After they´d anesthetized the knee and cleaned it out I insisted they check the movement of the knee for damage, no point having to x ray it later if it turned out I´d busted something. I told them a bit of a white lie about needing my knee in good order to make the Irish rowing team and they perked up a bit. In fairness they were doing a good job but I thought it would be a good idea to make my injury a bit more than just another foolish tourist accident.
Luckily the movement of the kneecap was ok, not exactly pleasant to look at but it was working. I guess my worst fear was that I´d have a permanent in jury that would stop me doing sport, what ever about the bike tour I´ve a lot of things I want to do in sport after the trip.

From Random phone photos

I got 14 stitches in total making a nice crescent shape round the knee cap and a prescription for a strong course of antibiotics, pain killers anti inflammatories and a drug to protect my stomach. The nurses and doctors did a great job stitching me up and were impressed with my heart rate of 44, considering the altitude.

Later my guide picked me up from the hostel and we went to a hotel where we ate lunch with the rest of the group overlooking the amazing valleys.

From Random phone photos

Later back at the hostel I broke the news to Paul that I was going nowhere for at least a week, I was sorry to be leaving my traveling buddy in the lurch but at least he could cycle on with the English lads for company. Being a gent he offered to stay on in La Paz but given that the hospital had told me to keep the knee straight for 9 days there was no point holding the two of us up. I could always take a bus with the bike and catch up with him later.

My routine here has been somewhat like groundhog day. Breakfast followed by a few games of pool. Check the old email and send a few messages then maybe watch a film or read the paper in the afternoon, amazing how you can fill a day with lazing round. The hostel does great food which is handy as I can´t walk far so I usually eat 2 dinners here and because I can´t drink the bill for the two weeks has been pretty low. I´ve enjoyed meeting new people here, before I´d have dismissed anyone who stayed in the same hostel for a week as wasting good traveling time but you meet some interesting and fun people in a spot like this. Couldn´t have picked a better place to rest up but I´ll be glad to get on the road. Half the stitches due out today so fingers crossed I´ll be able to hit the road soon.

For anyone thinking of doing the death road, make sure you go with a company that provides knee and elbow pads. I´d be in Peru now if I´d had them.

The last of the Argentine steak

We arrived into Salta in northwest Argentina and landed into a great hostel that even organised some local music for us. There was a good group of people at the hostel, one of the lads, Ryan Fitzpatrick played bluegrass music with the locals and had even toured Ireland. That and the local food was great, such good empanadas that theý put the Chilean food to shame. The town also had a cable car ride up to a viewpoint, handy for us to get a look at the road ahead.

We hit the road out of town, due north of course and before long we were headed into lush green valleys, a stark contrast with the borderline desert of Mendoza. We took the old mountain road and it was sublime, a narrow curving tarmac road one and half cars wide, cut along some hillsides and lined with trees and vegetation. The corners were even banked so we could whizz along on the bikes, getting glimpses of the jungle valleys below through the gaps in the trees.

At the smaller city of JuyJuy we had our first taste of Llama meat at a local restaurant. We thought it tasted similar to pork and lamb. After a short wait while Paul´s travel towel caught up with us from Salta thanks to the excellent bus parcel service we hit the road again, this time facing into some serious climbing and some of our toughest days cycling yet.

We were cycling through the Quebrada de Humehuaca, famed for its colorful rock formations. I guess at the this stage you´re probably wondering how many rock formations we can cycle by and be interested in. After 6 months of traveling we are getting a bit hard to impress but the reddish brown colored rock jutting out of the green valley sides was impressive none the less.
A bigger issue for us was the altitude, we were now at 2700m or so and the air was getting noticeably thinner. no problem if you´re in a car or a motorbike you just give it more throttle but for us it meant really working on our breathing. Even taking a sip from your water bottle had to be timed right so you didn´t end up out of breath. What was most frustrating was the lack of speed, we´d had to slow right down and lose the speed we´d built up over the previous months touring. It was a tough slog.
We stayed a day in the pretty town of Tilcara, meaning to get online and do some planning but the lack of any decent internet meant by midday we´d got nothing done so rather than face the mid day heat we hung out another day. A sign of things to come as basic services like internet became a luxury further north.

We continued north, stopping in the dusty town of Huemehuaca and keeping a good eye to the rainstorms to the north. The town´s river bed was dry when we´d got there, rainy season hadn´t started but one afternoon a storm kicked off in the distance and later on a crowd passed our riverside campsite. We thought there was a local soccer match on but no, they were all watching the river fill up. Some of the storms were spectacular, with big black thunderous clouds and massive flashes of lightening, not something you´d want to be caught cycling in.
As we hit the road north towards the Bolivian border luckily the rain had passed. We´d have to say that at this stage the cycling got a bit boring, flat plains at altitude with nothing much to see. Even if the cycling was a bit tame the Argentines´ beeping at us and waving was still a bit of fun and their friendliness lasted right up to the border. 4km from the border town of La Quiaca we had a couple insist we pull over so they could give us water and chat us about our travels. Great people and we were certainly sad to leave their country.
As a farewell meal at the border we ordered some steak and chips, our favorite food on the road. We weren´t expecting it to be great as we were very far north and quite remote but it was so tasty we ordered as second helping which came out even better and bigger.

Next day we bought 4 days supplies in Argentina to get us to the first Bolivian town with some to spare as we weren´t sure what to expect in Bolivia. I´d read a book about an Irish girl who´d ridden on horseback through Bolivia and called it "the land of we don´t have it" because they´d so little. It seemed like all the Bolivians crossed to border to do their shopping, the stores in La Quiaca were all more like wholesalers and there was a stream of Bolivian women crossing the border with shopping tied up in brightly coloured blankets. Have to say it was fairly noticeable that the men would walk round with their hands in their pockets while the women carried the load in the heat.

The border crossing was a good old fashioned harem scarem seething mass of people. You had two bridges to start with, one bridge for the locals crossing over and back unchecked on bikes and by foot, even gangs of dogs seemed to wander over for a look and a sniff. The other bridge was controlled, if controlled meant long queues supervised by sun beaten border officials wearing aviator shades. Wary of the mayhem and how wealthy our bikes looked compared to the locals we queued up with our bikes to get stamped out of Argentina one last time.
At the Bolivian entry side we queued for 20 minutes before I noticed we were in the wrong queue, but once we got into the right queue with our bikes and started blocking up the place the border officials saw us. As we weren´t going to part company with our bikes Paul queued while I stood by the bikes, we were blocking up the place so the officials took our passports and fast tracked us though.

Bam, We were in Bolivia, hard to believe this was our third country on the trip. We were looking forward to something different Bolivia didn´t disappoint. Villazon was a real frontier town, everyone was hawking something from stalls or just the side of the road. One guy was standing by a 3 metre cube of beercans for sale, street stalls offered shoe repairs on the spot and lots of Bolivian´s were selling coca leaves from huge bags. The smell of the coca leaves will be one of my lasting impressions of Bolivia, initially it smells like hay drying in a field but then you get a musty, pungent smell in the back of your nose like somethings rotten. No need for sniffer dog´s to find that stuff.

We hit the orad out of town and had to speed up to avoid getting caught in a thunderstorm that was sweeping across the plain. The landscape was very desert like, no trees, just some small shrubs. People were living in mud brick houses, some had thatch roof and were showing the wear of a couple of seasons rain.
We put in a good days cycling across the plano, the ripio road slowing our progress where the road was corrugated as it made no sense to be shaken the daylights out of for the sake of going a little bit faster.
That night we camped on the side of a hill, leaving us a nice downhill to start the day and a view of the thunderstorms across the valley as we ate our pasta.
Next morning the valley was soaking from the nights rain and shrouded in mist that burned off within half an hour to reveal a beautiful valley below. We´d had a few occasions to count the seconds between the flashes and the noise of the thunder during the night but we´d pìcked a good spot to camp so were safe, thankfully the ground was gravel so we could de camp without much hassle.

We set off for Tupuiza, descending into hot valleys and passing small, poor towns that reeked of no proper sewage systems. Any river were littered with plastic bottles, mud served as road, footpath and lawn for most houses and the people seemed quite poor. In one town a kid was playing with a bike wheel, rolling it along. I think the last time I remember kids playing with wheels was in roman history at school.
Round about the end of the days cycling I started to feel unwell, my porridge hadn´t settled well and despite drinking lots of coke, the only drink available I was dehydrated and really feeling the heat now we´d descended. I ended up getting a lift to town rather than make myself worse like I´d done previously. We got a taxi to collect my bike and Paul cycled into town where we took two rest days and ended up meeting two other cyclists Dave and Tom from England who were travelling the same route.

The 4 of us booked a 4 day jeep tour of south east bolivia and the salar de uyunyi together.
More about that in my next post, Im about 2 weeks behind so will hope to get up to date tomorrow.

Surfing Bolivia

At the end of the salar tour we looked at the dates and knew we´d not have time to make the Carnaval at Oruro and see the city of Potosi. Not big fans of backtracking we mentioned it to our friendly jeep driver, it turned out he was driving to Potosi the next day to service his jeep so could bring us and our bikes, keeping the possibility of making Carnaval and seeing the mines of Potosi alive.
Only our tour company didn´t agree with his hospitality so after a quick whisper outside the office on the qt with the driver I arranged to meet at 6am on the outskirts of town the next day, covertly loading the bikes and getting out of town before sunrise.

We arrived in Potosi after a few interesting food stops in small roadside villages. Two old ladies cooked us deep fried goat cheese and big mugs of coffee for 25 cents in one stop, very tasty even if we did have to ignore the dirt of the place. The driver stopped for lunch in another village where the meal of the day sat bubbling amid the flies, I just had a coke as the place was filthy, later on their dog even had a taste of the pot so I was glad not to be mid way through lunch watching him.
I just had a coke and chatted the locals as usual they were entertained by the height of the big gringo.

Potosi
As we drove into Potosi we passed the ramshackle mines an villages set against the hill of Potosi, famed for the amount of silver the Spanish extracted from it in the 1400´s.
The mining end of town looked very rough but the buildings in the middle of town were striking, clearly remnants of a wealthier past. Windy, narrow streets and old buildings made walking round town interesting and once we´d settled into our hostel we had a stroll around, getting a cheap meal in the mercado central where you could get anything from shoe and watch repairs to your weekly shopping.
Next day we did a tour of the mines with an ex miner. The interior of the mine was a mess, lots of tunnels had no beams to prop the roofs up. Wobbly timber ladders connected different levels, ore was pushed out by men using hand carts and the dust in the air near the drilling areas was filthy. That and the fact that the mine was at 4000 metres plus made breathing difficult, combined with the claustrophobic tunnels it was a hellish spot and it was no wonder the miners had a statue of the devil near the mine entrance. Give me a cubicle, swivel chair and a pc any day over this! In one section the lads descended to watch two miners drilling through a hole no bigger than a metre wide into a tight space where they were following the ore body. The two miners began to panic when their drill got stuck, one of them pulling at the revolving bit with his gloved hands. I stayed on top as my lungs wouldn´t appreciate the dust of the drilling and I´d need them in good shape for the next leg over the 5000 m passes. Just for a laugh I switched my head torch off, not a speck of light to be seen in the dark tunnels, just the sound of drilling travelling through the rock, very eeerie. Later on the surface our guide exploded some dynamite and fuses we´d bought for a euro at the miner´s market. In Bolivia mining is so unregulated anyone can buy dynamite, no paper work needed! I saw one guy loading the back of his jeep with bags of the stuff and days later as we cycled through valleys we´d hear the bang and see the cloud of dust rising in the distance from small mines.

A the hostel we met Emily´s cousin Neal Cromen again, a good man to meet for a few beers and a bit of craic. We also met the jovial Oliver, an English cyclist Dave and Tom had met down south, all of us bought a load of beer and rum and had a good seisiun at the hostel, the lads even bought a birthday cake for me with the excessive 29 candles.

Surfing Bolivia
Normally Bolivia isn´t a country associated with surfing. Mostly because it has no coastline, thanks to Chile annexing that part of the country in the War of the Pacific. We didn´t need water, we´d invented a new kind of surfing, truck surfing. When you´re pedalling up a hill with 45kgs of baggage at 3500m, the air is thin, so cycling is slow bloody hard work. Thing is though that lorries are quite slow too, so on the leg from Potosi to Oruro when the asphalt road was good and wide and slow trucks were passing the four of us would pedal slowly like highwaymen lying in wait, then when the truck was passing we´d speed up and grab on to the back of the truck and truck surf up a stretch of hill. Thing was, like catching a surfing wave you had to time your sprint well, at altitude you only had a short distance of sprint before you were left out of breath, sprint too slow or too late and you´d be left seeing stars and worse off than if you hadn´t bothered. Catching a lift up was great fun though, most truck drivers would even wave and give us a friendly beep, we even met one of the trucks a day later going the opposite way and got the full lights and air horn salute.

Carnaval
After 2 hard days slog over some high passes we put in a big day of 120km to reach Oruro wrecked tired but just in time for Carnaval. Being friday night we didn´t have much choice in accomodation at the last minute and ended up getting two singles rooms for the 4 of us with two of us sleeing on our camping mats. Next day carnaval began at 8 am with bands and dancers parading down the streets till 4am that night. The streets were lined with makeshift stands, rather than pay for them we wandered the crowds till we found a gap and could see for free, chatting to the locals and becoming prime targets for the locals who were throwing water balloons goodo and using cans of spray foam at close range. It wasn´t long before we got armed with a few plastic bags of water balloons and gave as good as we got, and the locals were in such good form they didn´t mind standing beside such prime targets and getting caught in the cross fire. The sun was out so we´d dry off easily and didn´t bother buying plastic capes most gringos wore. The water fights were great fun, thought the kids with massive water pistols did out gun us a few times we´d still manage to duck into the crowd. God help the gringo that ran out of water balloons as they´d show no mercy.
Later that night we managed to sneak into the main square and got invited into the vip section of the stands by some young Bolivians. It was great fun drinking beer and having a laugh with the Bolivians as the best bands paraded past.
One day of carnaval was enough for us really, next day the place reeked of urine, the streets had loads of excrement on them and by the afternoon of the second day a lot of the locals were wasted. We were hungover and Dave was sick with a stomach bug he´d caught from street food the day before. We stayed an extra day to recover then leaving Dave to catch a bus to La Paz Tom Paul and I cycled out the boringly flat road to La Paz. We made la Paz in 3 days, all of us feeling a bit tired and only doing about 80km a day average.

La Paz
La Paz was synonymous with excess. Lots of gringo tourists over indulging, not a whole pile to see in the city and more of a rest stop for us cyclists.
Saying that the wild rover hostel was good craic, the bar was hopping for the Ireland vs England rugby match with faces painted, flags and bunting in both colours, the whole works. It was great to see Ireland win, even if we hadn´t insisted on our bet that the losing team carry the winners tent´s on their bike to Cuzco, the two English lads would have been getting a rough deal with our monster tent!

Pedalling over the andes

When we mentioned we were cycling the length of the Andes, I think it was our flatmate Pat Mc Garry who was quick to point out that there was the small matter of the andes mountains to deal with. No problem Pat, it´s been done already we said, all very well saying that in the comforts of Galway city in June but actually crossing the andes in the heat of a Chilean summer was going to be hard work.

We left Santiago after spending far too much time there. It had been our hub for leaving the bikes, meeting our visitors and travelling, don't get me wrong, we´d enjoyed the city, it´s very safe, has great transport and lots to see but we just needed to get on the road again. Like Buenos Aires we´d had enough of city.

One disappointing thing about the city was our hostel, Newen Kara. Despite being clean and quite comfortable we found we were being charged more than other guests in our last few days there despite all the business we´d put through the place. I guess we´d trusted them a bit too much.

So we hit the road out of the city early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day, trying to avoid any dual carriage ways or tunnels and using a bit of guesstimation to find the road out of town. Eventually traffic on the secondary roads was too bad, the tight roads and impatient commuters forced us onto the dual carriage way where there was more space in the hard shoulder. To reach our goal for the day, the small town of Los Andes we had to climb 800 metres in the baking heat of the day through desert like scrub land. We had to get a lift in a pickup through a 3km road tunnel before enjoying some well deserved downhill into town. In town later we met lots of other cyclists, even meeting a dutch coupe who we´d met cycling the opposite direction on the Carretera Austral. Great to chat to others doing the same thing but we´d met so many and spent so long talking that we were famished by the time we got digs for the night and settled into some steaks.

Next day, taking the advice of the jovial character who ran the Los Andes tourist office we cycled 44 km out of town to the last free camping spot before the steep hills and the border; a nice restaurant owner let us camp under some willow trees by some ponds he kept trout and ducks in for the restaurant. As we sat in the shade having a beer we saw some other passing cyclists and hailed them in. We filled the campsite with Rob, an American who´d just cycled the Atacama and had the rasher like ears to prove it, and Alex and Lauren with their two kids behind their bikes in trailers. I guess you meet lots of people cycling who are doing more extreme stuff than you are but towing a 2 and 3 year old for the entire holiday was my idea of hell. It seemed like Alex and Lauren were well up for it, they´d done 7 weeks in Australia and New Zealand already.

Next day we hit the uphill again and started to really climb, the vegetation on the hills disappeared and the air got thinner as we passed the 2000m mark. The the remains of the trans Andean railway, built in the early 20th century snaked alongside the road, disappearing into impossible tunnels and re appearing again from the rock. Its a real pity the railway is in poor repair as it would make one of the most spectacular rail journeys in the world. The road too, had it´s quirks, where the road ran close to the hillsides and the scree tumbled down there were covered sections or tunnels with open sides. Not so much space in these so we had to turn our lights on and try time it so we didn´t end up int here the same time as the trucks.
By midday we reached the series of 29 hairpin bends, by the top we´d climbed another 800 metres or so. The road there had no crash barriers so was notorious for accidents. Also the traffic was heavy with lots of buses and lorries crossing the border and using all of the road on the hairpins. Still, despite the hard work it was fun cycling with the Argentines hooting their horns and cheering us on up the hill.
By late afternoon we reached the Chilean customs post and stopped to have a packet of biscuits and shoot the breeze with the Chilean border police. The border post was a desolate place, lots of rubbish being blown about a grey valley where cars normally had to queue for 4 hours to cross the border. We´d had to do the same with our jeep at new years so it was good to be able to relax and then just cycle on.
By the time we reached the tunnel at the top of the pass we´d really started to feel the altitude, it was an odd kind of tiredness, I wasn´t out of breath but just felt sleepy and lazy.
After the road company gave us a lift throughthe 6km tunnel we crossed into argentina and the scenery changed. Apart from the fact that we were at 3200m and the road stretch downhill ahead of us the valleys were more colourful, lots of red sand, green hillsides and copper ore lying exposed made the argentine side of the pass more spectacular.
We´d been so intent on crossing the pass that only then did we realise that it was 4pm and we´d only eaten a few packets of biscuits since 9am. So we stopped at the first place serving food and made short work of two helpings of a buffet dinner, much to the amusement of the woman runing the restaurant.
After the feed we freewheeled into the first town, Punta del Inca, stopping on the way to take some photos in front of Aconcagua, South America´s tallest mountain.
It´s probalby oneof my bigger regrets that we didn´t stop to hike someof the mountain, but at this stage we´ve had to ditch a lot of our hiking gear so we gave it a miss. So hard to fit everything in and I guess we could always fly in for an attempt at the summit proper as it´s not a technically difficult summit.

Next day we cycled to uspallata, having a late morning and lazy lunch and taking lots of photos along the way. Lots of the villagers kept mules to help mountain expeditions so we´d see trains of them trotting along on their own accord with packs of colourful bags on their backs, funny animals as they were always in a rush on the inbound leg home. The valleys became dryer and hotter on the way down and the cool breeze we´d had at the top was no where to cool the baking heat, so the days cycling was sweaty, hot going. After a steak we wild camped in the wood outside uspallata before hitting the road to mendoza the next day. Thankfully a cold front was coming in and the dead, 35 degree heat was cooled by a few oddly enjoyable rain showers. For lunch we called into a pistachio farm for water and were given a bag of fresh pistachios, fresh off the tree by the friendly Argentines.
After lunch we pushed off toward Mendoza passing through the wine areas. We´d both been on wine tours during our Christmas break but I´d had the idea of dropping into a winery while passing on the bikes so we ended up taking a free tour and tasting at the weinert winery. Have to say I was more impressed by the Ruca Malen winery I´d visited as the wines we´d tasted there was better and it seemed well run. Weinert was an older winery and looked a bit poorly run and dirty by comparison. For anyone reading at home you should try some of the argentine Malbec wines, it´s their speciality and tastes quite good.
We arrived into town and found a Hostel before heading out for a well deserved steak. Paul had been to a really good steakhouse when he´d visited with Emily so we took a taxi there and despite being the first customers of the evening we were treated to the best steak of my life. It was 2 inches thick and perfectly cooked, really juicy with the charred taste of the barbecue off it. After 130 kms of cycling we´d had a long day and the steaks nearly put us to sleep.
We took a rest day in the Mendoza hostel, went to a Pizza party and hung out with the others staying at the hostel.
Of all the legs on the trip this was the most scenic and took the least effort to get there. Of anyone thinking of doing this you could easily fly into Santiago,cycle over to Mendoza and see the area then get a bus back, two weeks would make for a good cycling holiday among some sublime scenery.

Right now we´re in Salta, northwest Argentina and we´re headed for Bolivia. After all the days in well stocked towns we´re looking forward to the challenge of poorer Bolivia and the altitude of the Altiplano. Our wallets could certainly do with the break!

In Mendoza, headed to salta

Over 4 days we crossed the andes into mendoza from Santiago. We´re resting up for a day then heading north to salta. Some of the landscapes we cycled through were sublime, so an update will have to wait until we get the photos uploaded

La Junta to the ghost town - Chaiten

Next day we woke with the sun blasting our tent from the other side of the valley, I had to get out of the tent but Paul managed another hour of sleep by poking his head out the tent door. Hats off to his ability to sleep as for the last two weeks his inflatable camping mat was leaking, causing him to sink to the hard ground in the middle of the night or end up sleeping on his side. He´d either have to re inflate it two or three times a night or just sleep on the hard ground.

After the mandatory Porridge and a blast of mate to wake us up we were sitting our enjoying the view when we saw a camper van approaching from the distance. The german driver and his wife stopped for a chat, nice people, and I´d have to say the german people are great adventurer´s we´d meet them in all places having brought their campers, jeeps bicycles or plain hiking boots from home, but to get to this end of the carretera with a big camper van topped it all.

Over the next two days we passed Villa st Lucia which was basically a crossroads with a supermarket, then after a long days pedalling over another high pass in the heat we reached the small lakeside village of Puerto Cardenas.

All day we´d been thinking of cold beer or worst case a cold drink or an icecream so we were fairly dissappointed when we rolled into the village only to find no shop. Our luck was in though as there was a travelling van selling fruit so we bought 3 kilos of fruit for a bout 3 euro, a mixed bag of apples, cherries, peaches and oranges , all of them perfectly ripe and fresh. Sitting by the side of the lake eating the fruit later it was hard to believe that this was the first time we´d had fresh fruit since Buenos Aires, two months earlier!

The lads in the van told us there was a house up the road that had a shop out back and stocked beer, the norm for small towns in those parts so we went to investigate. Two old dears who looked like they´d never drank in their lives told us they didn´t sell anything, not to mind beer so we had to cycle back to the lake, the lads in the van having a right good laugh as us.
We were used to the odd hick local having a go at us or trying to make fun of the tourists but it was bad form tricking two dusty, sweaty cyclists after a hot day when they knew we´d had to cross the mountain pass earlier on the road.
We didn´t care too much though, we were in too good a mood as we were only 50km away from completing the Carretera Austral and reaching the port town of Chaiten where we´d get the ferry north from.
A volcano had erupted in Chaiten in May 2008, Click here for some background and a map of the town´s position. We knew the town was offically still evacuated, I´d read reports on the internet that a flood had swept away some houses in the town in october so we weren´t quite sure what to expect. Other travellers had painted vastly different stories ranging from all is well in the town to one guy saying it wasn´t possible to go there. All we knew for sure was that the boat was still running and that one shop in the town was open. Worst case we´d buy some supplies and camp by the port.

We hit the road early that morning, glad of the cool of the morning and making good speed. At this stage we were both fit and strong from the gravel roads and once we hit the asphalt 28km from town we were hitting 24km per hour, a fast pace for a loaded touring bike, both of us eager to see the volcano and what state the town was in. 10 km from town the road started to have fine dust on the hard shoulder so we reckoned we´d see the volcano at any minute but we had to wait till we were right in the town before the bolw of mountains round the town let us see what looked like one of the smaller volcanoes.

For a small volcano it had wreaked some destruction on what was obviously a beautiful setting before; A small town with the fjiord on one side and a ring of peaks in the background was now reduced to a demolition zone.

As we rolled into town all we could see was a layer of ash and the crumpled wooden houses that the lahar had swept along in it´s path. Rather then lava it was the volcanic ash that had done most of the damage, coating the town in a thick layer first but then clogging the river before the buildup rushed into town, ploughing through the wooden houses, wrecking all but one bridge and cutting a new path through the settlement. Like junior cert geography houses on the outside were eroded away; one of them now sits out in the bay like a tombstone among the grey sea of ash, the houses on the inside had 1 to 3 metres of ash dumped on their streets, back yards and living rooms. Have a look at Pauls photos of the destruction

Round the corner we were interviewed and had our details taken by a Carabinero. I guess the town is under police control to avoid anyone looting, we´d heard of backpackers staying in abandoned houses so the Carabinero´s wanted to know how long we were staying and where.
We had a beer outside the one supermarket that was open and then went to find the one lodging that was open. Cycling round we could see the chilean flag flying on houses that people had returned to, a lot of the houses were unoccupied. We stayed the night in a self catering cabin that still had a musty smell and the damp traces of flooding.
Next morning we went to the port to get the ferry to Puerto Montt, it was a sad scene at the port as there were lots of locals there with the salvagable contents of their houses on the backs of jeeps and lorries. For many this was goodbye to Chaiten, I think that given the level of volcanic activity the Chilean Government are controversially not going to rebuil the town. Certainly the work that the few bulldozers and diggers were doing was more to build a levee to prevent the river flooding again and to keep the mouth of the river free so the ash could escape downstream.
As we left on the boat we were glad to have finished this leg and be on our way to some more adventures but sad to see what was a really beautiful place destroyed.

The photo album of this leg are here

Coyhaique to La Junta - fishing time

Bike pannier racks fixed, well watered, fed and rested we hit the road out of Coyhaique and climbed up the steep hill out of town before beginning a long descent. The temperature was getting hotter now and by now mid day cyclingwas hot and tough going. Often our hats or tshirts would have streaks of salt on them after the days cycling. Two weeks ago it was cold enough to keep butter in our bags where as now we were having to drink lots. Pity the butter wouldn´t keep as we´d found Irish made Kerrygold dairy butter in the better chilean supermarkets, much better than the tasteless bland butter they produce locally and a real shame to have to eat half of it in the evening and the other half the next morning!

We pedalled out of the city, camped in the next village and then hit the road again, passing through our first road tunnel and remembering the good advice we were given to take our sunglasses off and turn on our bike lights for the dark of the tunnel. Only dangerous passes and the 100km of road in and out of the Regional capital were paved so on the second day out we hit gravel again. Not that I minded particularly, I guess on gravel you have to pick your line where as asphalt can get a bit boring as you´re just pedaling away.

I won´t try and describe the scenery as to be honest we´d seen so much that compared to the rest it was a bit un remarkable, I´m not saying that the view was anything approaching boring, just that we we´d seen so much we were on landscape overload.

Later that day we hit another section of asphalt and then camped near road bridge by a deep river. We´d been meaning to get some fishing in for some time and this looked like the perfect spot with lots of fish jumping. In the morning hunger woke me so I went fishing using a bamboo pole and caught 2 nice trout for breakfast. Paul was joking about having trout for breakfast so you can imagine how surprised he was to be handed the frying pan with a cooked fish when he got out of the tent.

Villa Amenguales and the road works
Next day we passed through Villa Amenguales, stopping at one of the small grocery mini mercados to pick up our usual exciting cuisine from their selection of non perishable food, Pasta and porridge being about the height of it. How the locals put up with it or dont die of scurvy I don´t know.

Shortly after the town the tarmac ended and the gravel began, worse still they were laying new gravel that was so soft our bike wheels were sinking, making the uphill progress tough going and we ended up having to walk uphill past the road crews in their rollers and graders. We got cycling again but after another 12km the newly laid gravel had been loosened by traffic and our forward progress ground to a halt. The gravel sucked at the bike tires making it heavy work and it felt like we were having to put in three times the work in the heat and dust. Very frustrating, I think Paul and his bike even had a bit of an argument, I ended up walking and both of us came off the bike or had to push start a few times on the long uphill stretch. Like most days of the Carretera we were rewarded later on in the morning with some downhill, though with the loose gravel it´s more like surfing as the bikes have little grip

Piedra Del Gata

Before 1pm we passed the famous Piedra del gata, a rocky ravine where a clear river roars over a rocky bed. The water there is so clear you can watch the salmon run from the road. A concrete bridge has been built over the river but like a scene from an action movie the river has washed away the start of the bridge. Keeping up with their usual safety standards the locals have just put some plastic tape and two bollards up to stop people driving into the river.

By now we´ve had to take siesta´s out of the heat of the midday sun so further on we take 2 hours by a river to eat, have a swim in some freezing water and relax before pushing on for the afternoon. Every day we end up cycling through the big clouds of dust when traffic passes, like cycling in fog so we usually try to take a deep breath when cars pass. The dust, suncream and sweat all mix together so by the end of most days we´re caked in a layer of gunge, so we´ve ended up taking a good wash at any opportunity.

In the afternoon we take a narrow rocky road up a mountain pass. Its so bad we´re reduced to pushing the bike up a steep, narrow road strewn with small rocks, with a couple of shiny new oil lorries coming downhill towards us. As we´d find out later they were supplying the roadworks on the opposite side of the mountain. All the way up the carretera we´d meet roadworks, more and more of the road was being paved and while it would mean an improvement in the quality of life for the local people it would mean an end to the adventure that was tackling the Carretera Austral. It would be more accessible to tourists, bringing the crowds and taking a bit from the unique remoteness of the area. Paul was quick to spot that the proposed power lines for the proposed Hydro scheme down south would run along here, all the more reason to put in a good road to transport the plyons. He´d also noticed that the spans of the new bridges they were building along the route were very over specced, hinting that the proposed hydro scheme might be more planned than proposed.

I guess the feeling we got cycling along was that we were privaleged to be seeing the area at the end of an era, with the new roads, increased traffic and ugly power lines it would never be the same in the future.

After we crested the pass it was getting late in the day and I was a bit wrecked tired. We had a bit of a debate about where to camp and decided that if somewhere suitable came up we´d call a halt to the days cycling. I was more wrecked than Paul and didn´t fancy spending the night up on a high pass. My luck was out though as once we descended the gravel hairpins on the other side of the pass the road was surrounded by thick undergrowth with little space to throw a tent up.

We plugged along, and after we reached the shored of the lake we knew we couldn´t be too far from the national park in the area. We asked a passing motorist how far up the road it was and were happy to find it was only 5km, it´d been a long day of hard cyclng so we were happy to see the famous hanging glacier on the side of a mountain as we crested a hill along the newly improved gravel road.

After camping the night in the Park we hiked up to the viewpoint were rewarded with some loud icefalls from the glacier, chunks of ice fell off the advancing edge of the glacier, hit rock son the way down and exploded like flour or castor sugar being sifted on the way down. With the sound taking time to reach us, the crack and boom of the ice falling only reached us after the ice was finished falling, giving us plenty to time to take in the picture, then the sound. Each time a lump fell of you´d find yourself trying to predict what the sound would be like. So far this was the most impressive natural feature we´d seen. I know I´m beginnning to sound like a bit of a tree hugger and don´t worry I´m not about to grow dreads and chain myself to anything but it was sad to see that the glacier is retreating, 10 years ago there were two steps to the hanging glacier like a penny pusher in a seaside arcade.

Getting back from the hike we stopped on the rope bridge over the glacial river, glad of the natural air-con afforded by the cool spray off the river before we packed up and cycled into Puyhuapi. On the way in we were stopped by the roadworks for a bout 5 minutes only to be let through to cycle pass a gang of roadworkers laying dynamite to blast the new road out of the rock. By now we´d been cycling along a Fjiord and when the road snaked along the Fjiord enough we reach the small town by the lake shore. The town was settled by german people in 1947 so it had unique german style houses and streets named after it´s founders; Walther Hopperdietzel and Otto Ubel. In fact the colonists were so industrous that they had built a road themselves to link the town with the next lake valley and lucky for the townspeople in modern times this influenced the people building the carretera austral to bring the highway through the town instead of another valley, keeping the town on the beaten path. The whole town was very dusty when we visited as there were roadworks to tarmac the road into and out of town but the locals all said it would be good for the town in the long run, of all the small towns we´d passed through they seemed to be the most progressive, even producing a tourist map of the sights of the town. That two of the sights were a fish farm and a gravel pit didn´t deter the tourist board. The sunset above shows you how beautiful the setting of the town was.

After our usual feed of Lomo a lo Pobre and chips we headed back to our campsite and to sink a few beers by the hobo stove in the campsite´s rain shelter. That morning we had something approaching our first disagreement, more of a sign of how tired we were than any big rift between the two of us so a few beers and a rest day are welcome.

When we reached la Junta I was eager to seek out a fishing guide who´s number I´d been given back in the regional capital. When we stopped in a small cafe for coffee we enquired and like most small towns in Ireland the lady running the place knew him, gave him a call and within 20 minutes we were sorted for a fishing trip the next day. Next morning, after we wild camped the night by the river, Javier, our guide met us near our pitch with his boat and we headed upriver for some fishing.

The river was both wide and flowy so the light aluminium launch had to fight the current to get upriver, the boat hopping along some of the rougher sections with Javier picking his way upstream. We could see the rocks below as the water was less than 1.5 metres deep in spots and crystal clear.

Paul fished using a wet fly up the front of the boat while I used a spinning rod out the back of the boat with Javier manning the oars in the middle. After 10 minutes fishing in a clear area I reckon Javier had decided these two could actually fish and weren´t going to lose all his hooks so we headed upstream again, Javier trying to find some deep pools or shaded areas where the trout would hide on the bright day. 10 minutes later I had my first fish in Patagonian waters, a good sized brown trout and after a bit of a fight we released him and started fishing again. Over the day my casting improved, Paul got the measure of the wet fly and we had some great fishing. Javier rowing the boat downstream past deep pools where the fish were and the two of s picking our spots to land the hooks with the rods. Often I´d be retrieving the spinner only to see two trout competeting for a bite of the hook, I´d slow down my reeling in to give them a chance and then hook them, great sport.

I caught about 8 fish on the spinner, Paul caught two on the more difficult wet fly and by the time we finished our half day´s fishing we were well hungry. The two trout we kept made a great lunch by the riverbank before we hit the road for the afternoon, covering 48km along a stunning valley before we camped by a section of the old road leading to a bridge that had been washed away. We washed in the river, glad that the streams had warmed from the the limb shattering cold of down south to allow us to wash without needing to defrost.

The photo album of this leg are here

The Carretera Austral to Coyhaique 03/12

I guess what I´m writing now happened before Christmas but hopefully you´ll find it interesting and I´ll manage to condense 2/3 of the Carretera austral a bit better than my previous posts. So much to write about.

After the tough day on the gravel we stayed 2 days in the well laid out campsite in Cerro Castillo, one to rest up and one to see the Cuevo de los Manos. The cave was supposed to have ochre cave man paintings of their hands on the cliff face but was the biggest let down ever, we reckoned it was the cliffs of moher of Chile! Having taken the bad unpaved road through the mountains instead of the paved road with the idea of seeing the Cuevo we weren´t too dissappointed, the mountains were spectacular enought in their own right. Black basalt rock formations rising steeply to form pillars and buttresses giving the Cerro its Castle like look, definitely worth seeing.

Back at the campsite the owner and his family were very friendly, he and his brother ran horse trekking trips and were happy to chat to us about the area and his horses. On the morning we were hitting the road north again the lads passed us in their van, beeping the horn. Sound fellas I thought to myself, only a few hundred yards down the road they braked and the reversing lights of their small lorry/horsebox came on. Must have forgotten something back at the campsite I thought, only when we cycled up to them they were offering us a lift to the next crossroads. We´d started the day with the aim of making the 104km to Coyhaique, the capital of the region. Granted the road was apshalt but it still had a 1024m pass to cross so it was going to be a tough day. Rather than look a gift horse in the mouth we hoiked the bikes in the back of their small lorry and then hopped in, their english sheepdog dog happy of the company. We got a few strange looks passing farms with a dog and cyclist peering out of the horsebox for the 10km or so.

After saying goodbye to the lads we headed up the pass in our bottom gears, the pass was called the hill of the devil or Cuesto del Diablo, not sure if it was the steepness or the dark rock at the top that made it so foreboding to earn it that name. Generally though on the carretera austral they only put tarmac on sections where it´s absolutely necessary, usually any of the mountain sections that had asphalt had a fair few crosses at the roadside. We didn´t hang about much at the top of the pass as it got cold up there quickly.

We descended again, ending up in another valley following the course of a gushing river as the road snaked along a narrow valley of dark rock, it got pretty cold as we were still at 1000m or so. From the looks of the road I´d say it would be snow bound in the winter and given how cold it was on a summers day you´d be looking at snow chains in the winter. Another hour of pedalling uphill and we started to descend goodo, passing through some amazing valleys with rusty red rock formations and streaks of copper ore lying exposed on hillsides. Chile must have some amount of mineral deposits.

Lots of motorbikers passed us going the opposite way giving us a wave or the one legged motorbike salute. Great scenery, warm weather, everyone was enjoying it bar the poor cyclist that was cycling up the opposite direction to us. Later in the day we descended through some rolling alpine farmland, the temperature rising nicely as we dropped altitude and the bikes not needing too much encouragement to hit 45km per hour and more on some sections.


We hit Coyhaique late in the evening, pasing through cliff formations similar to those in Edinburgh on the way in, it was probably the most enjoyable days cycling we´d had so far. The route had everything, a tough pass, a section in the mountains where we weren´t quite sure where the dark valleys were going to end, some decent rain showers and then a warm descent through spectacular formations followed by lush alpine meadows. 104Km and smiles all round, time for some Lomo a lo Pobre! ( steak and chips).

As our hostel is a bit out of town and downhill we cycled in for a feed, the bikes feeling all funny without the luggage. We went on the tear till late, the first town in a month with anything resembling nightlife and though the beer was crap we eventually found a good pub where one of the barmen kept feeding us the tail end of what ever cocktail he was mixing. Some interesting cycling on the way home!

Our hostel was a really unique spot, tucked into a hilly grove of trees across a river valley outside town, made entirely of wood and with a really relaxed atmosphere. Better still it had a great breakfast of porridge with stewed fruit and cream. After so many weeks of just swallowing the porridge in the morning it´s hard to believe it could still taste good. Can´t say enough good things about porridge really- at this stage we´re even thinking of contacting Flahavans Porridge in Ireland to see if they´ll sponsor us! Even a set of the naff tracksuits they used to give out in the 80´s would do!

At the hostel we meet a really friendly Swiss Colombian Couple Philippe and Ana who are great to swap tales of the road and advice with. They even give us a list of houses where cyclists can stay for free because the owner has toured or just likes helping cyclists out. In one place they had stayed for a whole month! so it sounds like a great plan for when the money will be tight or to give us a place to rest up for a few days.

On the day we were due to leave we packed everything up only to find the bumpy gravel had got to Paul´s front carrier. The aluminium rack was broken and we were going nowhere till we got it fixed as his bag would have fallen off a mile out the road. Given that aluminium welders are hard to find back home we were surprised to find that the bike shop in town would weld it. Nice bit of good luck for it to break here as opposed to out in the sticks.

We decided to have a few steaks before we hit the road and had to eat pasta and sauce for lunch and dinner again and seeing as there was a barbequeue out the back of the hostel we thought we´d fire it up. The hostel owner told us to help ourselves and to gather pine cones to start it, only we couldn´t find any charcoal. Eventually he explains that using dry wood gathered from the ground we could make our charcoal from the fire. He warned us not to burn the place down and once we´d sparked up some tinder we could see what he meant, the dry wood we´d collected from the ground went up so fast that you could see why forest fires could take off so quickly.
The steaks tasted great, and out on the patio we had some good bottles of Chilean Castelliero Del Diablo with Ana and Philippe. That we only paid 4 euro for a wine that costs 13 euro back home adding to the taste!