Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil

From Cuzco in Peru we went to the town of Puno on the edge of Lake Titicaca - the highest navigable lake in the world and home to Bolivia's navy - the only landlocked country to have a navy.

In Puno we took a boat out to the reed islands on the lake where the islands, houses and boats are all made of the reeds. The people there even eat the reeds! We spent the day with a family, eating with them and then in the evening went to a traditional dance wearing some of the family's traditional clothes against the cold. Because of the altitude it was freezing though it gave us a great view of the stars.

The next day we left the reed islands and went to other natural islands on the lake where we walked around and saw the famous 'knitting men' creating clothes, hats and scarves.

From Lake Titicaca we crossed the border into Bolivia and went to the capital La Paz - the highest capital city in the world. Here we went around the famous witches market and saw llama foetuses and toucans ready to be burnt as offerings to Mother Earth for luck, money or success etc. The witches there would make you a spell for just about anything - even baldness - not that I would have needed that...

Llama foetuses at the witches market

Toucan heads for casting spells

In La Paz we also went out quad biking around the Valley of the Moon, up mountains and off road.

We also hired mountain bikes and cycled along the Death Road - the most dangerous road in the world - and it's easy to see why, with a 2000 foot drop on the side of a one track road cut into the cliff and no barriers. The road was made of loose gravel and mud but great fun to race down. I didn't die, which was nice!

       

Can you see me?

From La Paz we took a small plane over the Amazon rainforest and landed in a village called Rurrenbaque, then took a Jeep for most of the day along a mud road, struggling to pass the trucks and other jeeps that were bogged down from the recent rains, finally arriving at the Amazon river, then it was into a longboat until we arrived at a camp.

  

We spent three days there fishing for pirhanas and eating them (about a mouthful of meat on each one) and spotting animals such as crocodiles, capybaras, birds and the rare Amazon Pink Dolphins which would swim alongside our boat. We also swam in the river with them, and although there were crocodiles and pirhanas in the river too the dolphins were very protective and we felt very safe with them around us. One even bit my foot but only in a playful way!

At night we slept in a hut and when we went to bed one night we found an anaconda curled up in the rafters. We didn't want to move it so went to sleep anyway and it was gone by the next morning! 

After the rainforest we returned on the boat, Jeep and plane to La Paz and then took the bus to Uyuni, where the famous Bolivian salt flats are. Again it was incredibly cold as a result of the altitude, but still very impressive. The salt flats are 19,000 square kilometres or ancient sea beds that have dried up and left the salt behind. It was great for some fun perspective photos.

We travelled around them for three days, sleeping in hostels made of salt too and exploring the landscape which was like another planet, plus lots of different lagoons, many of which we frozen or contained flamingoes or al paca families.

From Uyuni we went to the town of Sucre to warm up a bit. It was an amazing town with wide streets, plazas and whitewashed buildings which is exactly what I thought the whole of South America would be like. We got into the habit if going to the fruit and vegetable market each morning to buy stuff for breakfast and cooking, then relaxing before doing the same thing for lunch and then again for dinner.

It was a very chilled out time and great just to relax and be warm after the salt flats. We did manage to go and visit some dinosaur footprints which had been fossilised in the rock and a dinosaur park nearby. It had loads of dinosaur sculptures which were great for comedy photos, plus it also had the worlds biggest dinosaur model!!! I love dinosaurs, me!!!

After Sucre I crossed the border into Argentina and visited the towns of Cordoba and Mendoza, which, although nice, were just too modern to be interesting and felt like I could be anywhere in Europe, although the area is famous for wine so we rented bikes and cycled between each winery sampling their wares.

From Mendoza I took the bus to Buenos Aires and spent four days there, exploring the city which is very similar architecturally to Paris. There were areas of brightly coloured houses and people dancing the tango on the street.

We spent days cycling around the various districts. We did have some contact with the locals in the form of four motorcyclists who pulled up with guns demanding all our valuables. Fortunately I had nothing of any worth with me but friends had phones, cameras and bags taken before they drove off!

We also took a ferry 40km over the river into Uruguay for the day and visited a world heritage site with great old buildings, and rented a golf buggy to explore the area.

   

After Buenos Aires I took the bus 1100km to Iguazu falls which is a massive waterfall marking the border between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. It's one of the biggest in the world and I took a boat right underneath it, getting soaking wet.

Rio was the final stop of my whole year and seemed strange to arrive there finally on my last bus of the trip. Here I met some great people and spent the final few days exploring the city, on the famous Selaron steps, Ipanema and Copacabana beaches, going up Sugar loaf mountain on the cable car to see the sunset and up to the statue of Christ the Redeemer as the sun came up. It was a busy few days but I was determined to do as much as possible up to the last moment!

The last day was spent on the beach and walking around the biggest flavela in South America - a slum that is home to 75,000 people! We sat on the back of local's motorbikes and could hear gunshots going off whilst we were there, plus we saw bullet holes on some of the buildings. Everything was so tightly packed that there was little room to pass by the buildings which were more like shacks and stretched up the hill as far as you could see. It was a truly horrible place with raw sewage running down the paths and it made me so grateful not to live there, but to have all the comforts of home!

So now I am on the plane back to London and attempting to digest that it's all over and I have to go back to the real world and maybe grow up a bit! It has been the best year if my life and I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to do such an amazing trip!

So here's a few statistics for you!

I was out if the UK for 366 days
I visited 25 countries
I slept in 161 different beds
I travelled a total of 92,178 miles -
that's:
59,482 by air
32,121 by land
575 by sea
I read 102 novels since I left
I've had the most amazing year!!!

Everyone should do this once in your life - it's really not that hard, you just need to take the plunge and get out and do it! If I can then anyone can!

Colombia and Peru

After leaving the farm in Ecuador I spent time in the capital Quito and some of the other areas of the country such as Otavalo which has the biggest market in South America. There were lots of local women selling handmade crafts and clothes, plus an animal market where people were selling cows, sheep and pigs. There were also areas to buy live guinea pigs and putting them in sacks ready to eat

 From here I crossed the border into Colombia. To be honest I was reluctant to go to Colombia because of its reputation as being dangerous and full of drugs, gangland killings and guerillas but it turned out to be one of the best countries that I have been to. The scenery was amazing, the people were really friendly and helpful and the towns had so much to do. 

I took the bus from the border to the town of Popayan and there met people in the hostel that I travelled with throughout most of my time in Colombia. We went cycling around the countryside and from there took the bus to San Augustin. This place is famous for having lots of statues from the civilisation before the Incas. A local guy offered to take us around on his horses so we spent the day riding through the jungle hunting for the lost statues and found over 100, all representing different things, including images of different Gods and animals that were also found in Africa and Asia, possibly showing that there was contact between the different continents thousands of years ago. 

 

Our guide Jerry

From San Augustin we went to San Cipriano near the coast, despite travel warnings on that area, because we had heard that there was a train line that sounded interesting. On the old disused railway tracks the locals had found a way to keep it running as it was the only way to reach the village in the middle of the jungle. They had small wooden platforms with skateboard wheels on and attached a motorbike to it with the back wheel on the rail. We sat on it and went through the jungle so fast we could only see the trees going past in a blur! It felt like it was going to come off the rails any minute, especially over the bridges! 

        

We made it to the villlage in the jungle and spent a lot of time swimming in the rivers and waterfalls. 

After our return along the railway we went to the coffee growing region up in the mountains and hiked to find the valley where the tallest palm trees in the world grow. When we finally found them they were incredible and definitely worth the journey. 

After that I went alone to a town called Guatape where every house was covered in murals and near to it was a giant rock creatively called 'El Peñol' (The Rock). It had 740 steps to the top and from there the view of the surrounding lakes were amazing! 

                        

    

From there it was over to the regional capital Medellin, until recently the most dangerous city in the world as a result of the cocaine trade. It was a great city with lots of parks and buildings that were good to relax in. 

In a little town called Jardin fairly nearby I met up with some friends that I had met on other parts of my trip. We were there to see a local music festival where there was a lot of traditional dancing from different regions of Colombia. 

They were volunteering on a farm nearby so I decided to go back with them for a couple of days but ended up staying with them for over a week, working on the land in the mornings and then doing Spanish lessons and also teaching at the local college in the afternoons. We spent any free time in the village chatting to the locals to improve our Spanish, playing poker and hiking in the hills. 

The farm in Colombia

I finally had to leave to meet up with other friends in Lima, the capital of Peru. This meant a series of bus journeys through most of Colombia, back through all of Ecuador and then over half of Peru - over 2500 miles, along the way bumping into people I had met last time I was in Quito and spending a few days with them seeing more of Ecuador.

I met up with my friends and we left Lima as soon as possible! I was excited to go there as a result of a project about Lima when I was in primary school and since then have always wanted to visit. Unfortunately it was a terrible, unfriendly and grey city that we couldn't wait to get out of! 

The crypt underneath the cathedral in the centre if Lima

We travelled down the coast to the Ballestos Islands where we went out on a boat and saw sea lions, pelicans and thousands of birds nesting. 

That afternoon we went into the desert and spent the day dune buggying and sand boarding, reaching amazing speeds laying down on the boards headfirst. In the evening we camped in the desert, cooking on the campfire, drinking local spirit and camping under the stars. 

From the desert we went further inland to the town of Nazca. This area receives only 1 hour of rainfall per year and is so dry and dusty. During the day the heat is unbearable, made worse by the freezing temperatures in the night! We were there to see the famous Nazca lines which has always been an ambition for me. They were created by the pre-Incan civilisation 2000 years ago and are a giant calendar to chart the stars and the seasons. They also have images of monkeys, hummingbirds and other animals that can only be seen from above, so we went to the local airport and hired a plane to take us up to see them. 

We took a bus from Nazca to Arequipa where we relaxed in the old city which is surrounded by active volcanoes that smoke constantly.

We took a trip into the Colca canyon which is the deepest canyon in the world, going down 4200 metres! We chilled out in the volcanic hot springs and watched the massive condors gliding on the thermals and the wild llamas and alpacas on the plains. 

After a couple of days resting we went to the town of Cuzco, the old capital of the Inca empire. It has amazing old buildings and Inca architecture. We were there for the biggest festival of the year where over a thousand people in costume danced and held a procession through the town and sacrificed a llama. 

Cuzco is the main starting point for the Inca trail to Machu Picchu so we set off with a guide, four porters and a chef which I felt was maybe a little excessive and possibly a bit colonial but they proved to be invaluable! We walked through the Andes mountains for four days crossing desert, jungle and narrow mountain passes. 

Our porters, guide and chef

At the top of the highest pass on the trail

We came across a string of Inca forts, towns and villages that had been discovered after Machu Picchu which were great to explore. 

After four days of hard walking, struggling with the altitude and camping in freezing temperatures we arrived at Machu Picchu at dawn and had the place to ourselves to look around. The site was amazing and the workmanship was incredible. 

Reaching Machu Picchu at dawn. Look how happy our guide is!!!

We took the train back to Cuzco and spent a few days relaxing, now we are going to head to Lake Titicaca to see the reed islands and then into Bolivia. Hopefully after that I will get to Chile, Argentina and Brazil before I have to go home in August!