The Inka Trail

Well here I am - still in Cuzco- Peru! Just thought I would squeeze in one more update before I get home. Just arrived back from a 4-day trek along the Inka Trail to the world famous Macchu Picchu Ruins. The trek turned out to be quite challenging! I joined a group of 14 people from Ireland, USA, Slovenia, England, Argentina and Canada and we walked and walked and walked our way to Macchu Picchu. The weather wasn´t as bad as it could have been during this rainy season- we had a mix of rain and sun throughout the week. Unfortunately there was just a bit too much rain on the last couple of days and landslides prevented us from taking the traditional route through the sungate into the ruins. Instead we walked down the mountain and followed the train tracks into the town of Aguas Calientes where we had to take the bus up to the ruins... a little anti-climatic! Nonetheless the highlight for me wasn´t the actual ruins, but just surviving the hike itself! At first I thought the infinite climb upwards was going to kill me... but then I discovered the pain of descending thousands of stairs! My calves were rock-hard by day 3 making every step all the more interesting! However- so glad I did it... and thank-god for gortex.

Boliva and Peru at Last

This (photo-free) posting is being written in Cuzco, Peru. Jen and I will spend our last week or so together here. Jen is squeezing in a 2-day Inca Trail before flying home from Lima and I´ve just booked on to the full 4-day hike departing on the 27th. After which I get to look forward to endless bus rides back to Santiago where I´ll fly home on April 5th.

Bolivia was cool... mainly because it was soooooooooooo cheap! Jen and I went a little crazy shopping in the La Paz before heading to Cococabana on Lake Titicaca.

It´s nice to be able to chill out in one place for awhile- and Cuzco is a great (and cheap) place to do it. I won´t likely post too much more on this blog since its no fun without the photos! Thanks for reading and see some of you back in Canada soon enough!

Besos,

Katie

Into the DESERT...

Our last stop in Chile was San Pedro de Atacama... a small village in the desert. The bus rides around this time were getting more and more uncomfortable and the view of endless desert plains a little tiring. Nonetheless - San Pedro was a really cool stopover.

The highlight for me was an evening of Sandboarding - basically snowboarding on giant sand dunes. The drawbacks include the lack of a ski lift, sand in every crevice of your body and clothing... as well as sand in the zoom lens of my camera! So unfortunately... no more photos for this blog!

We also did a ridiculous tour to some geysers at 4am one morning. Yah okay, so water boiling up from a mysterious underground source in the middle of the desert is really cool... but getting up at 4am in the freeeeeezing cold and suffering from altitude sickness (we were over 4000m) is not going down as a highlight on this blog! And no photos to prove I was there...

Where´s the Beach?

So it was a bit of a let down to discover that Chile is NOT in fact the best place to go for BEACHES!!! Ya they have a lot of coast line... but the water is freeeeeeezing and well I guess we didn´t come at the right time of year because every supposed beach resort we turned up in... were pretty much ghost towns.

After Mendoza we checked out Valparaiso - a bit run down but cute at the same time if you can imagine. We did spend one day on the beach... venturing only far enough into the ocean to wash the watermelon juice off our legs.

After Valparaiso we tried for another beach town called La Serena... much cuter but even less of the beach scene! It did have a random Japonese garden that manged to occupy our time for a good 45 minutes or so...

Around this time we were just dying to get out of Chile! But one more stop... the desert!

An uphill climb in Mendoza

From Mendoza Jen and I decided to do some training four our upcoming Inca Trail...

So off we went on a hike through the desert - beautiful scenery... check it out! We saw a lot of cacti and random prickly bushes that left us with some scratches for souvenirs. Jen was a little nervous on the downhill descents but lucky for our 19 year old guide, she got to hold his hand the whole time!

After the hike we (almost) did a 20 meter rappell... by almost I mean I did the rapell and Jen just tried on the harness for looks - but she looked really good!

Mendoza Wine Festival

We arrived in Mendoza, Argentina in time for the last 2 days of the yearly wine festival. Attached photo is of the huge concert-dance-show thingy they put on the last night. Very elaborate dancing and costumes... the photo doesn´t do it justice.

The amphitheatre was packed with 30,000 people- pretty insane!!! Unfortunately, they didn´t actually serve any wine at this concert- what´s up with that??

Waiting, waiting, waiting

A familiar picture... we spent a lot of time on buses lately and this is an example of what waiting with a kayaker named Forrest who feels the need to travel with a kayak paddle, a crash pad for climbing, a yoga mat and numerous other bags of miscellaneous kayaking gear throughout South America. Luckily, he is also a massage therapist and has been able to help heal our aching necks!

Volcano-mania!

Next stop on the Jen and Katie (and Forrest for now) tour was Pucon, Chile... yup we crossed back into Chile - I´m running out of space in my passport for all these stamps!

Before Pucon we had a small layover in Osorno where we had to camp out on the lawn (more like area where the drunks go to pee) by the bus station while we waited for our next bus. We left Forrest to guard our bags with his swiss army knife while we went on a search for coffees. Our memories of Osorno will always be stale donuts, gay dogs, pregnant ladies with toddlers in tow and an extremely unpleasant park by the bus station (at least it didn´t rain).

Pucon is a small adventure town with the wonderful happenstance of being surrounded by volcanoes... at least two of them are active... plus every other hill seemed be described as dormant volcanoe- not to worry- nothing erupted while we were there (it would have been in the news-duh!)

We stayed in a nice hostel- out of the way but nice since no one else seemed to know it existed... features included a yappy dog, ample space for Forrest to practice yoga, a slightly bitchy lady who was perpetually sweeping the floors and indisceranable address down a dirt road.

We spent our 24 hours in Pucon on a quick tour of beautiful rivers with pool drop waterfalls and a visit to the famous Pucon Termas (hot springs). Jen would like to add ¨those were hot- those hot springs- make sure you mention that...¨

On the Road Again...

After crossing the Chilean-Argentinian border for the 6th? time I managed to meet up with my friend Jen Lynch in beautiful Bariloche. The meeting occurred after many many (perhaps slightly confusing) emails. Jen managed to get herself from the bustling metropolis of Buenos Aires with nothing more that sheer willpower and a pocket dictionary. At first she was slightly unnerved when I told her it was a mere 22 hour bus ride to meet me in Bariloche... but as you can see from her smiling photo- she was more than happy to make the sacrifice. (Actually she has been describing the bus trip as ´surprisingly pleasant´¨- ¨Via Bariloche all the way... I can´t say enough good things about them¨ were her exact words.

A few days of eating gigantic steaks and drinking fantastic wine while surrounded by mountains is enough to make anyone forget a 22 hour bus ride (and the other small matter of lost luggage). Yaaaa Argentina!

Goodbye Futa

After sea-kayaking it was time to say goodbye to my little home in Futa. It was a fantistic month and a half in a beautiful location with a lot of great people (All the Esprit kids, new friends from ExChile and other Futa randoms -you know who you are!!!).

My last night there turned out to be on the night of a big Futa party (turns out it was not thrown in my honour... but I can pretend). A huge group of us went to an Asado (BBQ) at a nearby campground (Asado as it turns out really means meat meat meat and wine wine wine- no veggies that night!) Afterwards we went to a community hall type place where the entire town showed up for dancing and a bit more vino... a great way to end my stay.

I was sad to go but it was time (plus the weather was starting to turn yucky... I hear its still raining right now.)

The photo is of my little casa... my room was in the attic - top window.

Andes to Ocean

After hanging out in Futa for another few weeks I finally got back to being active.... the small issue of a dislocated shoulder put my kayaking practice on the back burner for a little while!!!

These photos are from a 5 day sea-kayaking trip I took with some clients, a friend from Futa (Anni) and our guide and friend Brian. The trip began at the base of the Futaleufu River (yaaa current) then into Lake Yelcho, followed by another river (yaaaa current again) and finally ending in the Pacific Ocean near a small town called Chaiten.

The weather on the first day was absolutely terrible, cold and rainy but luckily with a tail-wind. But after that it was nothing but smooth sailing and gorgeous scenery and we maintained the tail-wind the entire trip so the paddling part wasn´t too gruesome! (my shoulder survived.) :)

Eagle Rock, Futaleufu

Futa-licious

This is the paradise that I'm living in now... Futaleufu, Chile in the Patagonia. My first week was spent with the Esprit group, running rivers (sit-on-top kayaking, rafting the infamous Futaleufu River-HUGE STUFF and Azul and Espolon rivers) as well as a bunch of hiking - I would almost say I'm getting in shape!

The past while I've been helping out "Expediciones Chile" a sister company to Esprit Rafting... I'm not officially working but have been helping out in exchange for meals and trips... The owner Chris Spelius is a world-renowned olympic kayaker... and he is helping me to learn my whitewater kayaking roll... he's an amazing teacher. www.exchile.com

Plan on staying here for awhile longer, have a room in a house with some of the other staff. Not much to do in the town but the area offers tons of activities. They call this area "the greatest playground on earth"... I'm off to play some more!

El Bolson

The group waiting around before we caught a bus and crossed into Chile... not the most efficient group for packing light! Second photo is the famous hippie craft market in El Bolson, Argentina. Picked up some styling wool legwarmers...

The Manso River

We had a great Esprit group travelling together and a wild ride on the Manso River... some of the group kayaked and the others rafted. One rapid called the "scrambled egg" managed to dump a few of us into the river - me included! Photos are the camp site, the van ride and a bunch of the gang!

Mountains, Rainbows and Lakes

In and around Bariloche, Argentina. Spent some time hiking before heading off on a rafting trip on the Manso River.

The Sensual Tango

Amy and I were both treated to Tango lessons in La Boca. Our instructor was pretty slick...

Mom's Argentinian Adventure

It was a close call at the end of mom's trip... luckily this friendly pilot named Philip allowed her to co-pilot her own way back to Buenos Aires... (don't tell the Argentinian government)...

Parana, Argentina

Time spent in Parana with Meg and Martin and the whole Boeyken family!

Sightseeing in Buenos Aires

The famous dogwalkers, a hydraulic flower, the Recoleta cemetery and La Boca...

La Estancia

Okay at first it seemed like a bit of a tourist trap... but in the end our trip to an Estancia turned out to be a real highlight!!!

An Estancia is basically a farm or ranch in Argentina (land of meat!)... there you will find real live Gauchos (cowboys that can dance) and lots of old school customs including a huge Asado (BBQ). Mom and I and a minivan full of a large Mexican family and one guy from Peru drove 80 km outside of BA to experience the Estancia life!

We set the stage with a sampling of wondeful Argentinian red wine from Mendoza and a couple of empanadas (bread filled with meat)... from there we went on to see how the gauchos milk cows - and even squirt the milk directly from the udder into their mouths... yuck! I then did the unthinkable... I climbed onto a horse and rode around the field with a group of people who wouldn´t understand what I was screaming if the horse starting biting my leg or something - it turned out fine in the end because my horse must have sensed my fear and slowed down so much that I was about half a km behind everyone else! Mom tried out the horse drawn wagon with some of the other Mexicans and they seemed to get along just fine.

Next stop was Asado - they served blood sausage (didn´t touch it), and other sausages, then chicken, then beef, then more chicken and more beef... oh and wine... and more wine - I think there were a few salads thrown in there too. YUM! During our meal we were entertained by the jefe (boss guy who sang) - he played the guitar and sang traditional songs from Argentina as well as a french-canadian song in our honour! We were also dazzled by traditional dances from every region in Argentina - they have some crazy Gaucho moves where it looks like the guy is breaking his ankle over and over! And of course, we also saw the tango and even tried it ourselves. Mom was already way ahead of me since she took tango lessons in the hostel the first night we arrived!

Our grande finale involved traditional Gaucho customs. These included bull riding, standing up on top of the horse, herding horses and throwing a lasso to capture animals - all very impressive. But the best custom was how they get their wives... they race down the field with a small stick and in mid-gallop they manage to poke it through a tiny ring that is hanging off a structure (hard to explain- but very impressive) - they then present this ring to the girl they want to marry and she accepts with a kiss! I think mom and I are now both engaged to the same Gaucho... we´ll have to fight that one out when I get home.

The day ended with a tasting of mate (tea) and a sleepy ride home. We made good friends with the Mexican family and met up with them for drinks another night in BA - which was another big highlight from our trip.

Arrival in Buenos Aires

Upon arriving to BA, after an easy flight - if a bit long... we were dropped off close to our hostel but not in front of the hostel due to some sort of protest on the streets. There were hundreds of people with banners and flags shouting chants (which we didn´t quite understand) - but we were told it was groups representing different political parties and they do this every year since the collapse of the economy. It was a pretty hectic experience to come right into- but had its benefits as huge boulevards were blocked off from the cars and we could walk right along the middle of those streets!

Our hostel turned out to be pretty cool (I was a bit worried about throwing mom right into the hostelling world!) - A beautiful old building with huge ceilings and a courtyard, sometimes not the quietest place with BA party animals coming in at 6am and vomiting or screaming right outside your door... but the bathroom was beautiful!