Alpine Start!!

So, me and three of the boys I´ve been travelling with thought it would be a good idea to climb a mountain here in Bolivia. We set our sights on Huyana Potosi, 6088m (see pic above) and one of the easier peaks in the Cordillera Real, which surrounds LaPaz. The day before leaving, we biked the "world´s most dangerous road", a 60km stretch of highway on the side of a cliff that descends 3500m. The ride was great, but I inhaled a little too much cold air, and as a result had the great pleasure of starting a high altitude climb with a cold :(

We were representing Canada with our group of 3 Canadians and one honorary Canuck from Colorado. The area was soooooo gorgeous... I had a hard time deciding which pictures to put up. The first day our guides were to give us an overview of mountaineering technique. I was thinking self-arrests, how to walk in crampons, that sort of thing. No, actually we went ice climbing on a glacier! Little did I know that this was to prepare us for what was to come!!

The day of the climb we got up at 1am (my first true alpine start) and climbed for 6 hours to reach the summit. There were 3 sections of the route that felt like vertical climbing on snow (well, especially in the dark after 2 hours of sleep!) The final push was a 250m section of more than 50 degrees (see final picture) where the ice axe became essential! I was last so I got totally bombarded with big chunks of snow!

At the top we were rewarded with incredible views of LaPaz, Lake Titikaka, and the surrounding mountains. The air gets pretty thin up there! I was kind of doubting I would make it since I was pretty sick to begin with, even before we got high up. But I guess being stubborn pays off sometimes! Now however I´m sicker than ever with a really bad cold... looking forward to a few days of R&R!

Kate

Hooligans

The last week or so I have been hanging out with a group of about 10 Canucks and Americans, and we´ve been causing some trouble! I think we´re every restaurants´worst nightmare when we show up, and in return they decide to take 3 hours to make spaghetti for us! Peru and Bolivia actually are full of llamas, quite defiant and strange looking animals, as you can see! In LaPaz they sell dried furry llama embroys, which apparently are burned as a sacrifice to Mother Earth. (Sorry, decided not to disturb you all with a photo!) They also like to spit on gringos in the street, I think as a decoy so they can rob you. Little do they know of my spitting prowess!!

Once in Bolivia we all went over to Isla del Sol on Lake Titikaka, at 3800m the highest "navigable" lake in the world (whatever that means). With a name like Titikaka, we couldn´t resist going for a skinnydip! It may be the Island of the Sun, but that lake was COLD!!!

the money shot

So, here is the inevitable Machu Picchu shot. Despite the massive influx of tourists and the ludicrous prices, still a very special place! I spent about 8 hours there yesterday, then finished it off with a soak in the nearby hotsprings. Enjoying the finer things of Peru, including alpaca steak, pisco sour, and coca leaves. Carnaval starts on Tuesday and in anticipation all the hooligans are out in full force. Today i got sprayed with shaving cream, a water gun, and (my favorite) some punks in a truck drove by and dumped a whole bucket of water mixed with shaving cream on my head! Awesome! I didn´t feel too bad though when I saw that no one is spared (not even old ladies!)

chao
Kate (or Katy, my new Spanish name that people here don´t pronounce Casey or Catch)

Every ailment known to man...

So, my excuse for not updating this thing for so long is, as the title suggests, that I have finally succumbed to the non-glamorous side of travelling, being sick. Never before have I had the need to wonder if it´s okay to take tylenol, gravol, and immodium in the same hour. Let alone wondering all that while you´re sitting on an overcrowded 20 hour busride with no airconditioning, and have a bad sunburn... So for all of you who are hard at work, rest assured that there are definately moments I wish I was back in Vancouver eating normal food (and with a clean bathroom nearby!!) But for now, I´m feeling pretty back to normal...

I´m now in Peru... some highlights of Ecuador included: the gringo-infested but still pretty cool traditional market in the town of Otavalo, standing on the equator (that picture with the weird monument in the background), scrambling up a couple of peaks over 5000m, including that gorgeous red one in the picture (and gasping for air!!), and a roof-top train ride on a train I think had seen better days... felt a couple of times like it might flip over!!

It was a hard transition from Colombia into Ecuador; soooooo many more tourists. I hate feeling like I´m just along on the ¨tour¨... Peru is quite touristy as well, but it probably doesn´t help being in places like Machu Picchu (where I´m heading tommorow!) which is probably the most visited site in South America.

So I´m now more than half-way through my trip. Feels like I´ve been gone forever, but there´s also still so much I want to see in a little over 2 months. Although I haven´t been thinking about the rain, I do miss Vancouver, which is kind of a nice feeling to know that I like where I live. (Remind me I said that next winter when I´m whining!!)

Peace out!!!

Kate

How ironic

To every coffee lovers dismay, I have an unfortunate truth to reveal... people in Colombia drink Nescafe. Yep, they grow the best coffee in the world, but they drink powdered fake stuff! Crazy...

Anyways, Monica left a little over a week ago, after we had an extremley random experience in a "mud volcano". Please notice the mud on our teeth as well... I didn´t get it all out of my ears for about a week! It was great to have her visit, and best of all she thought that my Spanish was good! Little did she realize that I pretty much had no idea what was going on!! As usual...

I saw a really cool archeaological site in a village called San Agustin. (See the cute bird statue). There are hundreds of statues like this one, dating back to as early as 3000 BC and most impressively they were all made without the use of metal tools! I had an Indiana Jones style day exploring the sites on horseback!

Then I met up with a couple of other travellers and we did a 3 day trek through Parque Nacional Purace. It was such insanely beautiful scenery, and changing every couple hours too; jungle, forest, river, creek, mountain, cliff, lagoon, tundra, rolling green hills of coffee and potato crops. We were sequestered to a military base upon our return by some bored/power hungry 17-year old soldiers who had braces but also very large guns. But nothing too exciting happened...

So despite spending almost a month in "one of the most dangerous countries in the world" I managed to escape unscathed, and actually would recommend travel there to just about anyone! I will be putting up some more photos soon... send me a line if you didn´t get my photos email (and you want it, that is!)

Chao y buenas noches

Kate