Grant Goes OS

RTW below the equator

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February 2, 2012
by Grant
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Riding the Death Road

I arrived in La Paz a little after I expected to arrive, it seems there is way too much stuff to do in Peru and I left no time to do it, but luckily I had a couple of days in Bolivia that I would be able to get onto a mountain biking trip down the World’s Most Dangerous Road, so called because it was estimated 200 to 300 travellers were killed using the road each year, until the bypass was put in. Now it’s more of a tourist attraction to jump on a bike and ride down the narrow gravel road with sheer 600m cliffs on the side.

my bike Romantico!

It was pretty fun, not too hard of a ride, but there was still a bit of mayhem… On about the third corner an Asian fella must have panicked and hit the front brake without realising that hydraulic brakes are actually really grippy, especially if you don’t have your bike balanced and he flew over the front handlebars landed on the asphalt and broke his collarbone. That probably should have been a warning, but the Canadian fella who was riding with us thought it didn’t apply to him and so he was trying to keep up with the guide’s, but had none of their abilities, he washed his rear tyre out  in the loose stuff and then dug his front wheel into a rock, then to make matters worse instead of going with the fall he tried to catch and stop himself with his hands and ended up popping a shoulder (possibly braking it) and then having a cry for an hour and a half. We continued down the mountain thinking the worst of it was done, but no, these things come in three’s and an Italian guy riding a bike with no suspension, no helmet and no idea managed to face plant it into the road on a straight section too… weird…

At the bottom of the road we had lunch in an animal refuge and waited for the buses to return after taking all the injured back to La Paz, it was a pretty sweet little spot…

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January 27, 2012
by Grant
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Lake Boobie-poopoo

We arrived in Puno ready to check out the famous Lake Boobie-poopoo (maybe it was Titicaca, I can’t be certain), which is apparently the highest Lake in the world and is pretty spectacular. The floating islands were the first stop on the Lake and talking to the local people and seeing how the live was pretty interesting.

We then moved to one of the main Islands within the lake. These ones don’t float but are still pretty cool anyway, it could have just been the altitude though…

 

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January 27, 2012
by Grant
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Cruising out of Colca Canyon

After hiking up the Inca Trail for four days we made it back to Cuzco and went out for a few quiet ones to say bye to the group. A few frosties and a sunrise later we stumbled out onto the streets of Cuzco and decided the Inca Trail wasn’t enough, so booked a bus to Arequipa and jumped aboard that night. We found a hostel in Arequipa as the sun was coming up and crashed out, then booked on to a tour of the Colca Canyon for the following day. It was then that we discovered the tour left Arequipa at 3am the next morning to drive out to the Canyon (s0 excited about that). We arrived at La Cruz del Condor at about 7.30, after a quick breakfast and sat at the top of Colca Canyon watching condors riding the thermals along the edge of the cliff not 10m from where we were standing.

We left the condors and headed to Cabanaconde, the beginning of the trek down into the Canyon. The hike started at about 3,300m and descended down to 2,100m in a couple of hours. After all the walking on the Inca Trail, the old bung knee was beginning to play up as we were getting to the bottom of the Canyon, but then we had a short uphill to a nearby town for lunch and a quick siesta.

 

After lunch we continued on through the Canyon passing through many small villages to arrive at the Oasis and our bed for the night.

The next morning was another early 4am start and a 1,100m climb out of the Canyon, but myself and Ben heard rumours that you could ride a donkey up instead. I didn’t want to be an ass about it, but it also meant you could have an extra hour and a half sleep, plus you didn’t have to walk up. The other guys in the group were giving us some crap about not having the full experience of Colca Canyon, but the looks in their eyes as we cruised up the trail and passed them struggling up the side of the mountain was worth every cent of the $20 it cost for the ride, besides being able to enjoy the views on the way up…

We arrived back in Cabanaconde well rested after the donkey ride, just in time for breakfast and a quick look around the town. From there we drove back towards Arequipa stopping along the way to check out some of the lookouts of the Colca Canyon.

 

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January 24, 2012
by Grant
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Trailing the Inca’s

One of the big reason’s I wanted to go to Peru was to hike along the Inca Trail and check out Machu Pichu. What I didn’t think about was what time of year was good to go and see it, funnily enough the wet season probably isn’t the best time to go and that’s exactly when I was going through Peru. But I wasn’t going to let the threat of a landslide scare me off, then at the pre-hike briefing the night before we set off, our guide tells us that there was a landslide a week before and part of the trail had been cut between the last camp site and the Sun Gate, so we might have had to go around. But that was four days away and we had a 4100m pass to get over and 32km to cover before we came across that.

We woke up bright and early (3.30am) and jumped on a bus out to kilometre 82, ready eager and a little apprehensive to start the trek.

We were lucky to not have any rain to start the day and were able to see the whole Sacred Valley, although this also meant we could see what we had to get over…

At least we had some porters to carry some of our stuff, these guys are brilliant. They are carrying close to their own body weight and fly past you up the mountain passes, and actually run down the steps on any decent, how they don’t fall I have no idea.

The second day was the big day where we had to summits to make before we could camp. We started off in the morning at 3000m above sea level and hiked up to Dead Woman’s Pass at 4200m  above sea level.

We then dropped back down past some awesome waterfalls to  our lunch stop some 700m below the pass. We rested and then started the next 2 hours of steep climbing to Runkuraqay Pass.

After the second big climb the rest of the hike was pretty much downhill, which was lucky because this was when the wet season decided to show itself. Walking down steep wet steps was a tedious affair, and then you see a line of porters go running past talking and laughing all the way down.

The rain eventually cleared just as we came to a few of the ruins. We ended up sitting on the edge of one of the terraces for a good half an hour watching Incan TV and letting our legs recover from the previous three days of punishment and preparing for the final assault on Machu Pichu.

Machu Pichu itself was, well foggy and crowded… It was a bit of a let down to be honest. After 3 days of trekking and exploring ruins all by yourself, it sucked having to share with a bunch of tourists who just rode up on a bus that morning… Although it was kind of funny seeing the reactions of everyone, when we were covered in mud and had showered in four days.

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January 24, 2012
by Grant
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Lining up with Nasca

After the excitement of some lights in water fountains in Lima, I thought I needed to go some place warm, some place where women instinctively flock too like the Salmon to Capistrano, but I ended up at place with a bunch of lines on the ground called Nasca…

It sounds like it wouldn’t be much to look at and you would be right, if you only look at it from the ground. But we jumped into a 4 seater plane and took off over the barren plains surrounding Nasca, looking down on some pretty impressive  and big drawings, considering they are something like 2500 years old, kinda makes the Sistine Chapel look like a weekend job… How they knew about astronauts back then though, I have no idea. The plane ride was pretty bumpy and a bit of fun, although old mate who was sitting behind me didn’t enjoy it and filled up 3 bags with whatever he had for breakfast…

Old mate in the background pre-takeoff, looking sick already

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This is what happens when you drink and draw

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January 16, 2012
by Grant
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The Lights of Lima

After spending New Years Eve in Ushuaia and another hangover I headed up to Peru to meet up with a mate from the US. After a marathon line up to get through Immigration and a dodgy taxi ride, I eventually managed to get to the hostel and meet up with Ben. We didn’t really get up to too much the first day besides work out how to get out of Lima and where we wanted to head too, but did manage to see the famous Lima Water Fountain Park! Only one word can be used to describe the light show we saw at the park – WOW! Not wow because it was awesome, or wow because it was mind blowingly crap, but wow because this light show was pretty much what everyone was saying was awesome and which was incredibly lame.

I guess it was lucky we didn’t come to Peru to see Lima…

 

 

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January 16, 2012
by Grant
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Things I learnt in Antarctica

So i figure I might as well do this for each continent, so what I learnt in Antarctica is:

- The Antarctic Ocean is bloody cold.

- Three colours can be beautiful.

- Seeing colours other than blue, white and black after two weeks, kind of freaks you out.

- Its weird seeing the night sky after two weeks of endless twilight.

- Penguins are hilarious.

- Sea sickness is all in your head, but the Drake Passage can really turn it on.

- Seeing crowds of people after two weeks in relative solitude is nuts.

- Antarctica wasn’t as cold ass I thought it would be.

- The staff parties on board a boat are pretty crazy, the hangovers are also full on.

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January 8, 2012
by Grant
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The Drake Strikes Back

After the crossing of the Drake Lake, the perfect weather the first couple of days, the whale hunting on Christmas and the generally brilliant conditions we received through the entire trip, it was time that we paid all the good karma we had received back. We made one final stop in the South Shetland Islands at a place called Half Moon Island strangely enough because it’s shaped like a half moon, which was handy as the winds had stirred up and our previous attempt to land at Deception Island was abandoned due to the choppy waves, which weren’t about at Half Moon Island. The island itself wasn’t very much to see compared to what we had been seeing, more penguins a couple of whales feeding, there were even a couple of seals around.

But what was really important was that this was where we were going to jump into Antarctic Seas, which we were told were coming in at a rather warm 1°C.

The fella's pre-swim

 

A little Capt'n courage

If you can zoom in, the fella's on the zodiac are laughing

Kinda cold

The Captain (real Captain) had seen the weather reports that a storm system was sitting in the Drake Passage waiting for us and decided we would leave a bit earlier to try and miss some of it. The weather prediction from the Captain was pretty accurate, but we didn’t miss much. As soon as we passed the final rocks signalling the end of the South Shetland Islands and the beginning of the Drake Passage the waves instantly jumped up to 5m and the boat started rocking. It wasn’t enough for us to just cross the Drake in a big storm swell though we had to up the ante, so we created the Great Drake Passage Challenge. The rules were simple enough – throw in $1 USD, take no seasickness medication and don’t throw up. We had 25 takers, so the pool wasn’t that big, but this was about more than just money… The further across the Drake we went, the bigger the seas became with an average of about 8m swells. There were a few bigger waves that above 10m that totally swamped the front flag mast. The crossing took about 40 hours and the boat was pitching pretty heavily from 50° to 50° and up and down too making it difficult to lie in bed to try and sleep. The boat was pretty quiet during the quiet while everyone was concentrating on holding onto breakfast, some were successful, others weren’t but myself and 15 others managed to complete the Great Drake Challenge with only a bit of queasiness. The photos and video give you a bit of an idea, but they definitely don’t do the waves justice, which is a pretty good summary of Antarctica in general. The photos are good but it’s nothing compared to the panoramas that we were constantly seeing for the entire trip.

 

 

 

 

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January 8, 2012
by Grant
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A White Christmas

It’s taken me 29 years and 7 continents, but if I missed a white Christmas in Antarctica something was definitely wrong… Luckily I finally had snow on Christmas day and one hell of a hangover…

I suppose I should catch you up on Christmas Eve. It started off innocently enough with a couple of brews in the main bar and a bit of snow outside as we sailed down the Gerlache Straight. But the Capt’n was calling from downstairs and we answered in kind. Things descended from that point and stupidity quickly took over, and was amplified when the crew decided that they would throw us a Christmas party and opened up the bar and a dance floor… The camera was put away pretty early but you can get the idea…

I slept through the Christmas morning wake up call for breakfast but did manage to make a couple of landings during the day in the snow and also managed to sleep off some of the hangover. In the afternoon the Captain (the real boat Captain not the bottle variety) decided to give us another Christmas present and treated us to some whale hunting, albeit minus the harpoons and armed only with our cameras.