<<< More 'Opinionated Traveller' stories
This is going to be another one of those irritating emails which you wonīt want to get, seeing are you are probably in the office at the moment. If you donīt want me to send you these then please give me a shout. This is a general update on what we have been up to so far in south America
We have done the Inca Trail. It is a 4 day trek, where you pass Inca Ruins every 4-5 hours. The build up to Macchu Picchu is well worth it as it is a huge ruin, with a spectacular backdrop, based at 2,800m. We climbed a peak above the city to get better views of the top and to have a look at some surrounding peaks which we could do in the future. The only problem with the Inca Trail is that is is world famous, so naturally attracts lots of tourists a day. You need to get up either very early late or very early to beat the crowds. Luckily we were with Markīs 57 year old parents who were incredibly slow, so we always managed to avoid the crowds while waiting for them.
After the Inca Trail, we headed out to Lake Titicaca, a huge lake based at 4,000m in altititude and took a 2 day boat trip out there, where we spent a night on one of its islands with the local families. This family were to feed us with lunch, dinner and breakfast while we did a small tour round the island. Little were we to know that lunch, dinner and breakfast was in fact eggs, rice and chips 3 times in a row. The poor families on that island seem to eat nothing else all day.
Then onto our 12 day expedition into the Andes, after we crossed the border into Bolivia. First of all we watched a football match between Venezuala and Bolivia. Very amusing to see the Venezualans stop running after 10 minutes of the match - they couldn't cope with the altitude in La Paz at 3,600m. But onto the main goal of our trip and that was mountaineering in the Condiriri Group, 2 hours drive away from La Paz.
We aimed to spend 10 days in the Condiriri Group and take in what 5,000m peaks we could manage. Unfortunately I spent 3 of those 10 days climbing mountains and the remaining 7 days suffering from altitude sickness. It was horrible trying to get up my first peak on the 3rd day as I felt that I was suffocating - I had no energy to lift my legs uphill and my lungs just could not take in enough oxygen to get going. It was then I got manically depressed as I knew that it would not get any easier for me, seeing as we were going to go onto higher peaks in the future. I cried my way to the top as I was in so much pain from not getting oxygen in - it felt like I was panicking for air all the time, also my limbs were so tired that it was a real epic for me to put one foot in front of the other. After that day I wanted to give up the whole mountaineering thing altogether - nothing was worth so much pain and exhaustion!
The day after I rested, unable to move any of my limbs from my epic the day before - meanwhile Mark and his brother went off to do this exposed gully climb. They started at 5.30 am in the morning and did not get back until 9.30pm, making it a 16 hour day for them - the gully proved too difficult for them that it took them ages to get to the top. And of course I was worried sick for them, as there was no mountain rescue in base camp. I would have had to wake up the whole camp if they did not come back and whoever was in the camp would have been my search party.
The next day I climbed at mountain on my own, as the boys were too tired to do anything, given their epic. It was just a walk, but I was really happy to be able to put one foot in front of the other without feeling really tired. I can now say that I soloed a 5,000m peak (even though it was a walk up a steep slope) .
Day 5 and we tried for another peak at 5,300m called Pequeno Alpamayo. No problems with my breathing or my head, so it was then that the lads decided to go for something higher, which meant that we would have to go to a higher camp at 5,200m. When we got to high camp my headaches began to kick in and yet again I was left in the tent for the next two days, waiting for my headache to clear. It was horrible, as the headaches felt like someone was taking a hammer to your skull from the inside, and every time your heart beat, you would feel this painful thump all round the skull in your head - I must have had this for 36 hours after I arrived at high camp. And in the meantime I watched Mark and his brother climbing two other higher peaks at approx 5,600m and all I could do was sit there and wait for the pain to go away. And they came back telling me of their exciting stories of the mountains they climbed and then I felt really depressed that all I could do over the 10 days was next to nothing. I was exhausted from just existing in pain at a high altitude and they were exhausted from doing at least some peaks of some merit. So I was already to pack in my mountaineering ambitions as I couldnīt do anything at any height - all I could do was sit there and complain about my ailments.
When we got back to La Paz after my dissapointments, Mark suggested that we go for a 6,088m peak called Huayna Potosi, which would smash any of my height records in terms of my mountaineering. I reluctantly agreed, thinking that it really couldntīget any worse that it was, and at least I could say that I tried a 6,000m peak, even if I failed. So back we went to the mountains with our first camp at 5,200m. And surprisingly no headeache. We rested for one day and then tried for the summit the next day and amazingly I made it to the top with no pain at all, beating the time suggested by the book and the top offered amazing views, giving us a spectacular panorama of La Paz, Lake Titicaca and other surrounding mountains. I was crying with joy when I got to the top - I was so scared of not being able to breathe or feeling exhausted that I was crying with relief and happiness that I could in fact do the mountaineering which I had spent so long dreaming of for some time.
Now Mark and I are trying to do touristy things in Bolivia as a rest from mountaineering. We were going to do a 4 day tour round Lakes made out of Salt,. starting in UYUNI - where we are now - but we have discovered that the major roads in Bolivia have been blockaded (due to strikes - it is similar to what the French do when they are pissed off, but on a larger scale) that we may acutally be stuck here for a while. This evening we will try to get back to La PAz and then go back to Peru as they have informed us that over the next fortnight any plans to travel anywhere may be frustrated by these blockades. So we will go back to Peru and do touristy things there.
Anyway I am now not sure as to what I will be doing over the next couple of months. I was wanting to do alot of mountaineering but I am not sure it is worth it for all the pain which I have suffered so far. I am a bit depressed as I have spent up to a year saving up to go mountaineering and it has all boiled down to alot of pain, frustration and effort on my part due to the altitude that I am now sure if it is worth it anymore. Unfortunately Mark has had not problems with acclimatisation so may persuade me otherwise. We will see - it may get easier for me as time goes by.
Since last I wrote we were stuck in Bolivia where we thought that there were road blocks. It turned out that none of the road blocks affected us at all.
We spent 4 days doing a tour of volcanoes, deserts and the salt Lakes in the south of Bolivia. That was amazing - the tour took us through land which was made entirely of salt, where at some point we ended up driving through a foot of water making the mountain scenery in the background very beautiful as they reflected in the water, through beautiful red deserts and passed red, blue and green lakes, where the different colours were due to the mineral content of each lake. It was incredibly cold for most of the time as we were above 3,000m for most of the trip, but the views were definitely worth it.
We also visited two Bolivian towns - Sucre and Potosi. Potosi is an ugly mining town, where the mining methods are very similar to the mining conditions that you would have found two hundred years ago. We visited one of the mines, where we were shocked to see 12 years old boys working there, who hope to make tonnes of money in their youth but have a life expectancy of up to 35. The average life expectancy is 45 for the average miner. We are shocked by the conditions by which they work as they still use manual methods and seem quite happy to inhale the asbestos and sulphur fumes in the mines, which shortens their life expentancy - still on this particular tour they accept your gifts of dynamite and are happy to blow it up in front of you, which was quite exciting.
Sucre on the otherhand is a pretty town of white washed colonial buildings.Close to Sucre is a new concrete factory where excavation has revealed cliffs containing the footprints of over 500 dinosaurs. It was cool to see prints going all over the place, where each print tells a story of daily events, for example they thought that the patterns of one set of foot prints indicated one dinasaur having a fight with the other one ages ago. What happened was that this cliff used to be a lake, and the fallen ash from a nearby volcanoe solidified prints on a daily basis, meaning that you could see what happened over some passage of time. Over several million years, this lake solidfied and platetechtonics raised this solidified lake into a cliff (if that makes sense), where every now and then a layer of ash falls off to reveal another set of footprints, describing events which took place a few days before. They are currently trying to raise $40m to preserve the prints as they are falling off all the time!
After Sucre and Potosie we travelled back Peru to begin our mountaineering expeditions, where we spent 3 weeks attempted 4 major mountains and only succeeded in making it up one.
We spent the first week in an area called Lake Paron, where we tried to get up two mountains called Paron and Artensanraju. We never made it up Paron, having trudged across 4 km of knee deep snow, as we found this cravasse 300m from the top which was about 4m wide and couldnt be crossed. We never made it up Artensanraju either - this was a steep 60 degree technical climb where the last 200m would be soft snow, which would have taken 6 hours to cross according to other climbers. I had not acclimatised enough for a summit attempt and at about 250m from the top I went loopy and felt really dizzy, so we decided to turn back, much to my dismay.
The only mountain which I am proud of is summiting Alpamayo in the second week. This is another 45 degree climb in hard snow, where the last 60m was hard ice climbing of 80 degree hard ice. Seeing as I had only done ice climbing twice in my life before, Mark did a fantastic job of getting me to the top, where, unfortunately we did not get that much of a view as it was cloudy at the top. We ended up abseiling down with three young austrians who had two 60m ropes, which saved us alot of time with our one 50m rope.
Then there was the third week, where we tried for Perus highest mountain, Huascaran. The summit day proved to be very exciting where we did some steep snow climbing and actually had to jump across some cravasses to get to the top. But unfortunately after we had done all the exciting stuff and all that was left to get to the summit was a simple snow plod for the last 300m, I lost it again with the altitude, ended up getting hypothermia and going a bit funny in the head. So poor old Mark made the decision to turn back again - he could have gone on but did not want to leave his loopy girlfriend on the mountain on her own feeeling very cold.
So that was my mountaineering adventures in Përu - I am pissed off at not being able to make it to the top of most mountains due to my lack of being able to acclimatise - it is really off putting to spend 4 to 5 days getting within reach of a summit and then to fail by about the last 200-300m to get to the top. All I can say though is that I am gaining alot of valuable mountaineering experience and I have gained alot of new skills which I will put to great use in the future. I am thinking of returning again to attempt some of these mountains again as the views on the way have been stunning on the way up so if any of you are planning a trip to Peru then do give me a shout.
Anyway now we are making our way up north to Ecuador to climb a volcanoe called Cotopaxi, where we are doing some sight seeing of pre-Inca ruins on the way. After our attempt at the volcanoe, we will then relax on the beaches and visit the Amazon before returning to the U.K for 2 weeks.
Dear all,
Seeing as I am on a truck safari, following a bunch of travellers around with a guide to sort everything out for me I have had limited time to email everyone. So apologies for my lack of correspondance, and to make up for it I will try to keep my email of my experiences as brief as possible.
This is now my 7th week in Africa and time has just flown by that I have started thinking about what I should be doing in New Zealand on my arrival. It gets more depressing to think that I have to go back to an office to work the more time I spend here, it is more tempting to be a guide for all the kinds of activities that I have been participating in during my time here. In Kenya we had an amazing time climbing on Mount Kenya, where I never had any problems with acclimitisation. The climb itself to the top (5,199m) took us 14 hours in total to get up and down. We could have done it quicker but we spent 2-3 hours getting lost on the rock face which slowed us down. Apart from that little mishap Mount Kenya was an amazing scramble, where we only had to complete 4 pitches of up to Severe Standard during our 8.5 hour ascent. If you have ever scrambled on Skye, or completed the Cuillin Ridge then I would equate our climb up Mount Kenya to that - the rock was superb, the weather fantastic and the views of other satellite peaks amazing. It is well worth a 2 week trip there. I would even consider a return trip to Mount Kenya - just imagine looming rock faces just outside your tent - with unclimbed routes tempting you. It was a difficult place to leave. I could have easily become a climbing bumb and then a professional guide in that area once I had set up my new routes! Mount Kenya has been our only mountaineering activity so far. Apart from that we have been spotting wildlife as well, which is a pretty incredible experience. I have seen lions, leopards, elephants, antelope, wildebeest, zebra, rhino, cheetahs, tonnes of deer, hippos. Everytime I see an animal I get so excited as they are all very interesting to watch - I once went though 3 rolls of film in one day. I also get jealous of the safari guides, can you imagine seeing lions every day of your life or hippos. You would think that they get bored but they don't - they seem to get just as excited as us tourists do when we have seen the animals for the first time. Zimbabwe has offered some of the best experiences so far - We spent 3 days in a lion park, walking with lions when they were free and bottle feeding lion cubs - Mark has a few scratches from them jumping on him. I have also stood about 10m from a rhino.
Tomorrow we go white water rafting and the day after we see Vic Falls and a crocodile park. I am sure that I will get jealous of the guides who show us around there. Anyway as I said I will keep this brief until next time I email you all. Hope that you are all having fun.
from Kathleen
Hello There,
Apologies for not writing to you for ages but it seems like I haven't had much time to catch up on emailing you with news of my activities. I hope that you had a fantastic Christmas and New Year - mine was rather strange as it was my first time that I spent a Hogmanay in a place which I hardly new, and even stranger to be amongst some people who I had only just met on that day. Hopefully it won't be the same next year - I should be calling New Zealand my home and should have made a few more friends by then!
I am now settled in New Zealand and have started the painful process of job hunting. I have looked in the newspaper ads and there seems to be nothing at all available for me so I will be expecting to work in Macdonalds for a short period of time before I get something decent.
But while I seek work it gives me time to look through my slides and brings back many fantastic memories of my adventures in Africa.
Last time I wrote I was about to go white water rafting in the Zambezi River. That was an amazing experience as our raft flipped over twice in a grade 3 and 5 rapid and we ended up bobbing in and out of these 10 ft waves, wondering when the river would bring up back up to the service to catch our breath again.
Then we headed through Botswana and into Namibia, doing lots of animal spotting on the way, to add to my already existing numerous photo collections of giraffes, elephants, lions, zebras and other animals. It honestly became an addiction. I tried so hard not to go snappy happy but couldn't help myself when I saw anything with four legs or 2 wings. I spent a fortune on camera film. The worst place was in Etosha National Park in Namibia - there was this waterhole right beside a campsite, where you could go to this viewing platform with your beers and watch animals with your camera all day. So that is just what I did - I sat there and watched and took photos and watched and took photos all day - it was dead weird that I had this obsessions with animal photo taking!
And I didn't just take photos of animals - the scenery in Namibia was amazing that I went through 2 films taking photos of amazing desert scenery, where we wondered along something called the Skeleton Coast. This resembles a beach with golden sand, which goes on for miles and miles and miles in all directions, except for where the sea is - it is not the right place to get shipwrecked, as you would end up spending at least 2 weeks walking in desert in all directions. Amazingly enough, we found this seal colony which seems to thrive there on the fish - so you'd hope that you were at least a seafood fan if you got stranded there. So I took photos of the seals as well and then we came across these amazing sand dunes south of the Skeleton coast. It was absolutely beautiful to wonder up at 6am in the morning to look at the sun rising over these sand dunes over 300m high and then see a whole red sea of sand over the horizon going on for what seemed like forever - there went another 2 rolls of film in a morning! Surprising that they are even unheard of in the UK as they were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.
After Namibia we wondered into South Africa, which is a country I would love to live in if it hadn't been for the scarey statistics of crime there. South Africa has everything for you if you are into the outdoors. Mark and I spent 3 weeks there working our way from Cape Town to Johannesburg, where we went whale watching, spent time on beaches, visited a monkey farm, walked in the Drakensburg Mountain, climbed on Table Mountain and in a place called 'Under the Waterfall' with some friends in Jo'Burg, and walked along tonnes of coast line in beautiful nature resorts. There was also the option of sailing, and shark diving but we ran out of money and time so skipped that one. If I had not made plans to go to New Zealand - I would have seriously considered South Africa as an alternative. I also saw wild penguins there for the first time so there went another roll of film.
Finally Mark went back to NZ and I continued onto Swaziland by myself. Fortunately here I kicked my addiction to taking photos as it rained everyday when I was there. My plans to go on safari, and go mountain biking had to be curtailed as the weather was so atrocious, so instead I spent my time there shopping and reading National Geographic at my friends flat. Fortunately on the last day I did manage a 2 hour cycle ride, which took me through the villages and found out some very fascinating facts about the culture. Interesting to think that there is no divorce in Swaziland - when men don't like their wives they take them back to her family and demand the price of 17 cows back from them, which they paid for in the first place! Also every year, young girls do some topless reed dance in front of the king, and he can pick a wife based on what he sees on that day.
Then from Swaziland onto Sydney for a couple days and then onto NZ for a month of touring before I settled down here. Sydney and NZ are another story which I will tell you about some other time. I have to admit that I did not enjoy OZ and NZ as much as I should have as I was knew that my journey was soon coming to an end and my mind was preparing to get back into job hunting mode. And because of this my snappy happy mode started to fade rapidly - I hardly took a single photo when I arrived in NZ.
So all in all I have taken lots of photos that it depressed me to pay 150 GBP on processing and developing., especially when I don't currently have a job! Please be warned that if you decide to visit it will be compulsary to give you a slide show of my S.America AND Africa adventures (I will edit my 52 rolls of slide film of course). So be warned.
Anyway I feel a bit nostalgic at the moment. As I said before I spent my Hogmanay with people who felt like strangers (except Mark) so missed family and friends in the UK. And now I have spent my time looking through my slides and reminding myself of what a good time I had over the past 6 months, that it feels strange now to wake up in the morning and have nowhere new to go or anything particularly productive to do. However somethings will never change after you go on a holiday of some sort. You end up planning your next holiday to cheer youself up. I'm particularly looking forward to exploring more of NZ when I get the money. And in the future I have plans for a climbing tour through East Asia in a couple of years time or perhaps the summits of Mount Cook and Mount Aspiring next Christmas. Any of you interested?
Keep in touch with whatever you are up to. I hope that everything is going well for you all. Send me a postcard when you next go on holiday.
From Kathleen