Mt Fitz Roy and others - Parque National Los Glacieres.
Mmmmm....mushrooms!
South American Pondweeds! Near Bariloche, Argentina.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Pictures of random things from the last months
Mt Fitz Roy and others - Parque National Los Glacieres.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Fast forward to Peru
Just saying ¨Peru¨ makes me excited! This country is beautiful, rugged, and full of culture (even if some of it is put on for the tourists!) - what more could you ask for??
I am going to skip over a bit of my trip as I got behind and its too hard to go back - I will have to tell stories of Argentina in person when I am home. On the 21st of March I flew from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Lima, Peru and arrived safely at my hostel at about 1am - my friend from school, Julia, was sleeping peacefully in the bunk bed next to me so I said a sleepy hello to her before crashing for the night. Not only had I survived the 6 hour flight in a tiny seat (delux service is not part of Aeorlineas Argentinas I guess) but I had also survived the flight running a fever and fighting another illness. One of the worst experiences I think....that morning I woke up to diarrhea and then spent the morning throwing up as well - just so you all know that a 4 month holiday isnt all beaches and mountain treking! Who knows what/where I caught this bug, but it was another bad one and had me feeling crappy for about 3 days. But Julia and I just kept moving, at a somewhat slower pace than my usual.
From Lima we headed to Ica and then a quick 10 min cab ride to Huacachina - a desert oasis! Granted it was really close to the city, but still there was a lagoon in the middle and massive sand dunes all around so it really was an Oasis! In the morning we headed up the dune to see the view from the top - which was very impressive, after we caught our breaths! Climbing dunes really is taking one step forward and two steps back. People typically go there to sand board, but we were lazy and just hung out by the pool instead :)
From Ica we went to Ariquipa where we had the most touristy day ever - yep, we rode around in the open top of a tourist bus with a bunch of old people! But we maintained our dignity by NOT wearing the yellow visors that our guide provided us with. I think the best part of the trip was watching all the local point and laugh at us! But it was a great way to see the city in only one day - it is a very colonial town (ie Spanish) with churches and architechtue that is well worth seeing. We also went to an old mill which was interesting, but our guide wasnt very enthousiastic about it which is too bad.
We were in a bit of a rush as we wanted to get to Lake Titicaca and be able to spent a couple of nights there - it claims to be the highest navigable lake, but I think I did read somewhere that it isnt, but it is still pretty high and very big. It boarders on Peru and Bolivia and has lots of different cultures all living pretty close to one another. The lake is at about 4000m above sea level so Julia and I started our altitude acclimitization here for Cusco and Macchu Picchu (both of which are lower). For anyone who has not been to high altitudes before, just wait to see what happens when you do! It was crazy - walking up 5 steps completely took my breath away and my heart would pound like mad. We definitely needed to take it easy that first day - which we did by attending an English language class as guest speakers! Julia and I were just wandering along a pedestrian steet, half shopping half thinking about food, when three young guys approached us and asked if we spoke English. I wonder how they knew that we were tourists....anyways. We ended up going to their class with them where they set up two chairs at the front of the room and we spent the next 1.5 hours answering their questions in order to help them practice their conversational English! It was quite funny and we had a great time - and their teacher was very thankful for our time. They had great questions about what our days were like in Canada and what we though of Peru - so nice to have some personal contact with people in the country you are visting.
On Lake Titicaca there are several islands and we spent one night with a family on Amantani Island - it was such a comfy and cozy experience. Our host family had a young girl who showed us around the island and the mom cooked our meals and the young baby ran around the house after the chikens! The islands are all terraced so that they can farm the steep slopes and from afar it makes a strange picture to see this mountain rising out of the lake. We also visited the floating islands of the Ouos (sp?) people - they construct them out of 4 blocks of reeds which they just keep adding more and more to the top as the under layer rotts and falls away. The blocks are about 3m thick and are anchored to the bottom - to prevent them from floating into Bolivia as our gude said! There are people who live permemently onthe islands and rely on the reeds for houses, boats, even food. As you can guess, fish is their primary diet and other things they go to the islands or mainland to trade for. The women wear huge pompoms suspended from the ends of their baraids and the ones which are colourful mean that they are single. Takes the guess work out of dating! On one of the other islands, Taquile, the men wear knitted hats like night caps, and the ones with red and white on them mean they are single. Maybe we could come up with a similar system in Canada?? I would like to see guys sitting around knitting their hats :)
After the islands, we hopped a bus to Cusco to get ready for our trek and trip to Macchu Picchu - but that is a story for another day!
Sorry, no pictures, uploading isnt going to happen here!
Andrea
I am going to skip over a bit of my trip as I got behind and its too hard to go back - I will have to tell stories of Argentina in person when I am home. On the 21st of March I flew from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Lima, Peru and arrived safely at my hostel at about 1am - my friend from school, Julia, was sleeping peacefully in the bunk bed next to me so I said a sleepy hello to her before crashing for the night. Not only had I survived the 6 hour flight in a tiny seat (delux service is not part of Aeorlineas Argentinas I guess) but I had also survived the flight running a fever and fighting another illness. One of the worst experiences I think....that morning I woke up to diarrhea and then spent the morning throwing up as well - just so you all know that a 4 month holiday isnt all beaches and mountain treking! Who knows what/where I caught this bug, but it was another bad one and had me feeling crappy for about 3 days. But Julia and I just kept moving, at a somewhat slower pace than my usual.
From Lima we headed to Ica and then a quick 10 min cab ride to Huacachina - a desert oasis! Granted it was really close to the city, but still there was a lagoon in the middle and massive sand dunes all around so it really was an Oasis! In the morning we headed up the dune to see the view from the top - which was very impressive, after we caught our breaths! Climbing dunes really is taking one step forward and two steps back. People typically go there to sand board, but we were lazy and just hung out by the pool instead :)
From Ica we went to Ariquipa where we had the most touristy day ever - yep, we rode around in the open top of a tourist bus with a bunch of old people! But we maintained our dignity by NOT wearing the yellow visors that our guide provided us with. I think the best part of the trip was watching all the local point and laugh at us! But it was a great way to see the city in only one day - it is a very colonial town (ie Spanish) with churches and architechtue that is well worth seeing. We also went to an old mill which was interesting, but our guide wasnt very enthousiastic about it which is too bad.
We were in a bit of a rush as we wanted to get to Lake Titicaca and be able to spent a couple of nights there - it claims to be the highest navigable lake, but I think I did read somewhere that it isnt, but it is still pretty high and very big. It boarders on Peru and Bolivia and has lots of different cultures all living pretty close to one another. The lake is at about 4000m above sea level so Julia and I started our altitude acclimitization here for Cusco and Macchu Picchu (both of which are lower). For anyone who has not been to high altitudes before, just wait to see what happens when you do! It was crazy - walking up 5 steps completely took my breath away and my heart would pound like mad. We definitely needed to take it easy that first day - which we did by attending an English language class as guest speakers! Julia and I were just wandering along a pedestrian steet, half shopping half thinking about food, when three young guys approached us and asked if we spoke English. I wonder how they knew that we were tourists....anyways. We ended up going to their class with them where they set up two chairs at the front of the room and we spent the next 1.5 hours answering their questions in order to help them practice their conversational English! It was quite funny and we had a great time - and their teacher was very thankful for our time. They had great questions about what our days were like in Canada and what we though of Peru - so nice to have some personal contact with people in the country you are visting.
On Lake Titicaca there are several islands and we spent one night with a family on Amantani Island - it was such a comfy and cozy experience. Our host family had a young girl who showed us around the island and the mom cooked our meals and the young baby ran around the house after the chikens! The islands are all terraced so that they can farm the steep slopes and from afar it makes a strange picture to see this mountain rising out of the lake. We also visited the floating islands of the Ouos (sp?) people - they construct them out of 4 blocks of reeds which they just keep adding more and more to the top as the under layer rotts and falls away. The blocks are about 3m thick and are anchored to the bottom - to prevent them from floating into Bolivia as our gude said! There are people who live permemently onthe islands and rely on the reeds for houses, boats, even food. As you can guess, fish is their primary diet and other things they go to the islands or mainland to trade for. The women wear huge pompoms suspended from the ends of their baraids and the ones which are colourful mean that they are single. Takes the guess work out of dating! On one of the other islands, Taquile, the men wear knitted hats like night caps, and the ones with red and white on them mean they are single. Maybe we could come up with a similar system in Canada?? I would like to see guys sitting around knitting their hats :)
After the islands, we hopped a bus to Cusco to get ready for our trek and trip to Macchu Picchu - but that is a story for another day!
Sorry, no pictures, uploading isnt going to happen here!
Andrea
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