All the hiking I’ve done so far has been fun in its own right, but I’ve also specifically been trying to keep up a solid pace to build up fitness for huge day hikes. I got into these kinds of hikes when I was road tripping around the states in my lovely hatchback during the summer of 2019. The first taste I had was the incredible 19 mile Dawson/Pitamakan loop in Glacier National Park, and the crowning achievement was the Cactus to Clouds hike in Palm Springs, with Mount Whitney and an easy stroll up Half Dome also on the list (yes, I’m bragging). For whatever reason I seem to prefer these big day hikes to backpacking, probably because I get a bigger sense of achievement from them while also getting to sleep more comfortably and carry a lighter pack up the mountain.

Mount Owen was my first go at getting back to huge hikes. It’s typically summited as an overnight where you stay in one of New Zealand’s famous backcountry huts, but ain’t nobody got time for that. It’s a big day – my watch clocked it at 17 miles and 7,345 feet of elevation, and it took me 11.5 hours. On top of that it’s a pretty funky trail. Rather than just steadily climbing towards the summit, it starts off extremely steep uphill, then plunges extremely steep downhill, and then levels off for a long ways before getting extremely steep again up to the summit. So you have very steep uphill and downhill in both directions, which really gets the heart rate going. All the hiking beforehand did its job though, and I felt reasonably strong throughout.

The trail itself is absolutely magical, with maybe the most variety I’ve ever come across on a single trail. Passing through different ecotones as you gain elevation is always a cool part of hiking, and this trail did not disappoint. It started with a steep, difficult, bushwhacking ascent up a ridge, which then flattened out into a bit of a meadow. I started at 6:30am so everything was totally socked in and I was just walking through fog.

Very soon after that I got into a beautiful forest, and then quickly hit the steep downhill section. On the way down I passed a couple with big backpacking packs coming “down” from the hut, taking frequent breaks as they sweated up this steep section. If I hadn’t already been glad to have a small pack that certainly would have made me appreciate it. After this forested section things began to flatten out and open up a bit, right as the sun started burning off the clouds. I started to catch glimpses of the limestone peaks all around that I’d eventually be climbing.

Now the really cool sections of the trail began. First was a transition to what kind of felt like an oasis, with more tropical plants on either side and lots of yellow wildflowers everywhere. The ground was covered in the dead leaves of these plants that look so unusual to me, emphasizing how different this section looked. And then suddenly I was just hopping rock to rock, going up a dry riverbed. This continued for a while before things opened up into alpine meadows and I reached the hut. All the while I was getting more and more views of the limestone mountains all around.

From this point it was like a completely different hike. I was above the treeline cruising through alpine meadows with lovely tarns, including one that had an adorable little island in it. The whole time I was looking up at all the peaks around me, wondering which one I was going to end up climbing, and how. The how turned out to be quite the thing – it’s hard to capture in pictures, but the rocks were amazing, glacier-carved limestone that really looked like flowing water. The trail went from a well maintained path to a series of rock cairns where you pretty much had to just pick your way through the rocks, climbing around and hopping over several quite deep crevasses.

Eventually the rock-hopping stopped and it became a very, very steep scramble up to the summit. And man was it worth it! The top was a mostly flat slab of limestone, and it afforded 360 degree views of mountains in every direction. The sun was out, lunch was on, and man, I felt great.

On the way back I immediately took a wrong turn and spent about 20 minutes scrambling around rocks off track. So that was a good start. I eventually got myself reoriented and managed not to lose the trail again. I really enjoyed how things look different when you’re moving in the opposite direction, and took the chance to snap a few more photos. I also took an alternative route for the very last section, which consisted of a very steep, muddy, tree-crossed, poorly formed trail down along a stream through beautiful forest, and then a flat stroll to the end. I was glad to have done that section on the way down rather than up.

So that was Mount Owen, a hell of day. After that I finally made it over to the west coast and spent a couple of nights in Westport. I bought a camera from a store up in Auckland and am waiting for them to ship it to a hostel in Westport, so I figured I’d spend a few days there surfing to mix things up and give my legs a break. Yesterday I went and rented a board and headed out for a disastrous surf session – I couldn’t get out past the break! I knew I was going to be out of shape, but that was enough of a bummer that it put me off a bit. And as it happens a huge swell was coming in today, so I decided to switch the plan up again and head north up the coast, to the other side of Kahurangi National Park. I’m planning on hiking the next two days and then heading back down to Westport once the swell is more manageable, where I’ll get past the break or die trying!

Greetings from Motueka, New Zealand, on this new year’s day 2023. I wanted to write something witty and poignant to mark the resurrection of this blog after a brief six and a half year hiatus, but I’ve felt no real urgency or inspiration (truly the story of my life), and finally decided just getting something down was better than continuing to put it off. I’d say it was a new year’s resolution or some such, but I’m not here to lie to you.

Anyway, I’m back abroad! Right now I’m about a month into a three month stay in New Zealand, living in a van and hiking as much as I can. It’s great. I bought my van, Milly the Mazda, up around Auckland, and then raced down for a lovely ferry ride to the south island. I did a little bit of hiking around the lakes and mountains of Nelson Lakes National Park and then along the beaches of Abel Tasman National Park, mostly sleeping in a parking lot here in Motueka in between. Yesterday I went for my first hike in the mountains of Kahurangi National Park, the Mount Arthur summit. It was a magnificent hike, all clouded in the whole way up, then opening up above the clouds at the summit, and finally sunny all the way down so I could see all the scenery I’d missed during the climb. Everyone on the trail was in a great mood, mostly getting ready to camp out for the new year, and I stopped for a fair few cheerful chats. Scrambling down the beautiful rock outcroppings from the summit I finally felt the giddy, overwhelming feeling of joy and beauty that I’m liable to feel on a really good hike, and that I’ve been hoping to run into in New Zealand. For whatever reason beach hiking doesn’t really do it for me, but from here on out the mountains should only get more dramatic, so I’m looking forward to that.

Cusco is beautiful. I mean really, picture-book, postcard, tourism advertisement beautiful. I stayed in a hostel a little ways up the hill next to the Plaza de Armas, the main square, with a terrace that looked out across the city. It’s all spanish tile roofs, narrow cobblestone streets, and giant, impressive red cathedrals, surrounded on all sides by mountains. The Mercado San Pedro, the main market, is chock full of sights and smells – every part of every dead animal you can imagine (no lie, I saw a guy pull up and unload a station wagon piled full of just cow heads, tongues cartoonishly sticking out the sides of their mouths), sections of dried fruits and nuts, brightly colored fruit and vegetable stands, handicrafts, and more. There are tons of cute little plazas everywhere you go, and the city is surrounded on all sides by mountains. I was really swept away by the visual when I arrived and am thinking hard about going back – I didn’t even make it to the famous ruins of the sacred valley! I did have the luck of stumbling onto a food fair on the Sunday that I was there, and I got to try Cuy, the famous guinea pig that’s eaten here. It was… meaty, I didn’t find it spectacular one way or the other, but it was also unfortunately cold since it had been prepared early for this food fair. I’ll be trying it again sometime.

Preparing chiriuchu – the traditional dish I had, with chicken, guinea pig, sausage, salted meat, corn, seaweed, potato, and probably some other things…

The reason I didn’t see the ruins around Cusco is because I was in a hurry to get to Huancayo and start volunteering and I had my heart set on doing the Salkantay trek up to Machu Picchu beforehand. The Inca Trail is the famous trek to Machu Picchu but it has significant drawbacks – it costs upwards of $500 and you have to reserve 6-9 months in advance. This was obviously going to be impossible for me and so I had resigned myself to just taking a bus out to Machu Picchu rather than doing a trek. Somewhere along the way, though, people had told me about the Salkantay, which is a less-traveled but still gorgeous route up to Machu Picchu, and which can be reserved just the day before for $160-230, depending on whether or not you want to take the train back. This turned out to be a great decision.

Salkantay mountain is pretty impressive

Not a bad spot to camp, especially under a tent-roof-thing

Me being a goof

Hilton being a goof

This plant feels just like it looks – like felt

These adorable calves nuzzling each other under the mountains

Granadilla flower – awesome fruit, awesome flower

Suddenly, jungle!

Freshly fried chicharron and giant corn at the market in Aguas Calientes. I couldn’t resist even though we were having dinner an hour later.

The treks up to Machu Picchu are a deluxe affair. There are horses to carry your stuff, porters that run ahead to set up the tents, and cooks to whip up full meals. Our guide, Hilton, was delightfully laid back, often smirking as he delivered silly jokes in an accented drawl. And the scenery, especially on the first two days, when you trek in the shadow of Salkantay mountain, is spectacular. After that, as you drop to lower elevation, the vegetation changes dramatically, with temperatures rising and brightly colored flowers popping out everywhere. Hot springs at Santa Teresa were a highlight, and the famous 2 hour walk along the train tracks from Hidroelectrica to Aguas Calientes, the town at the foot of Machu Picchu, was a delightful, peaceful stroll through tropical vegetation. After that we had a bit of time to check out Aguas Calientes before hitting the hay earlier so as to get up and out the door by 4:30 to climb the thousands of steps up to the ruins. I worked up quite a sweat… Machu Picchu itself is impressive – it’s a huge complex of ruins on top of a sizable mountain, and the work that must have gone into building it boggles the mind. To me, what really puts it over the top is the surrounding scenery, all towering peaks completely covered in dark green tropical vegetation. It’s stunning, and we got especially good luck, with clear skies for sunrise followed by a rush of fog as the rising temperatures sent the clouds that had been down in the valley shooting skyward. I walked through the ruins, hiked out to the Sun Gate, where you get a beautiful faraway view, and strolled out a little ways to look at the Inca bridge. It was really a great day, even if the 6 hour ride back to Cusco was… uncomfortable.

Yep, they have llamas just wandering around

Sweet moon

Suddenly, fog

I’ll be honest, I’m pretty proud of this picture

This rock is a big deal. Energy rock or an altar or something. I wish I could remember…

Temple of the Condor. The condor was a very important animal to the Incas. Notice it looks like… a condor

Evolution of a tourist photo – obligatory selfie

Small talk while you wait for the nice guy from Indiana to get out of your shot

A little awkward…

Are we doing this?

Hahaha

HAHAHA

Final product. This has been “Evolution of a tourist photo”

It was a bit of a drop…

The Inca Bridge is that very narrow walkway along the sheer cliff

Back in Cusco I called it an early night since I had been up since 4am. The next day I had a delicious, giant, American-style breakfast at a place called Jack’s and then went to the San Pedro market to get some snacks and stroll around. At 6pm I had the first leg of my trip to Huancayo – a 21 hour bus ride to Lima. I splurged on an extra-wide, extra-reclining seat on one of the nicer bus companies, which was a good decision, but the first many hours of the trip are all hairpin turns winding through the mountains so it’s hard to sleep no matter what the seat is like. I got in to Lima around 3pm and had until 11:45pm before my 7 hour bus ride to Huancayo so I took a walk down to Miraflores, a beautiful neighborhood by the sea that’s popular with tourists. A fancy club with loads of clay tennis courts right in the middle of the city caught my eye, as did the Parque del Amor (park of love – come on, you knew that…). After seeing the sunset through the gigantic statue of a couple making out at the Parque del Amor – by myself, so sad – I splurged on a delicious seafood dinner and then headed back to the bus. Lima isn’t known as one of the culinary capitals of South America for nothing, and I’m excited about going back for some more food before I fly to New York. The 7 hour bus ride to Huancayo was uneventful – I slept the entire time – and I haven’t had much trouble settling in here. I’ll be back soon with an update on life here in the Mantaro Valley!

I needed this…

Cusco’s Plaza de Armas

Giant crowd for salsa in the park in Lima

Right in the middle of the city!

Tasteful

Our intrepid reporter was on the scene, first full day in Torres del Paine, with some crucial insights…

Based on what I’d heard I wasn’t expecting much at all from La Paz. People had told me, or I had read, that it’s dangerous, dirty, and generally just not that great. I was pleasantly surprised, then, to find a city surrounded by mountains, with cheap fresh fruit in the street, beautiful old buildings, cute narrow roads, and a generally safe and bustling atmosphere, at least as far as I could tell. Jess, Maria, Anatole and I got in early in the morning and went straight to bed. Around noon we headed out to stroll around and see what we could find. We stumbled onto a market of sorts which was really just a bunch of people set up in the street, without stands or anything, selling all manner of fruits and vegetables. One advantage of traveling with a group is that it’s easier to buy food and cook it yourself, and we ended up buying eggs, cheese, beets, potatoes, carrots, avocado, oranges, papaya, chirimoya, and at least a couple of other things I can’t remember. After wandering around a bit more we headed back to the hostel and made lunch, which slowly turned into dinner as we realized there was only a single burner and it was going to take a while to cook the giant pot of potatoes and beets that we had. It was delicious though and I very contentedly stuffed myself with beets.

The next day we wandered again, finding a set of food stands where the locals got lunch. I got myself a plate of kidneys for about a dollar, and a lunch menu with soup and a main dish was about $1.25. Crazy. We then strolled over to the big park in the middle of town and worked our way up to a high lookout point, where you got a great view of La Paz wedged into the valley. On the walk back it started pouring right as we got to the plaza with all the impressive government buildings, so we took shelter for a while and then hopped in one of the many colorful buses back to the hostel, where we whiled away the afternoon. Right as we were getting back to the hostel we ran into Eugene, whom I had met way back in El Chalten, Argentina. We stayed in touch and had planned to meet up in La Paz but I wasn’t expecting to actually just run into him in the street outside of our hostel (not so strange – I told him where we were staying…). That night Eugene, Anatole, and I wanted to check out El Alto, which is the larger, poorer part of La Paz (or actually might be its own city bordering La Paz) that stretches out on the plateau above. We walked over to the shiny new cable car station and paid our 50 cents for the ride up. We started chatting with two young women in our car and they ended up showing us around El Alto, helping us wind through the streets filled with hawkers and taking us to an arcade, where we played air hockey for a while. El Alto is reputed to be even more dangerous than La Paz so I was a bit on edge, especially when Eugene and I agreed that a guy in the arcade had been watching our group a bit too intently for a while. We told the girls we wanted to go and the walk out was a bit tense but we didn’t see our admirer anymore and later decided he was probably drunk and just looking at either the girls, the gringos, or both. After a dinner of fried chicken, spaghetti, rice, and fries (seriously – that’s a standard dinner) we said our goodbyes and headed back down to La Paz. In our earlier conversations Eugene had told me about the Death Road, which used to be a functional road but which is now used almost exclusively for tourists on mountain bikes to drop 3,000 vertical meters down a gravel road in a matter of a couple of hours. It sounded pretty fun to me so we did it the next day, and sure enough, it was. With a bit of caution it really isn’t very dangerous but you can certainly get going pretty fast and it was a hell of a good time.

The colors on the mountains are incredible

Illimani lurking in the background

The most mysterious of meats. It wasn’t good.

Eugene had also told me about Huayna Potosi, a snowcapped mountain just outside of La Paz that you can climb in 2 or 3 days. He wanted to do it and, after some waffling, I decided to join him, so we set out the day after the death road. We did the 2 day climb, which is actually more of a 24 hour excursion. We left La Paz in the early afternoon and drove right up to the base camp in a beat up old station wagon. From there we walked over to a nearby glacier and did some basic practice with crampons and ice axe, and then hiked about 2-3 hours up to high camp, at an elevation of 5,200 meters. We got there around 6, had dinner, and then went straight to bed. After an hour or two of sleep and several more of just lying there we got the wakeup call around midnight. The climb is done at night because the sun is very strong and starts loosening up the snow as soon as it comes out, increasing the risk of avalanche as the day goes on. So we set off at 1am to get to the top around 7am, walking a short section of rock before getting to the snow and pausing to put on crampons, get out ice axes, and put on harnesses to tie ourselves to our guides. After that it was just up, up, and up, mostly shuffling in a zig zag up the slope, with one particularly hard exception being the ice chute type thing we had to actually climb up. I had never tried to exercise at altitude like this before so I didn’t necessarily have any concrete expectations but I can safely say it was harder than I thought. At the section just before the summit, which was very steep and all loose snow where you would step up and slide halfway back down, I could hardly take more than 5 steps in a row before I was completely winded, needing to stop and suck in huge breaths. So that was an interesting experience. I had a couple of moments where I thought I should just turn around, but luckily when I finally asked Mario, my guide, how much farther we had to go, he pointed to the top of the section we were climbing and said that was the summit. And man, what a feeling it was to get to the top. The sun had just risen and across the other side of the mountain was a huge flat expanse, with a giant lake that Mario told me was Lake Titicaca. Looking back towards where we had come from showed an awe-inspiring landscape of mountains all around. I felt a hell of a sense of achievement as well. As soon as Eugene told me about it I got excited about my first experience above 20,000ft – cruelly, I later found out that the top is at 6,088m, which is, I kid you not, 19,973.75ft. I didn’t even have to look that up again when I wrote this post, the number is fixed in my brain. But really, I kid (not about the elevation, that’s true) – the sense of achievement is real, and the climb was amazing. I’ll come back another time for 20,000ft.

Pre-summit fuel. Fried chicken is basically the official food of Bolivia

Mario in all his glory

We got a pretty sweet moon

Lake Titicaca in the back

Absolutely rocking the ladies’ jacket they gave me

Look at his eyes. Our hug at the top smelled of alcohol. No lie =/

That’s the summit, where those ant-sized people are

Used to semi-rappel me down an ice chute. See if you can spot the crack!

After coming down from the mountain all I wanted was a quiet room to shower and sleep, which is exactly what I found. The next morning I slept in and packed, Eugene and I grabbed lunch, and then we caught the cable car over to the cemetery, where we admired the memorials for a while and then I hopped on a bus to Copacabana. This turns out to be the original Copacabana, rather than the famous beach in Rio, and it sits on the edge of Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian side. It’s a cute, small, touristy town, where the main attraction is cruising around Lake Titicaca, specifically to the Isla del Sol, or Island of the Sun, The Incas apparently believed this was the birthplace of the Sun, one of their most important gods. It’s a big island out in the middle of the lake with some truly beautiful beaches, ruins, and a nice 3 hour walk from the north end to the south end, which is what I did. I met Quinnen, a woman from Boston who’s working as a tour guide for an American company currently giving luxury tours to Machu Picchu, in Copacabana, and we walked around the Isla del Sol together for a while before splitting up because I had to run to catch my boat back and she was staying for a couple of days at an idyllic, secluded beach on the island. Rough life… That night I got on a bus and headed out for the 11 hour ride to Cusco.

Bolivia was great. I didn’t get to see nearly as much of the country as I would have liked but I sure enjoyed what I did see. The south, with its volcanoes, sweeping desert, and of course the salt flat, is truly striking and unique. La Paz is a bustling city between beautiful snowcapped mountains, and Lake Titicaca is a huge, tranquil resting spot. I’m not sure when but I will definitely be back to check out the jungle and other parts of the country. Now it’s on to Peru, which is going to be the last country I visit before heading back to the good old US of A. I bought a ticket from Lima to New York leaving June 7th, so after my week in Cusco I’ve got 4 weeks volunteering in Huancayo, then about 8-9 days to see… something, and then that’s all folks!

If I could only recommend one single activity from this trip, the tour I took through the south of Bolivia would be high on the list. We left San Pedro de Atacama, in Chile, in a bus and headed for the Bolivian border. After clearing immigration we were split into groups of 6 and assigned to a guide and his Toyota Land Cruiser (so many Land Cruisers) for the remainder of the tour. My group had two Brazilian women, two American women who were traveling around together after graduating, a German guy, and me, and our guide was Abner, a 22 year old who’s been guiding this tour for 3 years now (!). During the first day’s drive we got up over 15,000 feet before slowly making our way to lower elevation. Luckily I didn’t have too much of a problem with the elevation, just a bit of a headache. Our first stops were at two lakes/lagoons, the white one (because of it’s borax deposits) and the green one (because of its mix of copper and arsenic, if I remember correctly). The lakes were pretty, framed by stark desert and massive volcanos, and the colors were fairly accurate. Most of the driving on this first day was through wide open expanses of desert with mountains on either side and it was pretty damn impressive. After the lakes we went to Dali’s desert, where volcanic rocks stick up haphazardly from a huge expanse of sand. The pictures don’t do it justice but you really could see where the name came from. Next we pushed on to some hot springs, which were a welcome sight since the early morning desert at elevation is really damn cold. To be fair, by this time the sun had been out for a while and it was pretty hot. After the hot springs we saw some very cool geysers, with huge pits full of boiling grey mud. The last stop was the Laguna Colorada, with it’s red and white patches, and then we stayed at a hostel right nearby.

Bolivian immigration

White lake

The algae was beautiful

Green lake. Apparently it gets greener later in the day when the wind mixes the chemicals more

Dali Desert

Hot spring algae

Sulfury…

Laguna colorada

So much flamingo (I think) poop

I was there!

Baby flamingo! Flamingos get their pink color from the keratin in their food, they’re born grey and turn pink over time as they eat

It’s a pretty popular tour….

Desert sunsets are…. pretty nice

Day 2 saw us up and at ’em to drive through the Siloli Desert before getting to our first main attraction, the rock tree. It’s a volcanic rock formation that really does sort of look like a tree, and it sits next to a ton of other huge volcanic rock formations in the middle of the desert, which makes for a striking scene. After that we saw another couple of lagoons, had lunch next to a particularly beautiful one, and then set up at a viewpoint to watch a semi-active volcano slowly puff smoke into the sky.

The rock tree

Casual smoking volcano

Day 3 was the payoff! We got up at the crack of dawn (kidding, before dawn) and headed off at 5 to drive across the salt flat to Isla Incahuasi (or Isla del Pescado), a cactus-covered island out in the middle of a perfectly flat ocean of salt. The whole drive was in the dark and Abner turned off all of the lights a couple of times, since the route is flat as a pancake, which gave us the surreal experience of speeding along at 40 or 50 miles an hour in complete darkness. Once we got to the island we went for a short hike up to the top where we were treated to an absolutely stunning sunrise, all different shades of pink, orange, and yellow breaking over the mountains in the distance and slowly lighting up the white plain. We then headed down for breakfast before driving way out into the middle of the flats to admire the view and take ridiculous perspective pictures. After that we headed to Uyuni, where the last attraction was the train graveyard, bunches of rusty old locomotives lined up against a desert backdrop.

Look at all those cacti!

Hexagons everywhere

The texture was fascinating

I was there!

He’s a monster!

He’s dead Jim

Perspective photos are funny from the wrong perspective…

This whole tour was one of the best things I’ve done all trip. I got lucky with the group and the guide but there is no way to go wrong with the south of Bolivia – it is truly one of the most beautiful and unique places I’ve ever seen. Mountains, desert, lakes, and salt together all make up an unbelievable set of scenery. I very, very highly recommend it to anyone who’s thinking of visiting.

After the tour the two American women (Jess and Maria), the German guy (Anatole), and I all decided we’d head to La Paz together on an overnight bus that same day. We spent the afternoon strolling around Uyuni, catching up on our internet needs, and grabbing some cheap food, and then headed to the bus station. I’ll write a separate post about La Paz but the short version is that I really enjoyed it.

We’ll fast forward quickly now for a present day update. It’s been an action packed couple of weeks so I’m woefully behind on the blog. After Uyuni I spent almost a week in La Paz, which included biking down the death road and then climbing a veeeeeeeery nearly 20,000 ft tall mountain. I then headed to Copacabana, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, to see the lake and tour the Island of the Sun, where the Incas believed the sun came from. Last night I took an overnight bus to Cusco, and tomorrow morning at 5am I’ll be starting the 5 day Salkantay trek (with porters and cooks, don’t worry about me straining myself…) up to Machu Picchu. I’ve heard great things about the Salkantay (it’s apparently like the Inca Trail but costs a third as much and you can reserve the day before instead of 6 months in advance) so I’m really excited to do it, and I’ll be back to give you a rundown of it, and catch up on previous adventures, in 5 days. After that I’ve got one night here in Cusco and then back to back 22 and 7.5 hour bus rides to get to Huancayo, where I’ll start volunteer teaching English on May 2nd. So, not a lot of sleep in the forecast for the next week, but I’m very excited to get to Huancayo, settle in, get to know some people, and hopefully help some kids learn English. I’ll keep you posted!

Hey y’all, I’m back after touring around the south of Bolivia with a real rundown of my stay in San Pedro de Atacama. I’m going to write a separate post about my tour to the Uyuni salt flat so this is just about the things I did in San Pedro de Atacama. San Pedro is a small, touristy town out in the middle of the Chilean part of the Atacama desert which serves as a jumping off point for all kinds of tours around the area. There are about a million agencies all offering the same tours, so choosing is a bit daunting. Luckily my friend Eugene, whom I met down in El Chalten earlier in the trip, put me in contact with his friend Camila, who’s been working at a hotel in San Pedro for about 3 weeks. Camila helped me pick a tour operator and gave me some advice on which tours to do. On my first day I slept in (I had just come off of back to back 12 and 13 hour bus rides, and arrived around 1am) and then met up with Camila to stroll around and book some tours. In the afternoon I went to the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), which gets its name from the stark landscape’s resemblance to our favorite natural satellite. It was a cool tour, and it ended up high with huge, beautiful views and a fantastic sunset.

Moon!

This was a day for selfies

The texture of the rocks close up was fascinating

More selfies

Sand!

Mud!

Mountains!

It was a pretty big drop

Sunset was nice

Even more selfies!

The next day I got up at 6 for a tour to the Lagunas Altiplanicas. The altiplano is a high plateau that slopes up to the Andes, so these are lakes (I’m not really sure why they use the word laguna instead of lago, it’s a subject of some debate with the people I’ve been on the tours with…) in the middle of the desert, at altitude. They’re examples of the interesting patches of water and vegetation that you can find even in the Atacama, the driest desert in the world. After the lakes we went down to the Atacama salt flat, where we saw a few flamingos and other birds.

Sunrise from the van

These yellow bush things were everywhere

The Atacama salt flat has a crazy texture because of erosion

Water!

….and beautiful colors

Flamingo!

I was there…

That night I caught this beautiful sunset:

The day after the lagunas was even earlier – 4am wakeup to hop in a van and head to the Tatio Geysers. During the day in the Atacama it was very hot and very sunny, but at night and in the early morning, especially in the higher areas, it is absolutely freezing cold. The geysers are at around 14,000 feet, so at 6am it’s about 20 degrees. We had breakfast in the darkness and waited for the sun to rise, and as the day lit up we started to see a huge field of geysers. Chile has an incredible amount of volcanic activity, which gives the area its beautiful mountains but also creates geysers and volcanic rock piles in the middle of the desert. This field of geysers had all kinds, shapes, and sizes, and walking around was a treat. After that we went to a hot spring where Joachim, a nice Belgian guy, and I were the only ones to muster up the courage to hop in since it was still pretty cold. It turned out the water wasn’t actually that warm so the rest of the group were really the smart ones. Our next stop was a beautiful wetland (in the middle of the desert!) where we saw several different kinds of birds, and we topped off the trip in a small village where I got to try a llama shish kabob (delicious) and play with Valdivia, their adorable puppy.

It was pretty damn cold

Whole lot of geysers

Wetlands in the desert!

Valdi!

So cute!

That night Camila and I went on an astronomical tour. Northern Chile is famous for its clear skies and some hugely disproportionate number of the world’s really serious telescopes/astronomical investigation facilities are there, so astronomical tours are a popular activity in San Pedro. Our tour was great – we started just standing outside and getting a lesson on all the things you can see with the naked eye, the movement of the moon and stars, the difference in what you can see at different latitudes, etc… Our host had an unbelievably powerful laser so she could point out everything she was talking about and trace the constellations in the sky. After a while we went over to their set of 10 telescopes and got to look at all different things – the moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, clusters of stars in the Milky Way, nebulae (my favorite – they’re so cool!), and an entire galaxy far, far away. We ended the night with hot chocolate or tea and a Q&A with Alain, the French astronomer who founded the facility 15 years ago. The first question was something about the big bang or the history of astronomy which got Alain talking for about 45 minutes, so we only ended up having one question in the session, but it was interesting and Alain was quite a character.

You could see the whoooooole Milky Way! But my phone can’t capture it…

Moon!

All in all San Pedro was…. good. I can’t say that I was swept off my feet, but I think that was in part because I had such high expectations for the place – the Atacama desert has fascinated me since I first heard about it, and I had always pictured the most extreme part, an endless stretch of hostile wasteland. It is, in fact, an incredibly varied area, with beautiful wetlands mixed in amongst towering volcanos and huge sand dunes. It was a great few days, and I’m glad I visited. But, just to make sure we end on a cliffhanger, the tour through the south of Bolivia really did sweep me off my feet. So tune in next time!

I had grand plans to spend part of today’s lazy afternoon writing a great blog post, talking about all the tours I went on from San Pedro de Atacama with stunning pictures and everything. Unfortunately lazy was really the defining attribute of the afternoon and now I’m sitting here at midnight thirty with my computer packed up, ready to pass out. Tomorrow I’m getting up early to start a 3 day tour up to Uyuni, in Bolivia, home to the biggest salt flat in the world. We’ll be stopping at a ton of places along the way and capping the trip by going to the salt flat, so I’m excited.

Here in San Pedro I went on a few different tours – moon Valley, lakes that are on this high plateau, geysers, and a very cool astronomical one. I’ll write up a full rundown with pictures (internet permitting) on the 17th when I get to Uyuni.

I’ve also been working on nailing down a volunteer program and it looks like I’ll be teaching English in Huancayo, Peru, for the month of May. I still need to confirm everything but as of now that’s the plan, which I’m excited about. The idea is to spend the two weeks after Uyuni on a lightning tour of La Paz, Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu, Lima, and Cusco – we’ll see if I can work that all out. I’ll keep y’all posted!

One of the things I’ve confirmed on this trip is that I love the aesthetic of hills rising up in cities, covered in uneven piles of houses, offering a beautiful upward view from below and an even better outward view from on top. Having the houses pop with a full rainbow of bright colors, distributed randomly across the whole spectrum, just enhances the experience, and so it was fairly predictable that I would love Valparaiso. Valparaiso is tucked in between the aforementioned hills, or cerros, and the ocean, and rose to prominence as one of the most important pacific ports in…. some previous century. Maybe the 19th? Whatever… The point is, Valparaiso had a massive boom as one of the wealthiest and most important cities in South America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (I’m pretty sure) before its glory faded with the opening of the Panama canal and the accompanying redirection of shipping traffic (fact-check anyone? I’m writing this with no internet connection and I’m damn sure not gonna go back and research it later. I feel like I maybe read this story of Valparaiso’s development at its art museum? Either way, it sounds plausible). Then, in the past, I don’t know, 20 or 30 years perhaps, Valparaiso has seen a renaissance as a bohemian haven and artist’s gathering place. It still has a massive (and apparently somewhat dangerous) port, but the hills that rise up away from the ocean are blanketed in brightly colored houses and the entire city is covered in graffiti and beautiful murals, easily the most street art I’ve ever seen, and tourism has become a huge industry.

I knew I was going to like Valparaiso before stepping off the bus, having been captivated by the hills and ocean while the bus rolled through town into the station. I had sent a couple of couchsurfing messages the night before hoping to find a place to stay but didn’t get any replies (I know, way to plan ahead Phil, a whole 12 hours in advance) and so I whipped out my phone at the bus station to find somewhere to stay. Picking hostels from online listings is pretty much a crap shoot, just like anything else on the internet that you evaluate based on reviews: you can nail down the location, and then everything beyond that is to be interpreted based on people’s personal neuroses and the randomness of their experiences. This time, though, I got some great luck. My hostel was up on one of the trendy touristy hills, Cerro Alegre, near lots of delicious restaurants, an all-day breakfast place (desayuno integral: fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee or tea of your choice, delicious multigrain bread with butter and incredible homemade apricot jam, and then a big bowl of fresh fruit with oats and yogurt. I got it… more than once), and plenty of murals and craft stores. Sergio answered the door, and I later found out he was one of 3 brothers who owned and ran the hostel together. He was extremely friendly and laid back, and I immediately felt more genuinely welcome than I had at any point in Santiago (disclaimer: I didn’t love Santiago). I didn’t really have much of an agenda for Valparaiso – my understanding was that it was mostly a town to either wander around and look at murals or go to the beach, and since the weather wasn’t very conducive to the latter I really only planned on the former. Accordingly, I was, to no one’s surprise, extremely lazy. I pretty much just spent 5 days lazing around, sleeping in, wandering around staring at murals, watching soccer, chatting with Liv, eating good food, and generally just getting re-acclimated to traveling.

There were a couple of specific things I did aside from wandering the streets, the first of which completely by accident. On my first day I was strolling around and passed by the cultural center, where I saw tons of people sitting around and enjoying the afternoon. I went in to stroll around and discovered that, along with just enjoying the green space, people were there for a Lambe Lambe festival. Lambe Lambe (as I learned that afternoon) is basically mini-box theater: the presenters make a stage in a small, enclosed box, and then put on a puppet show while you watch through a small peephole and listen to accompanying music or dialog on headphones. The boxes are also decorated on the outside and most of the presenters were wearing costumes to go along with the themes of their performances (think “The Voyage”, “A Message”, “Undersea”, etc…) so it was a vibrant scene. There were 35 presenters, from Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Mexico, and each of them had at least 5 people waiting to see their show. I got there late so I only had time to see one, a delightful little tale of a woman turtle thinking of her beloved, traveling to France, getting in a plane crash on the way back, and then ultimately being reunited with and consoled by him. The synopsis doesn’t do it justice – it’s really about the music and the adorable puppets.

Other activities were the art museum, housed in a giant palace on a hill, whose beautiful wood and marble turned out to be the main attractions in my opinion, and La Sebastiana, one of the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s three houses that are now conserved as museums. Neruda certainly had an eclectic decorative sense and his houses are fun to walk around. He also loved the ocean so his house featured tons of windows with breathtaking views out to sea, so that’s nice. I did end up connecting with one of the people I messaged on couchsurfing, Will. He unfortunately couldn’t host me but he graciously found some time in his busy schedule (he’s wrapping up his PhD in neuroscience) for a coffee and a chat, which was fun and interesting. Otherwise I spent a fair amount of time hanging out with Sergio and the other people at the hostel and generally just relaxing. I finally got myself together enough to sign up for a volunteer exchange site, HelpX, and spent some time looking for opportunities to volunteer in something more meaningful than working the front desk at a hostel. I found several promising programs in Peru and Bolivia and sent messages out so I’m hoping to have a volunteer project nailed down in the next week or so, where I’ll ideally spend 4-5 weeks in May and early June teaching English and/or working with kids. In the meantime I’m heading up to San Pedro de Atacama, the jumping off point for most of the most famous activities in the Atacama desert, and then am planning on crossing into Bolivia after, headed for Uyuni and the famous salt flats. At this very moment I’m 12 hours into a bus ride to Copiapo, which sits about halfway between Valparaiso and San Pedro de Atacama, and where I’m planning to spend the night tonight before hopping back on a bus for another 12-13 hours tomorrow to get to San Pedro. Chile, it turns out, is really extraordinarily long. I had actually booked a flight from Santiago to San Pedro to save myself the trouble of the bus but the workers are on strike so all flights on Sky, the cheap domestic airline, are canceled until further notice. You do, in fact, lose some. The drive today has been nice though, passing through the cute palm trees and tiled roofs of Coquimbo and La Serena, along miles and miles of dramatic, untouched coastline, and up through some decently high mountain passes. I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep and am excited to get settled in San Pedro tomorrow night. I’ll be back soon with an update from the driest desert in the world!

Awww grandma

This is what Liv is afraid I will do to her heart.

Rainbow houses!

Lambe Lambe

If you look closely you can see the decorations on the boxes

Truly delicious ceviche

I made a kitty friend!

The flowers match the house

Pablo Neruda had a pretty sweet view from his bedroom…

This image does not properly convey how gigantic this mound of every type of seafood was