Panorama Mania

Happy Monday everyone! That probably means more to you than me. However, it does signify the last Monday that we will be in the States. Next Sunday we fly to Helsinki to start Part II of our world journey.

Until then, I will continue to catch up on our stories and photos from South America. For today's viewing pleasure we have a smattering of mountain panoramas, stitched together from 3-6 photos. Click on each photo if to enjoy the full resolution.

Looking south onto the most southern point in South America - Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.

The mountains near Bariloche offer some of the best trekking in the Andes. Argentina.

The approach to El Chalten on Route 40, giving us a rare clear view of the famous Fitz Roy towers of Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina.

Sunset from our campsite after our first night in Los Glaciares. We stayed in the park 10 days and after nine months in South America is still a clear highlight.

Torres del Paine N.P Chile. Another park in which we spent 10 days. Despite the mass tourism and exorbitant costs, it was still worth it.

Unknown minor range immediately southeast of Huayhuash, Northern Peru.

Huayhuash Trek, Northern Peru.

Sunset from the 4200 meter summit on Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia.

New Photos

Of the many projects currently under way, I am trying to catch up on my photo albums. As I go back through my photos, I realize that my camera is capable of taking some pretty incredible pictures. For your visual enchantment, please follow the links:

Lake Titicaca

At the border of Southern Peru and North Western Bolivia, this lake is at the heart of the Incan world. We hiked and camped on the Isla del Sol, Puno, and Copacabana in early June. Big thanks to Todd for stitching together this super rad sunset panorama:

(This picture is giant! Click on it for bigger viewing options)

Mount Shasta

14,179 feet tall and one of the most prominent mountains in America, this volcano is always a spectacular climb. This year's conditions were particularly good. I summited with both of my climbing groups - the first trip was a private group from the Bay Area and the second trip was part of a summer youth camp (Adventure Trek).

Gotta love those 2am alpine starts - headlamps on!

It was a particularly scenic week on Shasta.

Quite frankly, this is the worst packing job I have ever seen. There is more outside the backpack than inside, yet somehow he didn't lose a single item on the descent.

Upcoming photo albums include: The Cordillera Huayhuash in Northern Peru, La Paz and the Cordillera Real, Salar de Uyuni in Southern Bolivia, and recent photos from our California break.

And if you haven't yet checked out our article, please visit BackpackingLight.com. 

The Last Overnight Bus

Our time spent in Bolivia was too little. Surprisingly, our travel plan actually went more smoothly than we thought it would, and we have landed in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile earlier than anticipated. I thought I might like San Pedro, but after a 3-day tour through the Salar de Uyuni, I cannot find a strong reason to stay around. We could see more: desert, odd-colored lakes, salt flats, and dry, brown and red volcanic mountains? Or, we could return to Santiago a few days early and see our friends there.

The answer is obvious. In an hour we will be boarding our last overnight bus. Twenty four hours to Santiago. I know we have spent at least a dozen nights on buses, and have been on sevearl 24-hour buses. It is no big deal anymore. Moreover, Kristin and I are excited to have some time to read, write emails on our netbook, and talk. We have a lot to plan for. In one week we will be back in San Francisco, rushing about like lettuce with our head cut off as we try to mmet up with friends and family while simultaniously planning for the next year of our journey.

We are excited to see our friends in Santiago, just as we are eagerly anticipating the fun times to be had back in California. Our Latin American adventures are almost over . . . nine wild months on this diverse continent has taught us a lot. We will continue blogging about it as our thoughts are collected in the coming weeks. I also have a boat load of pictures to share. Some of our best adventures have not been shown yet.

The twenty four hour bus ride would be torture to most people, but for us it will be the calm before the storm.

La Paz and the Cordillera Real

After Lake Titicaca, we arrived at the lung-busting capitol of La Paz. Brady, our friend from Sacramento, met us there. Together we explored La Paz, which is a gritty, messy city, but still has some great museums, markets, and decent culinary options. We gave Brady only one day to acclimatize to La Paz's altitude of 4000 meters, before we skuttled off to Sorata to begin our four-day trek in the Cordillera Real.

Brady got the real deal. Everything about the trek was true to South American form. The transportation was cheap, scary and uncomfortable. Maps were hard to find, outdated and still expensive (we bought a German-made map from 1987 for $10 - one of the better deals we have gotten for maps here). The trail was really a hodgepodge of animal tracks, locals trails, and such. We hired a driver to take us to the trailhead, but he drove us to a completely different area. The views were unbelievable. The hiking was difficult but rewarding. We camped by ourselves every night and rarely saw anybody, local or backpacker. There were many mines throughout the mountains, legal and illegal. We never got to our final destination but had an excellent time nonetheless. The diversity of what we saw, made this one of the best hikes we've had in South America. Still, we only saw a small portion of this range and I'd love to go back and spend two weeks there.

We returned to La Paz on Friday with just enough time to buy a few souvenirs and feast at an amazing Arabian restaurant, run by the cutest old couple. Brady flew back Saturday morning. Kristin and I stayed in town to explore some great museums, eat well, buy a few hard-to-find products for the next week of traveling, catch up on emails, and research our future travels (this week and post-California July). You know, the usual.

Today we leave for Oruro and Salar de Uyuni. In a week or so we will be in Santiago, Chile and then back in San Francisco. I don´t have my pictures up, but you can check out Kristin´s blog for photos of our trek in the Cordillera Real or our time in La Paz.

Lake Titicaca

Things are moving quickly now that we have only a few weeks left in South America. We recently left Arequipa, Peru, which had been our base for visiting the Colca Canyon and Mt. Chachani. We arrived at the bland town of Puno on Lake Titicaca. We didn't stay long as the tours seemed generic and the city was uninviting.

We continued on to the Bolivian border, where we had no problems but had to pay the $135 USD visa fee. Bolivia started charging Americans in 2007 in reciprocity for the charges the Americans charge Bolivians for US visas. Even though we don't like paying such an exorbitant amount for a visa, it is valid for five years and is in response to a US policy. We can't complain.Chile and Brazil have the same reciprocal charges and Argentina has just initiated it for flights into Buenos Aires.

We spent the night at the Bolivian "beach" town of Copacabana, which was much prettier and friendlier than Puno in Peru. We did not stay long though as we took a boat to the largest of 70 islands in Lake Titicaca - Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun).

There are three towns on this island, but we stayed away from them and instead reveled in some fantastic hiking and wonderful views. We stealth camped at the summit of the biggest mountain on the island, at some 4200 meters. From there, we had the peak to ourselves an experienced one of the best sunsets AND sunrises.

After returning to Copacabana and devouring a very tasty meal, we bused four hours to the capitol of Boliva, La Paz. Our friend Brady was to arrive that same night . . .

Hmm, the view from Puno, Peru. Like I said, not much to see here.

A friend on Isla del Sol, with the other-wordly sheen of the lake in the background. 

An indigenous woman who lives on the island.

One of too many sunset pictures, on the summit.

Yeah it was cold. Dropped below freezing that night, which seems to be standard for everywhere we are camping in Peru and Bolivia. It's the winter here - dry weather, warm days, and bone-chilling nights.

Sunrise in one direction. We had 360 degree views. 

Early morning.

Incan irrigation still works.

The setting of Copacabana. You can see why we preferred it to Puno. Also, there is a more famous Copacabana beach in Rio, Brazil, which is named after this Bolivian town.

The Slow Speed of Progress

Or, the slow speed of internet and the difficulty in even finding a connection.

We noticed a marked decrease in internet speed when we entered Ecuador and Peru. Now that we are in Bolivia, we are prepared for even slower connections, if we can even get a connection.

Our first town in Bolivia was Copacabana, on Lake Titicaca. We loved the town, found some great hiking and island camping nearby, and an excellent restaurant. Our hostel, however, did not have internet. In fact, no hostel in the entire city did.

We have just arrived at our hostel in La Paz. If we are going to get internet, it will definitely be in this, the capitol city. Alas, our hostel has internet, but no wifi. Within a five block walk is supposedly a cafe with wifi (not, as you would think, an internet cafe).

This, mind you, is not the end of the world for us. But having our amazing little netbook and not having wi-fi is a bit unusual. At least 95% of our hostels have had wifi. Every friend we have stayed with has wifi. Hell, even some of the campsites had wifi. It has been so easy to upload photos, blog, email, make reservations, research travel options, and of course check Facebook.

So consider this a warning - for the next few weeks, we might not be blogging, emailing or sharing photos much. We´ll try to catch up when we return to the states at the end of June.

On the same topic of this blog title, Kristin and I have become really interested in the development, or relative lack thereof, of countries in South America. Ann in Guatemala insisted we read Open Veins of Latin America, but we didn´t follow through with that until Janie gave us her copy in Colombia. That kick-started our research. We have since read The End of Poverty, Bad Samaritans, and parts of The Lexus and The Olive Tree. If you have any other recommendations along these lines, please share! I will post my thoughts after we have traveled through Bolivia, which is the least developed country in South America. I would love to hear your thoughts on this!