Called Esteros de Ibera (Ibera means “bright water” in the local indigenous Guarani language), it is a huge 20,000 square Km reserve that is mainly made up of swamps and bogs witha few big lakes in.  Animals love it apparently.  So we took a boat trip around the lake and walked the dry bits to check out the amazing diversity of animals.  That´s a boat trip at 6am after a late night…

Carpincho (similar to Capybara in Brasil) which is the world´s largest rodent at 1metre long and about 50Kg. 

Yacare (species of caiman found in Argentina) that grow to 2-3 metres, although we only saw ones up to a metre.  Thankfully.

Giant frogs

Nests of spiders in big bunches like grapes, that go oat and hunt at night in packs!

We saw some beautiful Kingfishers, Herons, and thousands of other birds, although as a non-ornithologist I didn´t really know what was what.  I´m sure there really was every type of bird in the world though, lots of vulturey ones, swallowy ones, robiny ones and kestrely ones…  If you like birds, this is definately the place to go for you. 

These ones seemed so pleased that we were close to their nest that they gave us a display of dancing and singing…  I ´m sure it was a happy dance, not a p*ss off from my nest type…

Monkeys too, but the photos were terrible.  And the ones we didn´t see: Wolves, deer and the  g i a n t otters (1.5m long!)

Unfortunately when we tried to leave, the bus that brought us over the dirt road had been broken down for a couple of days, so we stood in the 40°C heat (did I mention the ridiculous humidity?) and hitched out.  Luck gave us a shiny new air conditioned 4×4 pickup instead of the broken old truck we expected. 

And to round off my last long journey in South America, I was amazed to find that my bus to Buenos Aires was one of the best in the country (long distance buses in South America are amazing btw).  So excited (as normal about everything!) that I took photos of it!

That´s only 3 (leather of course) seats wide:

With so much room I could really stretch out fully!

And we had what tasted like champagne with our dinner.  All for about £18 for 8 hours journey.  Slept like a log (although the champagne and valium may have helped a bit…)

Gauchito Gil is a saint in Argentina.  Not a religious saint but more of a folklore one.  But millions of people believe in his healing powers and pray to him like a religious one anyway. 

Basically, he was a gaucho (cowboy farmer) who was sent (against his will) in the war against Paraguay back in the mid 1800s, and returned a hero.  Then the poor bugger was sent off to fight again in the Argentinian civil war, got sick of the fighting and deserted.   He was caught by the police who tortured him and killed him.  Just before he was killed he told the policeman “Your son is very ill. If you pray and beg me to save your child, I promise you that he will live. If not, he will die”. When the policemen came back to his village, the one who had killed “Gauchito” Gil learnt that his child was in fact very ill. Very frightened, the policeman prayed to “Gauchito” Gil for his son. And afterwards, his son got better. Legend has it that “Gauchito” Gil had healed his murderer’s son. 

So now, lots of people visit his shrine as a pilgrimage to ask for help to heal their sick, fix their cars etc.  Sundays are especially popular, so we (Jorge from Spain) and I headed out (walking for 8km in the 35°C heat) to check it out. 

Passsing one of the many politically interesting roadsigns on the way…  Islas Malvinas are what we call the Falkland Islands btw, but as a Brit, we don’t mention them here, that would be just daft!

Ah yes, the shrines…  The people here consider him to have power to heal and help so leave gifts and light candles.  The gift are all sorts but for some reason there are rooms full of wedding dresses, football shirts, guns, knives…  Don’t ask me why!  For me it was a nice day in a great chilled bit of Argentinian Gaucho heartland with lots of interesting people to talk to…

OK, I’m not normally interested in old buildings (especially boring old churches!) but had watched a very moving (yes yes I know I’m a soft sod) film called “The Mission” based on the Jesuit missions of the 16-1800s and a particular fight to save the village from destruction by the slavetraders.  Watch the film its a good un. 

So I visited the ruins of one of the best preserved missions, called San Ignacio, close to the Paraguayan border in northern Argentina to get an idea of what they were about.  And its another UNESCO site to tick off the never ending list…

The Jesuit missions were created by the Catholic Jesuits in the areas inhabited by the indigenous Guarani people, over a large area in what is now the north of Argentina, Paraguay and the south of Brasil.  The Jesuit missions didn’t make the people adopt a European way of life, just the Christian religion.  They were essentially big villages based around a church, with houses and streets and farms and stuff.  They were also used by the Jesuits to protect the people from being captured by slavetraders and sold to plantations in Brasil and elsewhere. 

San Ignacio was founded in 1632 and moved a couple of times to avoid the slavetraders, before its destruction in 1817 after the Spanish Jesuits left (watch the film for the history or Wiki it…)  Basically it was deep in the forest, although now is in a beautiful small little town of mainly dirt roads and friendly people. 

A few photos of the site below:  These previously (unskilled in masonry) indigenous people built beautiful churches and villages, and spent their days making wooden carvings of saints.  I got a great idea of the size and beauty of this village, not sure if the photos do it justice. 

Trekked up to the very top of Argentina at the triborder with Brazil and Paraguay to have a butchers’ at Iguazu falls.  Spent 2 days grinning and screaming like a kid at the amazing power of these beatiful falls.  There are walkways on both the Brazilian and Argentinian sides that take you right to the edge of some of the biggest drops to really feel the force of the falls.  Absof*ckinglutely breathtaking.  Words (and i guess the pictures) just can’t describe them.  See, told you I was overexcited! 

Here the water drops over the edge for a 100m drop.  Just wanted to jump in and let it carry me over the edge.  Sure there must be a way I can get a boat to do it in…

Over the edge and crashes below, spent hours just standing and watching the spectacle, getting soaked by the spray:

We had a good walk into the forest to find a natural swimming hole with a gentle waterfall to keep us cool.  No photos here cos I was in my pants!

But did see a cool snake on the way:

Also went to see Itaipu dam, think the largest in the world (until the Chinese build the 3 gorges dam) which supplies all of Paraguay’s power and 25% of Brazils’.  Huge and intereseting to me, but I’m a geek.  So only one photo so you don’t get bored…  Bear in mind this dam is about 7 Km long and you might just get an idea of the scale.  It releases 10 times the amount of water just through the turbines than over the entire Iguazu falls.  And when the floodgates are open (as in the pic below) who knows how much.  Either way the numbers are just ridiculous.  The scale just has to be seen.  If you’re a geek too, have a look at the Wiki site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu_dam  Or have a cup of tea instead.

Started out at a train graveyard, whereall the old steam trains walk miles across the desert to spend their twilight years with friends rusting away:

Grant and me comandeer one to see if it could beat the jeep to the next stop:

From there we travelled to see lakes high  (4500m) in the desert to see flamingoes and brightly coloured lakes (coloured with all sorts of lovely chemicals tha make them look great for swimming, but bad for chemical burns!)

Crossed a desert made of salt from the evaporation of a lake a few 1000 years ago.  phenomenal!

Volcanic geysers, hot thermal baths, and all in freezing temperatures!

And of course fixing the jeep some more

And surprisingly some deer which manage to eat the few plants that manage to grow

 Unfortunately due to these poor conditions the miners die very young from silicosis as they have no money for proper protective equipment.  Around 30 or 40 die every year in accidents in the mines, from explosions, poisonous gases and rockfalls. 

So the tour was pretty interesting, down the entrance tunnel to one mine (dug 400 years ago by slaves and still in use today)

and then along passageways and down crawl holes to the 4th level where mining was going on

This guy is boring a hole using a hammer and long chisel to add the stick of dynamite.  It will take about 3 hours to bore a 30cm deep hole, then he will put his dynamite in, light the fuse, giving him 3 minutes to get out of there to a safe distance.  After a few hours (normally lunch) when the dust and fumes have cleared he’ll go back to pick up the rocks and carry them back to the surface on his back.  He’ll do this a until the thin vein of silver is exhausted before starting again on a different vein.  Whole families work together in the same area for tens of years. 

After extraction, the miners sell the ore to a processing plant who crush it, mix with cyanide and other nice safe chemicals (!) to extract the silver.  These guys do wear face masks so not to breathe too much cyanide, but still not enough to stop them getting ill. 

The fun part for us was that in the miners’ market you can buy all sorts of explosives over the counter, so we got a shopping bag of nitroglycerine, detonators, ammonium nitrate and some coca leaves.  Some of this we gave to the miners as presents, and the rst we made a nice big bomb out of!

Stick of nitro…

Take 2, squash into a ball, add detonator and fuse and put into a carrier bag with a half kilo of ammonium nitrate. 

Tie up the bag, light the fuse and pose for pictures…

You’ll have to take my word that the bang is massive as the video is too big to stick on this site. 

So some nice pictures of a small festival happening in Potosi one of the days I was there instead.  Look closely and you can see even the middle aged women dancers are swigging the beer!  Another good party…

And how sweet are these 5 year old sisters?

So went round a few of the biking companies to get some alternative good singletrack rides in. The biggest one (the same company that had run the tour in Singletrack magazine) set up a ride to run a few days later.

So the day after I got back from climbing Huyuana Potosi, we met up in the offices of the biking company and loaded the jeep with 4 avid bikers , guide and a driver. 

Headed off up the mountains for an hour and a half before being introduced to our bikes for the day.  I got a great Kona Coiler 6 inches travel front and rear, for me first time on a full susser, but apparently its essential kit in the fast rocky downhills here. 

Set off down some sweet singletrack to get used to the riding style, through rock gardens, dropoffs and fast flowing sections.  I was blown away by ho much this bike could take, never have I ridden down such steep rocky stuff with the bike following the line I picked (note to self - need to buy a second bike!)

After an hours ride we met the jeep again which took us back to the top.  To start the section again, faster this time!  Went downhill for about 2 hours (could you imagine anything so perfect as that!)

Then a great lunch b4 driving to the top of another set of hills:

These were way more gnarly, down through eroded dry water shutes, jumping huge bottomless holes that would be big enough to swollow me whole,  and finishing in a dry river bed for a fast bumpy ride back to the jeep and La Paz. 

Loads more photos but they´re on a CD somewhere…

I´d read about a mountain in Bolivia that was supposedly climbable in 2 days, and was over 6000m. OK why not then, let´s have a crack at it. It´s called Huyuana Potosi and the lower base camp is only an hour´s drive from La Paz, where I was staying.

So hired a guide and equipment and set off…

Started driving to the base of the mountain over dirt roads, and she gradually became visible through the clouds ahead:

We got to the lower base camp (4200m), situated at the top of a dam for a hydroelectric power station. Headed off up a pretty straightforward trek and scramble to the higher base camp, which was a stone built refuge at 5100m. An early dinner and bed at sunset (7pm). At altitude, like many people, I don´t sleep well, so lay in my sleeping bag listening to the storm outside, snow and hail lashing the tin roof. Was worried that we wouldn´t be able to go for it because of the storm, but by 1am it was pretty calm. Drunk litres of water (easy to dehydrate at altitude) and set off in the dark at 2am. Dressed for the cold in a base layer, 2 fleeces, trousers, 2 pairs of socks, overtrousers, jacket, balaclava, wooly hat, gloves, mittens, boots, gaiters and crampons! Roped up to my guide, Julio, and with ice axes in hand we set off up the first glacier.

It´s really hard work climbing a steep slope at the best of times, but above 5000m the altitude really makes every step a chore. First time I´ve climbed in crampons, impressive the way they grip into an ice and snow slope. After an hour my calves were burning and I was glad to get to a relatively flat section between huge morraines.

The rest of the climb was fairly straightforward, with Julio as my guide to avoid the crevasses and follow the right route, we slowly climbed our way further up the mountain. One section that sticks out was a 45° climb up a hardened ice slope, it was really difficult to get the crampons and ice axe to dig into the ice enough to hold my weight. Still, made it to the top of the slope without pulling Julio down!

We stopped for a 5 minute lie down in the snow with our headlamps off and were rewarded with a great view of a million stars and galaxies, and La Paz glittering in the distance (no doubt the parties going full on there at this point) the sky was just so clear and dark up there. And beautifully quiet too, now the wind had dropped. While I could lie there all night, it was bloody cold (probably about -10°C) so we set off again.

More climbing over fresh deep snow slopes, jumped a couple of crevasses (just don´t think about them and jump is the best way to get over the fear!) and finally got to the last section before the summit. This had a few exposed rocky sections and was really steep having to walk up it sideways most of the way with ice axe buried deep to get enough grip. By now it was just starting to get light, and we came up the last climb to the summit!!

and check that view over the mountains to Lake Titikaka over 100km away:

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe the altitude, but I really welled up when I sat down on the 6,088m summit (thankfully the wind made the other few people´s eyes water too!). It really was such a difficult climb, like nothing I´d ever done before that I was really proud of myself. In 3h 45m it was also a really good time for someone who doesn´t live at 4000m.

Headed back down the mountain in sunglasses and sunscreen as the sun was coming at us full strength by now. The snow and ice were so beautiful, and it was great to be able to see the route we had taken.

The crevasses we had crossed in the night sure looked scary enough by day! Couldn´t see the bottom of most of them.

Finally got back to the refuge at 8am, 6 hours after leaving it in the dark and cold, but now stripped to shirts and sunhats! Another hour back down the boulder fields and back to normality.

Think I may have got myself a new hobby…

All day I had seen crowds of people with huge brightly coloured funeral wreaths heading out of the city, so I jumped onto a collectivo with “cemetario” on the front to see what it was all about.

In South America, when a person dies, they are buried in a casket for 10 years, before being dug up and cremated, and the ashes placed into a wall of the cemetary. If you´re really rich your ashes go into a little house (like in the blog for Buenos Aires 4 months ago).

So all of these walls are covered in flowers by their relatives, and have simple offerings added, like a bottle of their favourite beer or spirit. It´s a happy day, not a sad one, with whole families coming together to remember the lives of the dead.

And as it was South America, any celebration involves lots of dancing and lots and lots of drinking! There were bands going round the cemetery playing for the families to accompany them in their celebrations.

As the only foreigner about, lots of people invited me over for a chat and a beer or two. Eventually I joined with one family to assist them in emptying their cases of Cusquena (Peruvian beer). Within a short while of passing a cup of beer around the circle of people we were all pretty drunk. I managed to get a dance in not only with the (apparently normally shy) daughter, but her mother and aunt too!

Unfortunately it started pissing it down so we hid inside one of the crypts to shelter until the worst had passed (and finish off the crates!)

The cemetary gates were closing so we headed out into the street to join the party, buy something stronger and headed back to the families house for dinner and chicha (a beer made from sprouted corn). Such a hospitable family, even came out with me to catch a collectivo back into town and paid the fare for me to make sure I didn´t get ripped off!

So after a great breakfast of hot jugo de quinoa and an avocado sandwich or 2…

…went down to the port to catch a boat to Uros, the Floating Islands. People have been living on these islands for over a 1000 years, making a living from fishing. These days they make most of their living from tourism, but still live pretty much the same as they always have. The islands are made from great cubes of the roots of the Tortura reeds, tied together with a layer of reeds over the top. The Reeds have be constantly topped up as they rot, but the bases last for 25 years before they need to make a new “raft”.

Off in the afternoon to visit an oddity of history, the steam ship “Yavari”. Back in the mid 1800´s the Peruvian government wanted a few Navy boats to patrol the lake, so ordered them from shipbuilders in Birmingham, England. Seems straightforward enough, except that Titikaka is at 4000m and a long way from the sea! 3 boats were built in kit form, along with a dry dock to assemble them, and shipped around the world to Chile, where they were offloaded onto a 1000 animal mule train to carry them up over the Andes to the lake, where they were re-assembled and launched. Loco. They used to be powered by Llama dung (no trees or coal up here) and were used until the 1970´s, when they were scuttled by the Peruvian Navy. An organisation was set up and one of them has been fully restored and will shortly be taking tourists on multi-day cruises around the lake. Pretty odd to be looking round the engine room and seeing makers’ stamps from Bristol and Birmingham.

So from here I took a bus over to the Bolivian side to start my travels there. On the way we had to cross part of the lake to avoid a 400 km detour, so the bus went over on a raft, and the passengers by little boats:

… then onto La Paz over a few 100 km´s of antiplano at 4500m, giving great views of the sunset. over little llama and sheep farming towns:

Some other ancient history, a beautiful veedub bus:

I say “managed” to see some sites because the huge hostel I was in had a bar full of other gringo backpackers, and Jaegermeister too! Been a long while since I’ve had a few sips of that! Hangovers hurt a bit more at 3000m! Still, managed to fit in a couple of smoothies every day to counteract the alcohol!

Visited some ruins at Moray, which are thought to be an agricultural experimentation site for the Incas. They are laid out in a sheltered valley, and the climate at the bottom terrace is sufficiently different from the top terrace to find out which strains of potato, yucca, quinoa and rice etc would grow at which altitudes. Impressive site, not only due to the complexity of the experiment, but the size of the bloody big hole they had dug!!

There was a festival going on (one of the many that happen every weekend in South America!) of baby bread and baby pigs, to be eaten of course! (Vegos look away now…)

So finally set out on a trek to Macchu Piccu with a great group. This was definately the dossers trek, no 4000m passes and leaky tents for us! Set out from the top of a pass (taken to top in a bus!) at 4600m on bikes to whizz down to the bottom of the valley. Sounded like great fun, but it pissed it down, and is freezing at that altitude!

Spent a couple of days walking through the cloud forest, lots of interesting plants and animals to see, from natural plant dyes, more coca bushes, bananas and cocoa trees:

Spent a great evening soaking in some beautiful hot springs (how many swimming pools have 360 degree views of mountains!) Through the remains of a village swept away by a mudslide (no deaths and since relocated to higher ground):

Up and down some old Inca paths:

and finally a couple of hours along a railway track (got a ballet dancer’s balance after walking on the rails for most of the way!) to the village under Macchu Piccu:

Finally got up at 4am to walk up to the entrance gates of the site (at 4200m!), and had the fog slowly lift in front of us to reveal the ruins:

As we got further into the morning, the clouds cleared to reveal the full vista. Macchu Piccu may be a great marketing campaign for itself, but it is well worth the hype. One of the most beautiful sights I´ve seen, surrounded by mountains all around and perched on top of a flat terrace. You can´t help but run out of superlatives when describing the view. Climbed a mountain in the afternoon to avoid the coach trippers and get a view of the whole area to myself: