The Chaco… a chuffing big, flat plain stretching east from the Andes. Covering eastern Bolivia, north-east Argentina, a bit of south-west Brazil and much of Paraguay… it’s big. After the descent from the Bolivian altiplano, it’s a long, long, straight road reaching over 800km to Asuncion. We expect the Chaco to be hot. Turns out… our introduction to Paraguay is not just hot, but damned hot! And what’s Paraguay all about beyond the Chaco? Read on in the Paraguay blog…
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Bolivia: Celebrities and Wine
In the Andes at over 4,000m again… a bit of re-acclimatisation is required. We interrupted the sequence of our blogs slightly for our ‘Dakar Special’ when we had a tougher than expected challenge to catch the Rally in Bolivia. So now please humour our ‘time-warp’ as we step back in time to a few days before the Dakar: we’re leaving the beaches of Arica on New Year’s Day for a last bit of exploring in the Andes of northern Chile before crossing into Bolivia.
The Dakar
No, we haven’t just upped-sticks and shipped to Africa, we’re in Bolivia for the world famous Dakar Rally 2017. After a load of security shenanigans in West Africa, the rally formerly known as ‘Paris-Dakar’ was shifted to South America where it’s affectionately known by locals as ‘El Dakar’. Here’s the story of our attempt at finding over 400 bikes, quads, cars and trucks charging across the altiplano in 2017, together with our Top Tips if you’re contemplating a trip to see Dakar 2018.
Not-so-silent night
It’s not every Christmas that we open our presents to the booming sound of Chile’s answer to Snoop-Doggy-Dog (or whatever the latest hip-hop chap is called these days) and to be honest, it wouldn’t be our first choice for 2016 either! Nevertheless, that’s what we get 🙂 But before we launch into the Christmas Story, there is the final instalment of the Tyre Story.
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Colca and Coast
It’s little visited, the south coast of Peru, which is a real shame. Back in September when we travelled up through southern Peru we took, like most travellers, the mountain route via Lake Titicaca and Cusco. Now south-bound, we’re loving the coastal route south of Nazca and on to Chile.
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Peru Two
“Heading to the Dakar Rally?” we asked the friendly Brit biker at the Peruvian border, “Yeah… I’m competing” came the reply. Blimey. Impressed.com. We’re not quite, or even anywhere near, as brave as Lyndon, but we are keen to go and see what antics the competitors get up to on their way around the route. Our new claim to fame: we now know one of the Dakar riders who we can go to cheer on!
Peru by the back door
We’re now in Peru for the second time. This time we’re far inland from the coastal route that we took north-bound. Now we’re taking a small rough back-road through the mountains to a relatively little used border post at La Balsa. On this whole trip we have met very few Brits Continue reading
Exit Ecuador
A ‘rainy season’ usually brings ummm… rain. Except for Ecuador in 2016, that is. The 2016 ‘rainy season’ has so far not really materialised in these parts and it’s been conspicuously dry in the north-western Andes. Locals tell us that they have seen not a single drop throughout November. Regular Cuthbert readers may recall that we have just returned to Quito from an impromptu trip back to UK due to a family illness. During those three weeks we had the traditional British ration of copious precipitation, but now we are back in sunny Ecuador ready to hit the road with a fresh supply of Twiglets and Yorkshire Tea bags!
The Big Turn Around
Flexibility… the key to overlanding! Way back in May we left Chile into Bolivia, then on to Brazil, back to Bolivia, then to Peru. Now here we are in Ecuador and we’re making a big turn-around, heading some 3,000 km back southwards. It’s not the most logical of routes, and if we ever had an approximate route in mind when we set off in South America this certainly wasn’t it! But we have a date with a tyre supplier… in Chile!
Galapagos
“I’ve seen enough boobies for today” Things you thought you’d never hear your husband say 🙂 But fair cop… these are the red and blue footed avian varieties of boobies, indigenous to the Galapagos Islands and we had indeed seen rather a lot of them on that particular day. By far the best way to see the unique wildlife of the Galapagos Islands is on a cruise and our friends Mark and Lindsey have flown out from UK to join us for one of the most exciting legs of our South American trip. It’s more than just a wee bit exciting, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves here . For our flights to Galapagos we need to get to Quito. Let’s first pick-up in the Galapagos blog, where regular Cuthbert followers last saw us: leaving Peru and crossing into Ecuador…
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Coasting North
Back at sea-level! Yehhy! We do love the mountains, but life at over 12,000 ft can provide a few wobbles in your physiology. It’s a welcome change to now have the soothing sound of rolling waves and the smell of the salty sea air. The drive from Cusco down to the coast is a long and painfully winding road, but finally we’re down at the Pacific coast, back on the Pan-American super-highway, looking forward to following it north all the way to Ecuador.
Reaching the Rainbow
Rainbow Mountain might predictably be described as colourful. The strata are indeed exquisite but at over 5,000m/16,400ft altitude in southern Peru, Rainbow Mountain sits far from any driveable tracks and it’s no ‘walk in the park’ to get there. Our friends Karen and Jimmy on holiday from UK, aren’t going to let the minor detail of a gruelling high-altitude Andes trek put them off visiting this geological wonder and we (foolishly??? 🙂 ) agree to join them on this quest. Are we doing Rainbow Mountain the easy way?
The Rainbow Mountain hike can be done in one tough day-sesh, but only if you are both: (a) a fit-young-crazy-thing, and (b) Continue reading
Sleeping on a cliff-face
How on earth do we find ourselves hanging off a cliff-face, in a glass-bubble bedroom, suspended on wires above Peru’s Sacred Valley? Well, it is just the small matter of a 400m rock-climb via-ferrata. And a 200m high hanging wire-bridge to reach said bubble. And a six-stage zip-wire descent to return to terra-firma next morning. Stupid or brave… 🙂 ? Here’s our Skylodge Peru travel blog…
Lets winding the clock back a few months. Our great friends Jimmy and Karen are planning a holiday in Peru to meet up with us. Karen has a proven track record as an adventure holiday planner extraordinaire. “There’s this Skylodge thing…” Continue reading
Incas and Reeds
Peru is a new country for us. We cross the border from Bolivia on the shore of Lake Titicaca near Copacabana and perhaps unsurprisingly, the Peru-bit of Lake Titicaca looks remarkably similar to the Bolivia-bit of Lake Titicaca! We’re heading first to Puno on the north-west side of the Lake then on to… well… errrm… we do have a plan, honest we do! We’ll let you know when it’s safe to do so (or to be more frank, when we have made up our minds and have a clue) 🙂 So much to see and do in Peru.
Titicaca and out
Titicaca… the highest lake in the world. More accurately the highest navigable lake, although we don’t know exactly what the difference is. It sits at 3,700m on the altiplano and straddles the Bolivia/Peru border. Bolivia has more than a fair share of natural beauty and this is yet another example of its best. A fitting exit point for us from this scenic country (Click here for route map).
Amazon and Mud
Amazon… the well-known patch of rainforest rather than a profitable on-line retailer. We’re in the Bolivian bit of it known as the Madidi; the most southerly extent of the vast Amazon Basin. To get there we go from Death Road to Rurrenabaque. It’s hot, humid and of course, jungly (see route map).
There’s a lot of trees in Madidi
La Paz
Approaching La Paz we have a mixed impression. The city sits in a spectacularly steep sided valley surrounded by stunning snow-capped mountains. Nice. But we also see a blanket of ‘clag’ hanging over its skyline. Not nice. Emission standards still have some way to go around here! We’re not great fans of mega-cities but we do have a few practicalities to sort out here and we are just a teeny bit interested to have a look around.
Altiplano and whiteness
We’re high. Very high. We’ve been plodding around the Bolivian altiplano, often at well over 4,000 m (13,000ft). After the central cities of Sucre and Potosí we’ve moseyed-on down to the remote south-west corner of Bolivia. Volcanos, lakes and the world’s largest salty-pan. We’re driving the Salar de Uyuni (see map).
Back to Bolivia
Chiquitania is a land far from Bolivia’s stereotypical image of Andean high peaks, llamas and chunky chaps in brimmed hats and colourful ponchos. Here is Bolivia’s eastern flat, humid wetland punctuated by some scenic red-rock monoliths and some interesting sights. We’re back from Brazil and heading west through Chiquitania to the highlands, but on the way we have the small matter of recovering our deposited food store.
Caves and Torches
It’s Olympic season in Brazil right now. In case it had escaped your attention, Río de Janeiro is hosting the 2016 summer Olympics and Paralympics. We don’t have tickets for any events, but in the ‘eco-tourism’ town of Bonito we managed to partake in the celebrations in a teeny way (route map). Oh, and we did some abseiling too! Read on…
A Bit of Brazil
It’s not all samba and football in Brazil you know, there’s other good stuff too! Last time we came to Brazil it was for a Caipirinha-fuelled 24 hr stop-over in Río with the freight-ship on our way to Uruguay. Now we’re zipping in from Bolivia to see a different corner of the world’s fifth largest country (click here for route-map).
