South America trails - part 1/2

     Many English speaking and north European young travelers follow the routes and suggestions of some guide books, like the Lonely Planet, when visiting South America. I will not follow any guide book but I will enumerate the best spots to visit/activities to participate in. You can do it in a different order or leave some places out. The possibilities are numerous!
     This was in fact my first long travel as a truly backpacker and the following report describes the highlights and the do’s and don’ts of such a trip, and is dedicated to my nephew J.M.T.R. who once expressed his wish to travel through that magnificent continent.
     On planning such a long trip is essential of course to consider: how much time you have; how much money you have to spend on it; priority places to visit; the time of the year; safety aspects (avoid war zones and/or areas under social conflicts); health and food aspects; and other things…

        Don’t forget to take with you: sleeping kit for public transports and some hostels (should include: neck pillow, ear plugs, eye blind, duct tape – very useful to cover bus speakers that are always too loud and never have quality sound – …); Swiss knife or equivalent (remember to store it with the luggage, and not in the hand-luggage, when traveling by airplane); flip-flops (to rest your feet & use in the showers); fork & spoon & cup/dish (you’ll never know when you’ll need to prepare your own food; I, myself, planed to do camping so I took a mountain stove and bought locally a little gas can; fast cooking pasta soup is available on mini-supermarkets); first aid kit (should include at least: band aids, Compeed for heals & toes, aspirin, Brufen, digestive pills/salts, antiseptic, cotton & Betadine, diarrhea & constipation pills); headlamp; batteries (check your batteries are charged); pen and paper; a book; photo/video camera; batteries charger; voltage adapters (check it at http://mochileros.org/enchufe-voltaje-frecuencia-viajes/); small locker (some hostels provide room for backpack storage or phone charger, but you’ll need a lock); nécessaire/toiletry bag (include: brush and tooth paste, small soap, shampoo sachets, toilet paper and ‘humid towels’); water, cookies/cereal bars (you may wake up in a place and have no breakfast at hand); take enough money, several currencies, split it and hide it well on your body (remember you have to declare amounts of money superior to 10.000 USD, but you will never need this much).

        Remember, before your trip: check your passport is valid for more than six months after the date you are supposed to return home; get informed about vaccines needed on the countries (or areas of the countries) you want to visit; cut your hair & nails if you are going to be out for longer than one month. Also, at some borders (Chile, Argentina…) your luggage will be examined: remember to declare any food items you are carrying which are listed on their regulations (like meat, plants and seeds, cheese…).

        You will have the sensation that you are carrying too much weight and, at the same time, that you would need to pack some more stuff: do not take too much clothes (3 t-shirts, 2 underwear shorts, 1 swimming suit is enough), you’ll be able to wash them and/or buy new (cheap); one pair if soft boots or sport shoes and one flip-flops or sandals.

        10 Basic Rules of a traveler (valid for most Latin American countries):

        #1 Have a plan A (even if rough) and a plan B; and even a plan C, for your routes (you’ll have to do changes on your original plan not to get stuck on a small village waiting for the next bus, or because you are tired or got sick…). In short, be flexible.

        #2 Always carry your full travelling kit next to you (you will be doing long trips on buses or airplanes, and sharing rooms with other/foreign people).

        #3 Never accept the first offer (this is especially valid for accommodation, buses and taxis): always look for more and compare prices and conditions.

        #4 Never believe at first the information people give to you (especially in Peru-Bolivia-Ecuador where people are very ignorant & careless): ask again and again to confirm any relevant information.

        #5 Avoid reserve (tours and accommodation) from a distance (by phone or internet): except some cases (like the ‘Inca Trail’ tour and the ‘Wayna Picchu’ access, where the entrance is limited and book with months in advance is needed) you will get a better deal locally and directly, preferably with those that run the tour (avoid intermediates).

        #6 Do not look for tourist offices (unless you just need a local map): these are often closed (in Peru and Bolivia they’ll send you to the ‘tourist police’ which is not the same thing) or on the hands of bureaucrats who are not experts and/or do not care. Go better to travel agencies and get informed as if you were to take part of the tour (but remember they’ll try to sell you their tour). You can get a city map (and information about spots, markets, and so on) on your hostel.

        #7 Expect poor conditions (especially in Bolivia where they have the saying: “everything is possible; nothing is granted”): better to be positively surprised than disappointed. And be patient: transportation is seldom on time (sometimes there is no timetable) but is regular; roads are not like you are used to; on computer keyboards the @ sign is often under Alt+Q (although it shows there next to the 2) and all other signs (like: ?, &, / …) are all mixed up!

        #8 Avoid arriving on Sundays: many official institutions (tourist office, post office, banks) are closed; also check out for local holydays.

        #9 Be prepared to abandon (give away) some old clothes & equipment: you can buy some cheap stuff locally (shoes, t-shirts, razor blade, soap…); you will find spots (hostels, cafes, stores) to leave or exchange books.

        #10 Always keep an eye on your luggage: at the bus terminal (sometimes you will have to give your bag away) watch it until the personnel puts it inside the bus; when traveling, give it a look when they open the trunks, in case there are strangers around (if possible choose your seat at the same side of the luggage trunks).

 

Highlights:
 

          Ecuador (5 regions: Galapagos islands, coastal lowlands, Andean highlands, Amazon rainforest)
- Galapagos islands (I know the trip is expensive and that nature and iguanas are to be seen, but I have no idea)
 - Jungle tour (best to book it in Quito; minimum 3 days, costs above 250 UDS)
 - Hot springs: being the best at Baños de Agua Santa and Papallacta, among others…
- Cuenca, Riobamba, Quito, Otavalo (market and Cuicocha crater)

 (Ica) (Huaraz)

 (Riobamba) (Quito)

(Quito)

(Otavalo)

 (Cuicocha, Otavalo)

Peru

- Cusco: Machu Picchu and the Inca trail; Moray Inca ruin; Inca's sacret valley
- Puno: Titikaka lake and the artificial islands
- Arequipa: Nasca (not worthwhile if not seen from over 500 meters; if including airplane tour becomes very expensive); Colca canyon (best spot to watch condors; includes hot springs; long drive; a bit expensive); rafting (1 hour down river, 40 minutes away from the city); El Misti volcano (a few minutes from the city; don’t do it if you don’t have experience or if you are not fit)
- Lima: visit cerro San Cristóbal; the Plaza the Armas and the Miraflores neighborhood in front of the beach (for me this noisy city is just a stop-over on your way to somewhere else)
- Ica (3 hours south of Lima): sandboarding & buggy tour
- Huaraz: trekkings, mountains and lagoons, are the attractions (look for a smaller village to stay since Huaraz is just an uggly starting point)

 (Cusco) (Puno, Titikaka)

 (Lima) (Puno)

 (Lima) (Machu Picchu) 

(Arequipa)

       Bolivia
- La Paz: death road by bike (a must); mountains (Huayna Potosi, 6.088 mts., is the icon, and trekkings); Chakaltaya (the old ski resort) + Moon Valley (landscapes, very good mountain experience of 20 minutes walk for beginners; drive through town to the south side; very inexpensive); use the red cable car to watch the city;
- Santa Cruz: haven’t been there but I heard people are really nice and different there.
- Uyuni: salted desert tour (3 days tour - or 4 days if included volcano ascent – this one, little above 4.000 mts. is recommended for people with little mountain experience) is a must (prices very affordable, book locally from 700 to 900 bolivianos, about 100 to 120 usd; 1USD=7Bob; expect some disconfort)

     (Uyuni salar)

 (La Paz)

        Chile
- S. Pedro de Atacama (hot springs, desert and lakes tours)
- Antofagasta
- Valparaiso (beach resort)
- Santiago de Chile (cerro Santiago)
- Pucón (Villarica lake and volcano)
- Chiloé island (typical fishermen houses)
- Torres del Paine National Park

 (Santiago Chile) (Atacama)

(Villarica)

Argentina

- The clouds train (from Salta, 217km)
- Iguaçu waterfalls
- San Rafael
- Mendoza
- 7 lakes route (Bariloche, Villa la angostura, Arrayanes National Park…)
- Valdez Peninsula (whales, penguins and sea lions watching)
- Los Glaciares National Park (Fitz Roy, El Chaltén…)

(Patagónia, volcano & lakes)

 (train to the clouds) 

 

Next, on part 2: 'South America trails – my route' ...

From Ararat to Athos: 3.000 km across Turkey on a bicycle – parts 1 & 2

         Logistics organized way in advance: 2 months before for the Ararat climb permit; 5 months for the permit to enter Mount Athos.

      2nd September at dawn, departure from Istanbul airport. As arrive in Van the driver takes me straight to the Ararat mountain (Agri Dagi in Turkish), after living the bicycle at the hotel in Doguyarzibit. Walk to base camp while a mule carries my 35 lts. backpack (I’m very short in equipment; basically I carried a good  sleeping bag). At 3 p.m. I arrive there to meet 13 Lebanese, one polish and one Brit. There were some last minute changes on the timings of the groups so I am placed together with the Lebanese (big mistake) while the Brit wisely escapes to camp 1. Rocks on base camp reveal last July’s presence of the Turkish PKK and Syrian EPG (the pro independence Kurdish rebels). Next day arrived in camp 1 in 1:50 minutes as the Welsh guy (he says «Dog-you-are-biscuits» for Doguyarzibit city) comes down from the summit. No need to start before 2 a.m. otherwise you get to the summit before sunrise and it’s freezing cold, he said. Some Lebanese took over 5 hours to get to camp 1!? Never seen such noisy, disrespectful and slow people on a mountain (the Lebanese)! I called one guy the ‘megaphone’ (always talking) and another the ‘Christmas tree’ (carried all sort of brand and flashy gadgets). Had to get away from them!

      Mehmet, the guide, ignores the Noa’s Arc episode but he is fast to shout “slovi, slovi” (meaning ‘slowly, slowly’). On day 4 he wants to start at 1 a.m. after sleeping on camp 1. I make my time to start later but finally leave the tent at 1:20, and catch up with the group 15 minutes later: after 5 minutes one girl needs to pee and the whole group stops; after 10 minutes another girl needs to pee; 30 minutes later the first Lebanese give up and walk down with the second guide (these had left the camp at 12 something); and so on…My body feels cold. Why? Because it can’t warm up as we progress so slow. We step on the snow at around 4 a.m. The shepherd dog plays on it as if altitude means nothing to him! The sun light starts to show and make the path visible, and I get a clear sense of the way to the top. Start climbing on my own rhythm. Bye Lebanese! No cold as I make summit at 15 past 5, right when the sun rises behind the mountain. Beautiful pictures! After half an hour I start going down, and down… At 11 a.m. I back at base camp. That same afternoon (after having some tee with local Kurds) I would be at the hotel preparing the bicycle for the next day’s departure.

      6^th September: first day biking (at mid-day) after abandoning the boots (as well as a shirt, goggles and gloves) outside the hotel, and some morning shopping and a lot of stops for cargo adjustments (had not fully tested it before). As the road was going slightly up and the wind was against I’ve pedaled only 65 km, not enough to arrive at any hotel. Stopped at a road café in Tasliçay and met Zeynep. She gets me a bed at a dirty side room (room for travelers, they said) next to the family house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Starting on the 7^th, my new routine for many days (29 in total) would be waking up before 7 a.m. start biking at 7:30 (an average of 103 km per day), and look for a place to sleep around 5 p.m. This day I´ve arrived at a dirty room in Horosan (croissant, as I remembered it), after 133 km (to compensate the 30 less of the previous day) on ‘500 sorts’ of different asphalt, and climbing once to the altitude of 2.210 meters. Felt pain all over: legs, wrists, butt, kidneys, trapeze (what else?). The next day I’ve crossed with 3 German guys biking to Thailand! And I got the news that the killing of 13 policemen in Igdir by the PKK rebels forced authorities to close the access to the mount Ararat. On the 3^rd day I’ve arrived at Erzurum and the Turks were gathering on the streets to show their nationalism. This was the first big city and had the opportunity to get my portable stove and bike ‘km-counter’ repaired, and also to visit the Madrasias (old Ottoman castle and ‘mesquitas’).

      Often I saw military vehicles on the road, and garrisons everywhere! Strange names for Turkish cities: Van, Silvan, Tercan, Tatuan, Batman, Kayak, Cáguisman (na verdade, Kagizman), Croissant (na verdade, Horosan), Samsun…

Photos: first glance of the Ararat; crater just before Van; military convoy; the impressive Ararat; Ararat camp 1; Ararat base camp with PKK/EPG marks; tee with kurdish family; carpets; giant cabbages; reflexes on dam; clock tower at Sorgun; Iznik lake.

From Ararat to Athos: 3.000 km across Turkey on a bicycle – part 2

30 days on the bicycle separating two summits: I’ve made summit on Mount Ararat on the 5^th September and Mount Athos on the 5^th October. In between… well, a lot of stories and leg work!

 

      In Erzurum and other cities of the interior young people would look at my shorts (when I did walks after leaving the bike at the ‘otel’) and laugh («a Man uses only long trousers»). I also laughed because they didn’t know how closed their minds were.
      Terjan has a very nice looking bridge connecting the 2 parts of the town divided by the main road, but nobody uses it: no one walks up the stairs and instead everybody crosses right through the middle of the road!
    Besides my mate ‘Sharon Carbon’ (the bicycle: the older the better), that never lets me down (although had a broken spoke for more than 1.000 km), my other allied were the gas stations: regardless of the brand, there was always one when I most needed it, providing shade, water and sodas.
    One afternoon I rode together with an American couple for some 40 km. The next day, after a long and sweaty stage I was desperate to jump in the water of the lake ahead but… I should’ve seen it coming: it was a salted lake (Tuz gölü, below, means salt lake)!

      I’ve finished that day at night and entered casually on guest house (Hayman town) with hot springs underneath! Then came Sivrihizar sheltered by the mountains, with its famous clock tower. Then came Eskisahir: it took me 19 km to cross the whole town (bastion of the Ottoman Empire, where Ataturk started beating up the Greeks to form Turkey). Then, the lakes; then the Marmara sea; then the ruins of Troia (Turva in Turkish); then the Çanakkale pass; then Greece (or Ellada, in Greek; or Yunanistan, in Turkish) …

      Turks are totally dependent on smart phones (even that Kurdish guy on the base of Ararat, that loved and wished for my cheap sunglasses, he had 2 on that empty house room; I have none!).

      The picture that most represents the paradox of actual Turkey (above): rural (all the interior of Turkey is a huge barn; all crops no trees until the longitude of Ankara-Bursa) against ‘development’. Turkey is on the move: a lot of building going on; lots of trucks on the road (every road).

   
      The Turks are quite filthy (and I don’t refer to personal hygiene), they have good notion of esthetics, but no environmental sensibility; they’re a bit ‘cavernícola’ and even brute: the side of the road is disgusting, and they behave like animals behind the wheel (many exceptions of course). They are also willful, quite nationalists and superb (more than Andalucians), but are interested, curious and have a great hart: 4 times I was preparing to sleep on the open air and always a couch appeared out of nowhere (only on the fifth attempt I did sleep outside); I also got some 40 invitations for tea (accepted the half). Also, they produce good products (from mattresses to cookies) and were not invaded by the Chinese yet! As ones approaches the west, you start seeing more toilettes the western type, but the sympathy diminishes and so the quality of the fruit (hotel prices go up).
      Turks have a strange relation with… shoes! People south of the Sahara worship them (the shoes), even sell them without the pair; Turks abandon them in unlikely places (on the roads). Also animal corpses are not removed and you find them (all sorts) everywhere.

      Superb the Turks, arrogant the Greeks! More than relaxed with the cleaning the Turk, careless with information the Greek. You get out of one country in which you understand the alphabet but don’t understand one word they say to enter another where you don’t understand what they say nor the alphabet. Luckily many Greeks speak English while no Turk does (some ex-emigrants spoke German).

Mount Athos:

      Arrived at Dionisios monastery (had booked one night). So many questions… Diplomatically I have suggested I did not want to assist the church mass (one at 5 p.m. and the second at 3 a.m.): “Ok, if you are not an orthodox…”. Uff! But I missed dinner, because the mass ended up earlier!?! So, I did not bother to wake up for breakfast because perhaps I would be up at 4 a.m. and would lose it anyway! In fact I was awake at that hour, looking for the time to leave the monastery and start climbing on the good weather (forecast was not so favorable for later that day). Wanted to leave at 5 a.m. “Not wise”, someone religious said: wolfs and jackals in the darkness; “5 jackals would attack you and you are skinny, they would eat you in no time”. While I reflected on what to do, the issue got solved by itself: the gate of the monastery only opens at 7 a.m. We were grounded and secluded! In the end it took me almost 4 hours to reach the top of Mount Athos (not the 7 hours someone suggested). From there, down to Nea skiti (passed Aghia Anna) and to the house of monk Gregorio, right next to the village tower, once the local monastery was kind of full. My legs like jelly!

      













      The 70 years old monk told me he didn’t like the course mankind is rambling and what is happening to human relations (more fragile); he felt something was about to happen (maybe he meant the Armageddon or the Apocalypse). I contested that half the population of the ‘civilized’ countries is bored and eager to find external entertainment and the other half is obsessed with their jobs, so we have a lot of unbalanced people, unable to remember we are all in the same boat, or dedicate time to others.
       So, objectives accomplished, while adding another 2 lakes and 4 islands to my list!

Data and curiosities:

- Days on the bicycle: 30
- Total kilometers covered: 2.998
- Maximum distance in one day: 145 (twice)
- Higher altitudes crossed: 2.210; 2.190; 2.160 (only on the 5^th day I got below 1.400 meters)
- Total flat tyers: 4 (two in the same day)
- Days on foot on the mountain: 5
- Total meters ascended on foot: 5.200
- Total days to cross Turkey: 22 (2.385 km)
- Total nights sleeping out of a bed: 11 (of which 4 on a couch; 3 outside, on the sand; 3 on a tent, on the mountain; 1 on the airport benches)  
- Total hitchhikes: 11 (holding on to the trailer of tractors; once, 3 times on the same day; totaling some 16 km)
- Abandoned items: 15 (shirt, goggles, gloves x 2, boots, tennis shoes, tyre, mattress x 2, underwear, biking shorts, elastic band x 2, bottle, sun cap)
- Weight of bicycle with cargo in the beginning / end of the trip: 32 kg / 23 kg 
- Body weight loss: ?
- Offers received: 2 (not counting the tea: chocolate and water bottle)
- Maximum price of a hotel (Otel): 85 TL (some 25 euros)
- Number of Turks seen playing sports outside: 4 (2 in Çanakkale; 3 were cyclists)
- World Patrimony sites visited: 2 (Troia and Mount Athos)
- Total number of photos / short-videos madeon this: 1850 / 120