Argentina - Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego

Ushuaia... the land at the end of the earth, in Tierra del Fuego. This region is majestic, and words do little justice to the alpine-like beauty we saw here. There are deep blue ocean waters, lakes of every shade of blue, white-capped mountains which continue to the horizon and blur into a sea of grayness that is often the horizon here.

Our hikes here took us from rocky beaches to forests of lengua, southern beech, and mid-mountain meadows of peat moss which intersected our treks up to the mountain summits. During our time in Tierra del Fuego, we spent most of our time on the outskirts of Ushuaia, where we beheld the awesome views of lonesome, jagged mountains towering over the seas and little towns that dot this landscape, and saw islands covered with seals and birds.

We drank from streams flowing with alpine mountain water that flows from the glaciers, rejuvenated ourselves with savory Argentine lamb and local king crab, and started our days with artisan breads smeared with local calafate berry jam.

The summertime beauty here is unusual, filled with vivid colors amidst the greys and blues. the specific details of our brief time in this rugged land included hiking the National Park's coast and mountain trails, in which we squeezed 10 hours of hiking into about 7! Another day, we took a cab out to hike to Laguna Esmeralda and then further up to Ojo de Albino, a tiny glacier near the mountain summits ringing Laguna Esmeralda. During this hike, we met a great porteno couple, Alicia and Fernando, whom we later met up with in Buenos Aires. And we also took a brief boat tour around the Beagle Channel, I think it was with Maria tours or something like that.

Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu

Our first day on the Inca Trail had an interesting start. First, we waited over half an hour for SAS Travel to pick us up from the hostal. I walked down to the office to see if anyone was there; of course not, being it was only 6 am! Luckily an SAS bus happened to drive by, so I flagged it down and they took me back to the hostal. There I found Julie getting onto our bus. Apparently they forgot to come pick us up! We were lucky there was another SAS travel group leaving for the Inca Trail too!

Our drive out of Cusco to Ollantaytambo was uneventful. From the town of Ollantaytambo we drove another 15 minutes to the start of the Inca Trail. Well, it should've been 15 minutes, except another bus was trying to drive the opposite direction on the road, which was a dirt road only about 1.5 lanes wide! This episode took about 15-20 minutes as we inched closer and closer to an adobe house, and the other bus tried to inch closer and closer to the other side of the road, which dropped down to a cornfield. Amazingly both buses managed to pass each other with only 1 or 2 inches to spare!

We finally arrived at the trail head, and were each given a grocery bag full of snacks! This was unexpected! We quickly learned we always had plenty to eat. Hiking the Inca Trail with a reputable tour agency is kinda like trekking with hobbits in Lord of the Rings; we had breakfast before starting the day's hike, mid-morning snacks, lunch, afternoon tea and then dinner each day!

The first day's hike isn't all that exciting. Basically we hiked partly up a mountain, passing a few villages before arriving at our designated camping area. But it gave us a chance to get to know our fellow travelers; Neil and Graeme from a little town in UK; 3 recent UK grads, Neal, John and ??; 2 Ozzies, Graeme and Sarah whose families are close friends; "Gringo" Bill, the military media consultant; a Russian couple; and Alex, a recent US college grad. We learned few South Americans are now found on the trail, since they have to pay the same prices as other tourists - $300 to $400 per person on average!

Day two proved to be more challenging. Each group hikes up 4 hours from their campsites (ours at 3100 meters / 10200 feet) through Dead Woman's pass at 4200 meters (13800 feet). From here, it's 600 meters elevation down to the first campsites, another 2 hour hike. While it's quite tiring to hike up to the pass, it is beautiful to hike through temperate forest, beech forest, and alpine scrub filled with tiny orchids and flowers. Even though I stopped a lot to catch my breath, I ended up taking lots of photos on the way up because there was so much flora to look at!

After stopping for lunch at the campsite, our main guide Saul asked if we wanted to continue. We had the option to hike 3 more hours to the next camp area, which would save us 3 hours the following day, and allow more time to visit the many Inca ruins that we would see on Day 3. Most of us opted to keep going, so a democratic vote in favor meant we hiked 3 more hours on Day 2. I could tell a few people in the group were getting really tired, but I think they were happy to know we could sleep in an extra hour on day 3. I know I was!

Day 3 was exciting. We hiked through 2 small tunnels the Incas carved, and saw more spectacular valleys and mountains. Not only was the panorama beautiful, but we also stopped to see and learn about several Inca ruins. Many of these included outposts and connection points between several major Inca trails, as well as some religious sites and agricultural research areas. Pretty interesting to learn the Incas did a lot of research on astronomy, architecture, and agriculture! (A side note - I learned from reading 'Guns, Germs and Steel' during our travels that the Incas & Aztecs took several centuries to cultivate corn from a small thumb-sized cob to today's edible cobs)

Our campsite on Day 3 was quite luxurious. It included a restaurant and hot showers. Yay! We ate inside the restaurant, although the food was prepared by our porters and cook. However, this dinner was accompanied by beer & wine, unlike our other meals on the trip ;)

Day 4 was an early start to make it to the Sun Gate just after dawn, to get an early morning look at Macchu Picchu (MP). And what a beautiful view it was! We had a phenomenal sunrise to usher in a sunny morning hike to MP. Upon arriving at MP, we stopped for a break and for half the group to check-in their backpacks, which are not allowed into MP. Only day-backpacks are allowed into the ruins.

We had a 1-hour tour of the ruins with our guides, learning about the various religious and key architectural details of MP. After the tour, several of us decided to hike up Wayna Picchu, one of the mountains on the side of MP, which also has some ruins. We hiked up and had great panoramic views of MP and the valley surrounding us.

After hiking back down to MP, we picked up our belongings and got onto one of the many buses that take people down the mountain to the town of Aguas Calientes. We couldn't have timed it better - it started to rain as we waited for the bus! Also, this is a nice benefit of booking the Inca Trail with a reputable agency - some of them also provide tickets for the bus ride down the mountain & lunch afterwards, rather than having to hike down another hour to Aguas Calientes.

After another tasty meal and hot shower, we headed back to Cusco and picked up our belongings we had stored in town at a hotel next to SAS Travel. Julie and I tried to get a quick dinner so that we could make our return bus to La Paz, but the hotel took a long time, getting our food just in time for us to wolf it down and race over to the bus terminal in a taxi. We arrived only 10 minutes before the bus left town - and it actually left on time!

To Cusco and prep for the Inca Trail

One of our goals on our honeymoon trip was to hike the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu. Even though we planned it at the last minute, we were fortunate to be traveling during the low season, so it was easy to arrange transportation from La Paz, accommodation in Cusco, and the tour. We actually took a bus from La Paz to Cusco for 2 reasons. First, we thought it might be nice to see the altiplano scenery in Bolivia and Peru, and second, we learned there are no reliable, cheap flights from La Paz to Cusco. It would have cost $400-500 each to take 2 connecting flights, while the bus was USD$40 round-trip and 2-3 more hours each way, so it was a no-brainer. Plus, with the money we saved by not flying, we could buy more artisan crafts from my brother's friends!

Generally, you spend 2-3 days in Cusco before starting the Inca Trail, to acclimate to the altitude. Cusco is 3500 meters above sea level, which is about 2 miles. Since we had been in La Paz for a week, we didn't have to spend the time in Cusco, but we did arrive early to finalize our tour booking and arrange for a return bus ride.

In Cusco we stayed at the Hostal de Ninos. This hotel was started by a Scandinavian lady who wanted to stay and help some of the poorer kids in Cusco. She started the hostel and several other small enterprises to fund schooling and food to some of the children in the city.

After arriving from a long day's journey across the Bolivian and Peruvian high plains, we had a great night's sleep and breakfast at the hotel. The next day we took care of administrative stuff like paying for our Inca Trail tour and finding bus tickets back to Cusco, and then took a taxi to go see one of the famous ruins near Cusco, called Sacsayhuaman. It's pronounced kinda like "sexy woman" - it's quite fun to talk about it!

We learned you have to buy a tour pass to see the ruins. Well, I knew that already, having visited Cusco a few years ago, but we thought we could sneak in or maybe pay to see just one of the ruins. The park ranger would have none of it, but after a lot of negotiation they let us in to see the ruins for the price of only 1 partial tour pass at 40 soles, or $13. The full tour pass for all 10 ruins is now 70 soles, compared to 30 soles only 3 years ago!

No one is exactly sure what Sacsayhuaman was. Most believe it was a fortress/castle due to the layout and location. There are massive rock walls with carved stones over 10 feet high and some of them have multiple corners and angles carved into them. One of the amazing features of Inca architecture is that the most important military and religious buildings have walls made of huge stones carved to fit precisely together without the use of mortar, and nearly every stone will have different angles cut on its sides. It is quite different than ancient European architecture, where stones are cut into simple squares or rectangles. In a few places I saw stones with 10, 12 or even 14 corners/sides or more!

After walking around the large ruins of "sexy woman", we walked back down to Cusco. It's a quick 20 minute walk back into the city along an ancient Incan path. I find it amazing that Incan architecture is still usable on a daily basis even after more than 500 years! We had a quick lunch near the main plaza, called Plaza de Armas, and then walked down to the Temple of the Sun, which is in Cusco. This used to be a key Incan temple, and now showcases Incan architecture and Jesuit art and architecture.

The Spaniards destroyed most of the temple, kept the foundation and built a monastery on top of the Inca foundation. However, in the subsequent years strong earthquakes destroyed the monastery, while the Incan foundation was still intact!

That night we had a briefing session with our tour operator, SAS Travel, where we met our two guides, Saul and Juan, and our fellow hikers. Our group was 13 tourists, and we learned people were from all over the world; Russia, Australia, UK and USA. We also received duffel bags and plastic bags to hold our belongings and sleeping pads, since Julie and I paid a little extra to have porters carry our belongings. I wanted us to spend our time enjoying the hike and scenery rather than being tired from schlepping a backpack at high altitude.

NZ - the Routeburn Tramp

The morning after our arrival in Queenstown we left for the Routeburn trek. We drove up along Lake Wakatipu to Glenorchy, with incredible views of the surrounding mountains.

Facts: The Routeburn is usually done in 3 days hiking just over 30-some kilometers. It climbs from temperate rainforest in Mt Aspiring National Park up to the Harris Saddle, which is alpine scrub and some snow even in early summer, back into mossy wet rainforest in Fiordlands National Park before stopping at The Divide near Milford Sound and Te Anau. We learned the rainfall averages 5 meters/year near Glenorchy to 6 meters/year near Te Anau! The great thing about the Routeburn tramp (as kiwis call their trails) is considered one of their Great Walks, which means there are huts with kitchens and bunkrooms so you can cut down on the gear you need to carry.

Well, starting at the eastern side, it's a gentle 2 hour climb to Routeburn Flats hut which is by the side of a beautiful mountain meadow valley. Along the way we were stopped by 2 ladies who were bird watching. We got to see & hear the Mohua, a yellow-headed canary which is slowly disappearing due to the European-introduced stout (a smaller, shorter, nastier version of the weasel). They said in their 20 years of hiking in NZ they had never seen this bird before!

After hitting the Flats hut, we hiked up another hour to Routeburn Falls hut where we had reservations for the night. Since it was a beautiful day out, we decided to take the advice of the park ranger we talked to earlier in the day at Glenorchy, and spent the late afternoon hiking up to the Harris Saddle to take in views of Hollyford River valley. We were advised by quite a few people that the weather can change daily, and the views up around the Harris Saddle are incredible, and we didn't want to miss those!

As we hiked up, another park ranger pointed out to us the Mt Cook Lily, which isn't really a lily but it's still a pretty little white flower. We had incredible views looking back behind us and ahead as we saw more and more of the Hollyford River valley.

Well, once we arrived at the Harris Saddle, we decided to hike a side trail up Conical Hill. We had passed a couple hiking the opposite way who said they had views all the way to the ocean! Great, except when we arrived the trail said it was closed... Well, that didn't really stop us - we figured we had hiking shoes and poles, so we could handle the snow! We hiked up the mountain, over the snow and arrived at the top to see... uh, not much! Well, we had a slightly foggy view of Hollyford River due to the clouds coming in, but couldn't see much else.

We returned back to the hut and had a tasty dinner of freeze-dried food and quinoa ;) We were a little envious of some other groups who brought along bottles of wine, but one great thing about camping is that most food tastes great when you carry it for several hours or days!

The next morning turned out as expected - rain! As we hiked up the Harris Saddle again, the trail was practically a stream with the amount of rain and water pouring down the mountains. As you can imagine, this 2nd day we didn't get to see much of anything with all the clouds and rain. I learned that my 10-year-old rainpants didn't work - they were completely soaked by the time we arrived at the Harris Saddle shelter! I also arrived with fully soaked hiking shoes. But I was not alone - many of our fellow hikers also were quite wet, and it was comical to see the steam rising off our jackets and pants as we huddled in the shelter in an attempt to dry off.

After a quick lunch, we walked along the mountain ridge above Lake Mackenzie, where our 2nd night's shelter was located. We were lucky that the wind wasn't as bad as the rangers had cautioned us, so we quickly hiked along the ridge and then down towards the lake.

Luckily, on the way down, the rain stopped and we started to get some views of the lake and the forest on the mountain. We thought the moss was heavy on the eastern side of the mountain, but here it was even denser - it practically carpeted the trees and rocks!

We were quite happy to reach the hut mid afternoon, and we quickly took all our wet clothes and shoes and put them by the super-warm coal stove in the middle of the common room. It was quite a sight to see everyone's clothes and shoes ringing the stove, and it was so warm in the hut that the ranger warned us we might set off the fire sprinklers! Luckily he was just being cautious, but we did all move our shoes a little farther away so we wouldn't melt them or burn down the hut.

That night we met some of our fellow hikers - 3 families were hiking together. One family had 3 generations - grandkids, parents, and grandparents, and the granddad had even had a stent placed in his heart 3 months earlier! Julie and I were really impressed, and hope we're that active in our mid 70s!

Our third and last day turned out to be a sunny day. We had beautiful weather hiking along the mountain, and took pictures of Lake Mackenzie and the mountains to our west - more snow-capped majesties! Near the end, we detoured up the side trip to Key Summit, where there was an informational nature walk and we learned a few things about the flora in the area, like the peat moss can hold 25 times its weight in water, and the NZ beach tree is genetically very similar to the South American beech.

After 3 days of hiking, we finally arrived at The Divide. We took off our hiking boots and relaxed in the sun, waiting for our bus transport to Te Anau, where we planned to spend 2 nights and visit Doubtful Sound. As we waited, another hiker saw some keas - this is a NZ parrot that lives in the south, and is quite the pesky bird. It was trying to pull off the rubber lining around the doors to an RV, so we tried to scare it off. Apparently the kea likes to pick at rubber lining, windshield wipers, and shiny parts on cars.

NZ-West Coast Adventures

After our arrival to the South Island and spending a few days out on the water kayaking, we decided to make our way to Queenstown by driving. We decided to go west and drive along the coast as we heard it's beautiful and figured we had a few days to enjoy the scenery. We also were told about some neat sights like the pancake rocks (Punaikiki), the glaciers, and the beautiful glacier lakes near Waanaka and Queenstown.
The West Coast definitely lived up to our expectations. While the weather was quite variable, it was much like the San Francisco coastal area in summer - fog/clouds and occasional sun! We just had such a blast seeing the sites that we didn't really mind.
Our first major stop was at Punaikiki to see the pancake rocks. This is a cliff area that has been carved into grottos and coves by the ocean, and the layers of rock here eroded differently so it looks like someone carved horizontal lines into the grey cliffsides. I was personally amazed to see palm trees this far south - apparently they're native to this area! And I thought palm trees only liked warm weather...

We finished our first day staying in Franz Josef. This little town is right by the glacier, so we drove over to the park and hiked to a view point. We lucked out with a little sun, and got to see the front of the glacier poking through a river valley. It was quite a sight to see a mass of blue, black and white ice in the middle of a lush green valley! We learned that Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers in NZ are unique in that they exist in the middle of the temperate rainforest, whereas other glaciers exist in more barren mountainous terrain. Later, in South America, we got to see massive glaciers in their typical location.

On day 2 of our trip down the west coast, we drove down a few minutes to Fox Glacier, where we had reserved room on a helicopter ride to go onto the glacier and do some hiking. We really lucked out with weather; it started getting a little sunny and clear, so the company decided to start helihike services that afternoon, starting with our scheduled trip! Praise God - we learned they had not flown up in several days, so we were the first group in the last 2 or 3 days.

Julie and I agreed the heli-hike was one of our NZ highlights. We put on some heavy leather boots and strapped on little crampons that didn't look like they'd work. But they kept us steady as we walked around for 3 hours on top of Fox Glacier. Our trip up was fun - the pilot circled around the lower part of the glacier, arriving at our landing spot where we waited for the other sets of trekkers to be brought up. Our guide was a college student from Detroit, MI! who was working in NZ and was on his last helihike before heading back home. So he was quite enthusiastic in chopping away at the glacier, clearing a pathway here and there as we tramped around. He even found us a few ice caves to crawl through, which made for some spectacular photo shots. It was really amazing to see the deep blue color that the ice creates when it's compressed as hard as it is in a glacier. Finally, he took us close to a waterfall that was pouring down along one of the sides of Fox Glacier, and we quickly trekked back to the heli landing so we could get back down - apparently the clouds were coming back so they only ran 2 trips the entire day! Well, we were about 1/2 hour late, but we didn't mind - we got a fun trip poking around on the top of a glacier.

The rest of the afternoon, we drove to Haast and stayed the night, at what was probably the cleanest hostel we've seen on our travels. Along the way, we stopped at one or two beautiful beach spots, to take in some of the amazing forest scenery along the coast. It was quite entertaining to talk to our Haast hostel owner - he was very proud of his clean hostel and we made sure to tell him we were enjoying it!

Our third, and last day, we drove from Haast through Waanaka to arrive at Queenstown. Along the way, we stopped at a bunch of short hikes through the Haast Pass to see some blue-green pools, waterfalls and of course the beautiful glacier lakes near Waanaka and Queenstown. Well, a coworker told me this was a beautiful drive, and I'm really glad we spent the whole day driving through it - it is just a majestic area; makes you feel like you're in the movie trilogy LOTR!

NZ-tongariro death march

From Waitomo, we drove off to National Park to hike the famous Tongariro Crossing. As we approached, our usual north island scenery of rolling green hills were punctuated by a few snow-topped mountains and one ominous black volcano. We later learned this was a film site for some of the Mt. Doom scenes in LOTR. We were quite excited to learn we would be hiking around it!

We stayed in Howard's Lodge, which also conveniently provides transport to the Tongariro hike. The weather in the morning of our hike looked poor with low heavy clouds which seemed ready to rain at any moment. However, as we approached the trail, the sun came out and we were excited about the great views we'd see!

Our hike started in alpine brush, slowly giving way to alpine desert as we hiked up the pass between 2 old volcanoes, Tongariro and Narahwhoe. Once at the saddle, we rested a bit and then spent some time figuring out if we wanted to, and had time for, a side trek up Mt Narawhoe.

Our dilemma stemmed from a simple question of time. The buses have a fixed time they take you to the trail and when they pick you up. The trail normally takes 6 to 8 hours. The 2 side treks up either volcano each take about 2 hours based on the trail map we had, and we were told Narawhoe had great views. So we figured it would be doable but tight. However, what threw us for a loop was that when we actually arrived at the pass, a sign stated it was a 3 hour side trek, which translated to at least a 9 hour hike!!! Guaranteed to make us arrive late to the bus pickup location...

Well, there we talked to a young Irish couple that was on our bus and looked like regular hikers. They decided to go up, so we figured there was strength un numbers! So up we went.

This slowly turned out to be a challenging side trip. The higher we went, the steeper we got and the more scree we found. This loose rock/pebble combo made us feel like we were taking 1 step backward for each step forward. However, we pushed on and made it to the top for some amazing views for miles in every direction. Not only that, we also saw the Narawhoe volcano crater!

We spent a few minutes to enjoy the views and take a small break. I (Xavier) practically jumped my way down the scree since it seemed like I was sliding down anyway!

We hiked up the next part to Red Crater, the highest part of the trail, and stopped for lunch. There we talked to the Irish couple and realized we were way behind schedule. It was nearly 2 PM, with 1.5 to 2 hours to Ketati Hut. Our bus driver said we needed to be at that hut by 2 PM to safely make it back down to the trail end by 4:30, our pickup time! Oops...

We quickly finished lunch and started our afternoon speed hike. We passed the Emerald Lakes, named for the sulphurey minerals that color the water. These were an incredible sight of deep green, albeit the smell. We started our descent through more alpine brush and arrived at Ketati Hut. We had made it there a little after 3 PM, just 1:10 hours of hiking. OK, at our rate I was hoping we'd make it by 5!

We took a short break to fill up on water. Did I forget to mention we didn't bring enough? Hmm, that was because I didn't plan on our 2.5 hour side trip and our speed-hiking pace! Luckily I knew the hut was enroute.

From the hut, the alpine brush continued until we got a lot lower, when the trail moved into the familiar NZ fern&tree rainforest. By now we had sped by quite a few packs of hikers. Nearly at the end, or so we hoped, we ran into 2 Chinese girls who thought they were lost. We told them they were on the right path and then they tried to keep up with us for fear of getting lost again! I told them to take it easy since we were running to catch our bus... 10 minutes later we got to the trail end, whew! We got to the bus only 10 minutes late! In hindsight, the views were well worth the adventure....

Ayers Rock aka Uluru and the Olgas

Early Monday morning we woke up early to fly to the Red Center. Jack drove us, and Faye woke up early to see is off-what troopers!
The Red Center is aptly named, the soil is quite an earth-red, and creates an incredible contrast with the plants in the area.
It was so hot that the park closed the Ayers Rock climb and the Valley of the Winds walk by 11 AM! We were later told it hit 50 Celsius in some parts of the park; that's 120 Fahrenheit! It felt worse than what we felt at Burning Man, Nevada desert as we walked around parts of Ayers Rock, known to Aborigines as Uluru.
For dinner, Julie had made reservations for Sounds of Silence, an outdoor dinner show experience. Here we saw the sun set on Uluru, altho a bit far away and not as impressive as we hoped for. We had a delicious dinner buffet including kangaroo, crocodile, and barramundi fish while we listened to a didgeridoo player and were educated on the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere.
The next day we woke up before dawn to see the sunrise near the Olgas, aka Kata Tjuta. Now this was impressive! The sun came up thru just a few clouds, and after that it was amazing to see the colors change on the Olgas! Then we raced over to these rocks to hike the Valley of the Winds before it got too hot. Good thing, cuz it already felt got and I was feeling a little "dehydrated" and a headache from last night's dinner... The park closes the walk at 11 am due to the fact it gets to 36 C by then (about 96 F). If you have a chance to do this walk, do it! It is beautiful to walk amidst these red rock giants.
After our hike we raced back to our hotel to clean up, pack, and head off to the airport for Sydney!