Salta, Argentina 3rd - 7th Nov

The minute we crossed the border I just knew Argentina was going to be incredible!

Derek and I had been so looking forward to arriving in Argentina, dedicating a good month to tour this amazing country.

 We arrived in Salta, a city in the North West of Argentina, settled into our lovely hostel and customary with Argentinian late going out and dining tradition, we headed out just before midnight to grab a bite to eat.

San Francisco Church at night

Well, we found a lovely sidewalk café and sat back, relaxed in the warm temperature, opened up a Salta beer and started getting excited about our future days. The city had such a lovely feel about it, so relaxed and easy-going. It just felt so similar to being back home, hell they even had balsamic vinegar and olive oil on the restaurant tables!

Next morning we woke up and although it was about 9am it was already really hot. Baking sun! A great start to that morning....corn flakes as our hostel breakfast!!  Wahoo!

It being so warm, we took the opportunity to keep in doors and plan the next couple days…

One of the things we were keen to do is to visit and stay at an Estancia – an Argentinian farm homestead and ride horses.  We read about an Estancia called Sayta on the net, it had a great write up and last minute decided to head there the following day.

That evening though, we went to a restaurant serving typical local foods  - that night we tried a few things including tamales and empanada’s which are like meat pasties – and a bit different to the other South American versions we’d tried earlier in our trip. We then wandered around the main square and a little before 1am we walked home. Going out for dinner so late is quite something.

The next morning, along with a Scottish guy from our hostel, we got collected and taken about an hour or so out of Salta, to the ranch called Sayta. Although not an actual working farm, it is surrounded by tobacco and wheat fields. The estancia is situated in a valley- where green and lush hills surround the farm – really pretty.

We were immediately welcomed by two volunteers and the owner’s daughter, as well as a couple of the gaucho’s that work at Sayta. Throughout our stay we learnt quite a bit about gaucho’s and gaucho culture. Gaucho’s really are horsemen, having grown up from a very early age riding, they pretty much live their life with their horse i.e. you wouldn’t see a true gaucho in his car on his way to the shop – you’d see his horse tied outside the shop instead.  They have incredible horse skills and usually wear traditional clothing including these riding pants called bambacho’s.

The saddle room on the estancia

 

Shortly after arriving we got seated at this big dining table in an outside area and got stuck into breakfast, which included dulce de leche, which is basically caramel that they use as a spread – I couldn’t quite stop myself from spooning mouthfuls into my mouth instead, all whilst Derek’s skin crawled by how sickly sweet this stuff is! We then got introduced to Diego, our gaucho for the upcoming ride. Got handed some chaps and met our horses. One of the volunteers called Cheska ( English-French) came along for the ride  - mostly just walking, but we explored parts of the farm and were treated to our gaucho showing off  - him standing on his horse whilst walking!

 

After the morning ride, we got ushered to the big table where everyone from the Estancia sits down to enjoy an “asado” – a lovely long braai!! The table was laden with salads, pickles, roasted veggies, chips and loads of chimichuri – which is a delicious spicy paste you add to the meat.

Talking of meat... this is where we learned how Argentinians do it... Starting off sausages and chorizo and then moving on to various cuts of the most delicious steaks… your plate was never short of meat for more than 2 seconds, when Gustav our braaier encouragingly placed more on your plate whether you needed it or not. It was the most delicious steak ever! Now besides the non-stop intake of beef, our glasses were never less than half full - which is a real problem when you know you have to get back onto a horse and not fall off! The easy drinking red, made by monks is in endless supply on the Estancia!

Gustav our chief braaier

 

That afternoon we got back into the saddle and enjoyed the afternoon and also managed to get some cantering and galloping done too, which was great fun! Again, after the ride, we settled into “tea” – lots of tea, bread with spreads, as well as a type of sweet bread butter pudding type desert called budin. Yummy!

 

That evening, after a lovely shower (in an even lovelier cottage on the Estancia) we settled into another glass of red wine with the 2 volunteers Amelie, Cheska and owner’s daughter Laura. The owner Enrique was unfortunately away but we heard hilarious stories – clearly quite a character. After a drink, it was time to eat again! Dinner for the five of us around the kitchen table in the Estancia’s main house.  We were all pretty exhausted and although only starting dinner at about 11, we were not long out of bed!

We slept in and awoke for another spread on the breakfast table. One day in and it felt like we hadn’t stopped eating! That morning a group arrived from the city for a morning of riding. Slightly annoying, obnoxious group of Israeli’s that although never having ridden seemed to test both Pablo and Felix our gauchos as well as Amelie one of the volunteers with their constant spurring the horses, trying to go faster and generally not listening to what the gaucho’s had to say! The other addition to the group was James, an English guy who was to stay for the day and night.

Our ride was a similar route to the first day, but a slightly faster pace which was fun. Derek and I both loved our horses this day – they seemed a little less docile to the previous days’ and they actually seemed to like each other, which made riding alongside each other possible! Again, after our morning ride, we settled into a couple glasses of vino and a HUGE asado! So much, perfectly cooked steak! Yum!

That afternoon only James remained from the new comers and oh my word, what an amazing ride we had. Felix, a lovely guy and really experienced gaucho lead our ride towards the mountains. We walked and trotted through some great scenery. We got fairly high into the mountains, where there was a paddock of cows, instead of lassoing them, Felix practiced his skills trying to lasso us instead. We got a great chance to test out our horses – so much fun!  From there, we honestly made our horses descend through this extremely narrow ravine. This was scary and fun at the same time – at one stage I was leaning as far back as I could as my horse literally nose-dived down this mountain side! Crazy stuff! It was the perfect riding end – we had amazing scenery, great company, amazing horses and opportunities to gallop, canter and trot a lot! Perfect!

Last afternoon riding with our Gaucho Felix (next to me)

 

We only intended on staying one night (budget permitting) but after such an amazing time and the fact that taxi transfers back to the city are difficult on a Sunday, we agreed to spend another night on the Sayta Estancia.

Again the food routine of afternoon tea (served at 7pm) continued. Quick shower and soon the three staff (Cheska, Amelia and Laura) together with James, Derek and I were sitting down to a lovely home cooked dinner in their farmhouse kitchen. We proceeded to continue our little gathering outside with an un-countable number of bottles of wine… The six of us proceeded to drink, laugh and tell stories until late into the next morning. Well Derek and I excused ourselves at about 2am but the rest continued until 6am!!

Nevertheless we were all feeling a little worse for wear the next morning! After a lovely breakfast, we sadly said our goodbyes! It was so lovely to spend time with such great people and it honestly felt like we had stayed at a friend’s house – something so different to the last few weeks of travelling and saying goodbye was not easy! Wow, for us, this was a huge highlight and in hindsight could have definitely stayed a bit longer. A great experience all round!

Felix, Derek, Tess, Amelie, Laura, James

After making our way back to the city of Salta, we managed to buy a last minute bus ticket leaving that afternoon and promptly proceeded to the bus station for a very long bus ride…

San Pedro de Atamcama, Chile - 2nd Nov

We left Bolivia and almost immediately we noticed the difference between the 2 countries, we hit a perfectly good tarred road (something that doesn’t exist in Bolivia) and we cruised down into San Pedro de Atacama clearing customs as we entered the town.

The first priority was to get some cash and so we changed the Bolivianos we had and then couldn’t find an ATM with any cash, so we changed some dollars just so we had enough for some lunch. I was panicking a bit because we had an expensive bus to pay for that was leaving the next day and we couldn’t get any cash, luckily Veronika (who we travelled with in the salt flats) helped us find the one ATM that was working and we loaded up some cash, crisis averted!

Tess was still not feeling that great and needed to be close to a toilet and so I headed off to find a trip to the Valley of the Moon on my own. Along the way we started overlooking 3 sets of mountain ranges, which was pretty amazing considering the diversity of the 3 ranges. We then headed to the Valley of the Dead, so named as nothing grows there at all, it’s pretty incredible. The tour saved the best for last as we headed to the Valley of the Moon, and it really is like that! Well I haven’t been to the moon so can’t say for sure J. The landscape is really strange and nothing like I had seen before. I hope the pictures do it justice.

The aptly named Valley of the Dead



I had planned ahead and bought myself a large beer to enjoy as a sundowner. I think a few people were jealous of me as I sipped my now not so cold lager watching the sunset over the Valley of the Moon and the great sand dune, what an awesome experience.

The Valley of the Moon Great Sand Dune and Plateau

Tess had booked us a star gazing experience for the night that we had heard good things about from friends. We only got picked up at 11pm and it was going to last for 3 hours or so. After waking up at 4am this was going to be a long day! Anyway we headed off in good spirits to the star gazing and were net by a Canadian astrologer. The evening was divided into 3 parts: a small lesson about the history of astronomy and the constellations, a session looking through the 10 telescopes they had on offer and then a question and answer session at the end. The first and thirds part were pretty boring and we were tired, Tess had 40 winks during the Q & A session. But it was cool to look at the moon, the various stars and constellations through the telescopes. We got to bed very late, but we had had a good day, our one and only day in Chile.

The next day we headed off to catch our bus to Argentina. Tess was so excited to be heading for Argentina, this was her dream destination and she was determined to make the most of it. I think just the thought of Argentina made her feel better. This was our first experience of Argentinian buses that we had heard so much about, Andesmar did not disappoint. We also got our first English movies of the trip so we were excited about that! The scenery on the journey was also magnificent, we passed a small salt flat and went over one of the most impressive passes we had seen on the journey thus far. The journey was a very pleasant one.  We were both just very happy to arrive in Salta in Argentina, this was to be the start of a full month in Argentina. Exciting stuff!!!!

Salar de Uyuni, Salt Flats, Bolivia 30th Oct - 1st Nov

The next morning, fairly early, we made our way to the bus station (after a somewhat eventful start to the day – me on the bathroom floor feeling faint) oh how my family doesn’t envy Derek!

Got to the station and I proceeded to throw up in the middle of the bus station – not a good sign for an 11 hour bus ride with no bathroom! I sat on that bus, as still as I could and wished those hours to fly by. Now Derek blames the alcohol, I however blame Bolivia! And the subsequent 5 days proceeded to be not so well…traveller’s sickness they call it – the only remedy, being in a 10metre range of a decent bathroom, which in Bolivia is hard to find! Haha! And all this whilst on a 3 day 4x4 trek through the Salt Flats, not fun!!Neither for Derek who heard all about it!

(Ok, sorry that’s the hypochondriac in me talking…back to the tour!)

So we arrived in the town of Uyuni. Which is where the Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flats) tour starts from. It’s a tiny desert town, with unfortunately a lot of rubbish and litter surrounding the town. Something that made us angry about Bolivia in general – they have the most amazing natural resources – tourist heavens, and yet they know nothing about zapping it in the zeebee can and general conservation!!

So we spent a night in Uyuni and set off earlyish the next morning on our Salt Flats tour. There were 6 of us (all girls bar Derek), our driver/guide, his wife the cook and their 3year old child! In a comfortable Land Cruiser, we set off.

What an absolutely amazing first day – so, so breath-taking! This blinding white salt terrain for miles and miles! We initially stopped off at the Train Graveyard (disused trains that have rusted and become a bit of tourist photo spot), then a salt factory (short explanation on how they farm the salt and eventually package it – a very low key operation), a salt hotel, then stopped for lunch at Isla Incahuasi – an old coral island sticking out of the Salt Flats covered in cacti, hundreds of years old. Millions of years ago, the salt flats were covered with water and rumoured to be part of Lake Titicaca, with lots of coral underwater islands – what remains now that the water has disappeared, are about 30 odd coral/rock masses in the middle of nowhere. One of which is Isla Incahuasi. Truly bizarre! After lunch we got to take some whacky photo’s where the stark white backdrop plays havoc with perception. We all had a good laugh at these! Pretty fantastic really!

International flags at the Salt Hotel, not sure why the SA flag has such prominence, but all good!

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Tess "working" the salt

Jurassic Park on the Salt Flats! Me in it's clutches!

Our basic room made from salt blocks!

We ended our day off at our fairly rustic accommodation, so thankful for a warm shower though! Our room was made from bricks of salt!

Next morning we set off and discovered a totally different kind of terrain…lots of desert and stark mountains. First up was the active volcano (on the Chilean and Bolivian border) called Volcan Ollague – it was smoking and everything!

Then we came across dozens of lakes, each amazing in themselves and ranged from various shades of blues and greens. Some what a little low on account of it being the dry season, but you still got the most magnificent reflections of the surrounding mountains in the water, along with hundreds of flamingos!

Wow, we didn’t realise that there are different types of flamingos with different colourings, but all were absolutely beautiful. Their reflections on the lake made the most incredible photo.  They feed on all the algae and microorganisms found in the lake. We thought being such a tropical kind of bird they would be affected by the high altitude of this area, but clearly not!

We passed incredible rock formations, one of the well-known ones being Arbol de Piedra, the Spanish word for tree, as it looks like a tree. Just sticking out in the middle of nowhere. Quite amazing.

Yes, so as we travelled further, so we got higher and higher in altitude. We arrived at our accommodation early that afternoon, to find it about a hundred metres from this incredible lake called Laguna Colorada. The lake was red! With the red contrast and brown mountains, it looked alien, like nothing we’d seen before. We braved semi-gale force winds and lots of stinging sand to walk a way around this lake and up to a great viewpoint. Again, flamingos feasted. Now altitude that night was 4200metres (same as our first night when we did our Peru Salkantay trek – so high!!) and it was very, very cold! All 6 of us slept in a dorm, the girls were laughing at Derek and I, as he literally slept in his boxers and I was sleeping in everything including my waterproof jacket, beanie and gloves!

There were a couple other tour groups staying at the same accommodation (very rustic I might add - no shower, 2 toilets that had to be manually flushed and no basin) and after dinner, sitting around our table at about 7:45pm we were politely asked to keep it down as people were trying to sleep… a seriously early morning start was ahead of us and we soon took it as our queue to hit the hay.

We woke up at 4am, freezing cold – it must have easily been -5degrees?!In the dark our Land Cruiser drove towards some natural Sol de Manana geysers. Just as dawn was breaking, we got out of our vehicle, some a little more hesitantly than others on account of the cold, and saw these billows of steam pouring from the ground. All this natural power in the middle of nowhere is rather fascinating.

From there, now about 6am, we arrived at a lake with natural thermal springs. Still absolutely freezing, Derek whipped his boardshorts on and was the first out of about 6 groups to climb in and enjoy! He said despite it being really cold outside, once inside the water, it was incredibly warm and he stayed in there for a good half hour! With the steam coming off the water, I must say it looked incredibly inviting but the thought of having to get out in the cold was not so exciting. Quite funny watching people getting out and drying themselves off whilst steam poured from their hair!

Some breakfast and we were on our way to the last amazing sight... an incredibly green lake, aptly named Laguna Verde. The photos don’t quite do it justice. A beautiful lake with a mountain representing the Chilean border, reflecting serenely in it. Too beautiful and a fantastic way to end our tour. Our vehicle dropped us off at the Bolivian border where we said our goodbyes and waited for our connecting bus over the border and through to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

Our group in front of Laguna Verde

Sucre, Bolivia 28-29th October

We arrived super early on Friday morning by bus in the cityof Sucre. Once the capital city of Bolivia, with its lovely old buildings, clean streets and relaxed feel, left me wondering why anyone would change it to La Paz in the first place!




















Although my initial reaction wasn’t good: ( something spilt in the bus luggage compartment resulting in my bag getting soaked) in Derek’s words, “ only a tad wet”, and in my fury told a homeless man to get lost on his asking for money, needless to say the anger soon dissipated on our arrival at Casa Verde our B&B. A.K.A Heaven! Firstly it was a couple blocks from the city centre, where all the
buildings are painted white – beautiful to the mostly face-bricked cities we’dbeen to before. Secondly, our B&B had a pool and fantastic outdoor area, a gorgeous bedroom and a Belgian owner who was just lovely!

The morning got even better when we headed to a restaurant recommended for breakfast, where we tucked in. Me into a bowl of muesli, real normal muesli and yoghurt!! Oh my gosh I think Derek was so relieved to finally see me smile over a meal!! We spent the day wondering around the city. Taking it all in, in lovely sunny weather (we were loving the lower altitude)! We spent a little time shopping for new slops for Derek – about 100metres out our front door he tripped and broke a slop! He hobbled around and tried to appear like he was walking normally but got a couple strange stares from the locals.We eventually managed to find a pair - the biggest they had just fitted Derek - Bolivian people are pretty small you know! We also did a bit of investigating about our upcoming Salt Flats Tour and decided on a tour company to go with.

The second day we literally did nothing – wonderful! Just relaxed around the pool reading and catching up on emails. That afternoon we went for a walk around town and came across a very noisy and lively procession of people in amazing costumes. When we went out later that evening for dinner, the parade was still continuing. Poor girls in high heels dancing up the street for at least 5 hours! Quite interesting how some women wore very traditional costumes yet others were in
rather sparkly, slightly racy numbers!

That evening we joined up with our French friends we had made on our Amazon trip. We had such a fun evening catching up, together with a few too many Caipirinhas and some dancing, it was a great way to end our time in Sucre!

Rurrenabaque, Bolivia - 24-27 October

We arrived at the La Paz airport early in the morning to catch a 6:15 flight, we had met 2 English people: Tessa Prendergast and Adam and they had come along with us just hoping to make it onto the flight. After a bit of negotiating they both managed to get on the flight. We were then ushered onto the tarmac to our plane, it was a 19 seater twin prop plane. This was going to be a fun flight.

As we were climbing up from La Paz airport we flew past some amazing snow-capped mountains not more than about 100m away. After only 35 mins we touched down in the jungle. Even though it was still early it was already hot and humid and there was a lot of oxygen in the air!! This made a great change after being around 3800m for the past couple of weeks.

We got to the travel agency in the centre of town and checked in for our Pampas tour, this is a tour along the river in 8-seater dugout canoe type boats with a 15hp engine on the back. The other Tessa and Adam managed to get onto our trip no problem (there were 11others as well). We met our guide, Victor, at the agency. To avoid confusion in the names on the tour he called the other Tessa, Tessa Uno and Chennells Dos, this is probably because he took a distinct liking to Tessa Uno during the trip. After pleasantries exchanged we piled into 2 old red Toyota Land Cruisers and began the 3 and a half hour ride that was probably the dustiest I have ever been on. Every time we passed another 4x4 or truck the whole car would be filled with dust, by the end of it, we were all covered and the shirt I was wearing will never be the same again.

Our boats for the 3 hr journey up the river on day 1

A quick lunch in a local village and we were off to get the boats to start our Pampas tour. The river was pretty low, but Victor said that it was better than some years before where there was almost no water in the river at this time of year. The rainy season is in Nov, Dec, Jan and so we were there at just about the driest time.

Black Cayman

Almost immediately as we left the banks we started seeing wildlife and birdlife. Under pretty much every tree there is at least 1 cayman, most of them are spectacled caymans but we did see a few black caymans. The black caymans can get up to 8m long! There were also plenty Capibaras along the river banks, these animals are like a hippo crossed between a hamster (are apparently part of the rodent family). There were also plenty of birds along the river, far too many to mention.

Spectacled Cayman

Capibaras



Amazon Fish Eagle

Paradise Bird

Swimming the murky waters of an Amazon tributary

We knew that there were pink dolphins in the river and were really hoping to see them up close. When we reached one point in the river, our guide Victor, advised us that there were pink dolphins in the water and it was safe to swim (apparently the pink dolphins keep the piranha and cayman infested waters clear in this area). We could see the dolphins surfacing in various places in the area, so I obliged and plunged into the murky, muddy waters of an Amazon tributary. The water was really warm and I was concerned the whole time about being bitten by a piranha, and then I felt something nipping at my side. Needless to say I pretty much shat myself there and then. Victor was unperturbed and calmly said that it was only sardines. After a few minutes it was time to move on so we could get to the lodge before dark. There was plenty more to see along the way, the spider monkeys being the most notable in the last part of our journey. Hundreds of turtles too, all sunning themselves on exposed pieces of wood, until the wake from our boat swallowed them up!

Spider Monkey

After 3 hours on the river, we arrived at the lodge which consists of a dining room, a hammock room and a whole bunch of dorm rooms for groups of 7 or 8. At least the beds all had mosquito nets! Once we had put our stuff down we all jumped back into the boats for a short trip up the river to a bar to watch the sunset. Well as it turns out, it’s not really too much of a bar at all, they have beer, but it’s pretty warm and there is nothing softer or harder than that on offer. The sunset was worth it though!

Later that evening after dinner we went on a night cruise on the river seeing the sights and sounds by night. It was pretty amazing, loads of caymans (incl one large black one just around the corner from the lodge), fish that jumped into the boat. One fished actually jumped into the boat slapping Adam in the face on his way in. I found this hilarious, but I don’t think he did quite as much! We also saw loads of bats and fireflies. A one point we turned off all our headlamps / torches and just floated downstream, the sky was full of stars and it was just so peaceful and quiet floating down the river!

Anaconda hunting in thigh high grass!

The next morning we were going anaconda hunting. This entailed putting on some gum boots/wellies and trudging through thigh high grass looking for snakes (they said we may see cobras too). Now this sounded like a lot of fun to a lot of people, but growing up on a farm with half a dozen types of deadly snakes tends to teach you to stay away from the damn things, but off we went anyway! We left the lodge at 8 am and it must already have been 28 degrees! The walk itself ended up being a 4 hour trudge from our lodge around a few lakes in the sweltering head (it must have got up to 38 degrees in the middle of the day!!) and we did not end up finding any snakes! We were kind of sad and I was kind of glad at the same time. Tess and I only took 1 litre of water each for the walk and both of us got back pretty dehydrated, I think I downed a litre and a half as we got back.

We had a little chilled time before heading off to our afternoon’s activity: piranha fishing. This once again could be rather dangerous to one’s fingers, but as it turns out was quite a lot of fun, and rather challenging to catch the little buggers. They are pretty sneaky as they mostly manage to eat the meat off the hook without getting themselves hooked. Tess and I each caught half a dozen or so and made sure we didn’t lose any fingers along the way, but none of these were a decent size so we just tossed them back. One of the other guys did catch a big one and we tasted that at dinner that evening. It’s not bad at all and a rather mild fish. They are just so small so you would need a bunch to make a meal of it.

 After our fishing Victor took us to a different sunset bar for a drink. We decided that chilling having drinks watching the sunset was a much better way to spend time than piranha fishing so we just relaxed and chatted amongst ourselves and to the other groups that came for a sundowner. We headed to bed early as we were due to watch the sun rise in the morning on the pampas.

In the night a massive lightning and thunderstorm started, like the ones they have in Joburg, and it pretty much rained from then right into the middle of the morning and when we were heading back to Rurrenabaque.  We enjoyed seeing the rain and gave us a little insight into what the jungle must be like in the rainy season in Dec, Jan. It’s amazing how a night of rain can start to raise the river level!  At least the rain made the 3 hour 4x4 ride back to Rurrenabaque a dust free one.

Drinks at Mosquito Bar with Victor, Alice and Adam

That evening in Rurrenabaque we met up with Leigh-Ann and Michael, who had introduced us to Tessa and Adam in La Paz, and all went for drinks and dinner at Mosquito Bar. Our guide Victor was there too and after too many beers he did declare his undying love for Tessa Uno, much to our amusement. It was a fun evening to end a great experience in the jungle in Bolivia. We hadn’t seen jaguar or anaconda, but we had seen loads of other animals and birds that made it an unforgettable experience.

All 7 of us (from right): Tess Uno, Adam, Marije, Tony, Alice, Tess and Me