Some internet place, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Arrived here yesterday morning, descending more than 2000m from the Altiplano. San Pedro is a nice little town with white houses and unpaved streets (probably on purpose, to make it look cuter). It's very expensive here: a bed in a dorm room costs 16 USD, cheapest menu lunch 10 USD. Hopefully it's because San Pedro is a remote desert town, the rest of Chile is maybe cheaper.

It's summer in San Pedro (compared to the almost 5000m heights that we reached on the way here), so switched to flip-flops, had two beers and biked to Valle de la Luna (28km round trip) to watch the sunset. As it's full moon now, the moon would have been even more impressive than the sun and fit better with the surreal landscape of the valley but clouds covered it and the park closing time is already at 21.00 which makes the proper moon watching impossible.

Will take a 24h bus to Santiago this evening. There was just a 8.8 scale earthquake close to it, so it's probably not the best time to visit...

Some internet place, Uyuni, Bolivia

Arrived in Uyuni yesterday evening after some 8h in the bus. The distance between Potosi and Uyuni is just some 150km but the road goes through the mountains, is mostly a dirt road, a long lunch break is made, then the bus breaks down, and also the bus driver likes to make long stops to talk to the bus drivers of buses coming from Uyuni.

Haven't seen much of Uyuni but there doesn't seem to be that much to see anyway. Yesterday checked into a cheap hotel (Palace) and then booked (for today) a 3-days/2-nights tour through the salar and the lagunas to San Pedro de Atacama (Chile). Took the company Colqa Tours which many other travellers recommeded. There will be 3-4 people in the same jeep in addition us. The tour will go through all the important places: the train cemetary, the salt hotel, Isla del Pescado, salt mines, geysers, volcanoes, flamingo lagoons, hot springs, until to the border of Chile where we get transported to San Pedro.

This morning got the Bolivian exit stamp (costs 21 Bs per person for some reason), and in 1h will start the journey. Probably won't be able to connect to the internet for the next 2 or 3 days.

Hostel Koala Den, Potosí

Arrived in Potosí this morning at 5 o'clock (1h earlier than expected). The bus (Trans Copacabana) was quite comfortable with wide reclinable seats + blankets were provided because the nights are cold at this altitude (Potosí is the highest city in the world, at 4090m).

Potosí is a mining town, e.g. you can walk into a grocery store and buy dynamite (including the fuse it costs just 15 Bs). Took a Koala Tours to visit one of the mines. (Why such a name "Koala Tours", you might wonder. Explanation: the koala chews eucalyptus leaves, while miners chew coca leaves...)

The tour was fascinating, but quite scary, including crawling from level to level through narrow and dusty tunnels, and seeing and talking to miners many of whom seemed depressed and exhausted. For a longer description of the mining techniques and working conditions in Potosí see the Wikitravel's article on Potosí.

Csilla meanwhile decided to spend time checking out Potosí's colonial churches many of which were unfortunately closed.

Some Potosí photos are here. Tomorrow will go on, but haven't decided yet to where.

An internet place, Illampu Street, La Paz

A couple of hours ago got back from Huayna Potosí. Before the climb I had the following goals

• reach higher than Csilla's El Misti 5822m
• make a new altitude record, i.e. reach higher than the Uhuru peak on Kilimanjaro, 5895m
• reach higher than 6000m
• reach the top of Huayna Potosí (6088m)

The last goal was in a way quite arbitrary as the first time I had heard about Huayna Potosí was 2 weeks ago from a French guy who was climbing El Misti with us. So I wasn't very unhappy when we turned around at 6014m (measured by my GPS which can be a bit inaccurate when it comes to measuring altitude) after 5h of gaining 700m in deep snow. Yes, we were well acclimatized and healthy but the weather played a trick on us --- during the evening heavy snow fall covered the tracks and made walking very tiring. We decided to turn back and save the energy for the way back, which was a good idea because after the sun came out the snow started melting and became very unstable, also further down the hill there are loose rocks which were now covered with melting snow making it quite dangerous to walk on.

Our guide wasn't very good. On the rocks he walked much ahead of us listening to some Aymara radio station. On the snow when we where roped together he kept pulling on the rope to make us go faster so that I felt like a dog on a leash, reminding me the Matterhorn story by Jerry R. Hobbs.

There were two other groups besides us --- a Swiss guy and his guide, and an Australian couple + their guide. None of them reached the top today because their guides claimed that the final narrow part to the summit was covered by loose snow making it dangerous to walk on.

UPDATE: Now available: photos and GPS tracklogs.

Another internet place, Illampu Street, La Paz

Today was mostly spent on talking to different tour agencies who organize Huayna Potosí climbs. Huayna Potosí is 6088m-high mountain close to La Paz, and is considered to be one of the easiest 6000m mountains in the world. Climbing however requires using crampons and ice-axe, so it can't be that easy. No prior experience is required though.

We eventually booked a 3-days/2-nights tour starting tomorrow. First day is spent on driving to the base camp (4700m) and practicing ice climbing there on a glacier. Second day is a short walk (2-3h) from the base camp to the high camp (5300m). Finally, on the third day one starts at 1am towards the summit (6h from the high camp), then goes back to the base camp (4h) and is driven back to La Paz. We should be well acclimatized by now having spent 10 days at altitudes between 3600m and 4000m. Hopefully I will do better this time than I did in Ecuador and Peru.

Yesterday started in an annoying way. Spent several hours looking for a laundry service but everything was closed due to the carnival. People were playing with firecrackers (?) (paukpadrun), every couple of minutes one heard sounds resembling gunshots.

But the evening was nice with a delicious dinner (incl. potatoes, maize cake) and drinks (wine, cupuacu liquor, mango+singani cocktail) at Jorge's.

An internet place, Illampu Street, La Paz

Arrived in La Paz around midday, after a 3h ride from Copacabana. Got a cheap hotel room (50 Bs) right in the center of what seems to be the famous Witches' Market, where people sell dried llama foetuses for good luck. The carneval is going on everywhere: dressed up dance groups, brass bands, children shooting each other from water guns. Had a delicious lunch at a Lebanese restaurant. In 30 minutes will meet Jorge, a friend from Zurich.

Another internet place, Copacabana

Internet in Bolivia has so far been horrible. There is no wireless, the internet cafes don't allow you to connect your own laptop to the network, or if they do then their network does not support DHCP, and manual configuration fails for some reason. Monitors are tiny and the only available browser is Internet Explorer which often informs you in Spanish that it's going to remember your GMail password now.

Spent today on Isla del Sol, hiking 13km from the North port to the South port along an old Inca trail. There were some Inca ruins but nothing special. The island itself has an interesting shape and is hilly with the highest point some 300m from the level of the lake (3812m). Otherwise the hike is boring: wild nature has been completely removed from the island: just terraced fields (potato, corn, beans), a few eucalyptus trees, donkeys, pigs and cows. The local people are money-hungry, every village has introduced a law that foreign tourists who walk through the village have to pay 5-10 boliviano (approx 1 USD). On our way we walked through 3 villages.

To get on the island one takes a boat which moves 9 km/h, i.e. even slower than an Amazonian river boat going upriver. It takes more than 2h to reach the island.

Tomorrow will take an early bus to La Paz.

Some internet place, Copacabana, Bolivia

Reached Copacabana (Bolivia) midday. It's a nice laid-back town by lake Titicaca with many Argentinian hippies and trout-selling restaurants.

Tomorrow, at 8.30 will take a boat to Isla de Sol, the largest island in the lake and the birth place of the Sun and the Inca civilization. Will hike there a few hours, visit some Inca ruins, and then back to mainland.

Yesterday's highlight was a trip to two different cultures living on lake Titicaca:

• the descendents of the Uros people (who speak Aymara now) who build floating reed islands on which they then build their houses. The people are very commercialized, seem to be living entirely on tourists.
• the Quechua people on the Taquile island, who are famous for their textile skills, e.g. all men know how to knit.

Kusillos Posada, Puno

Puno is situated at 3800m by the lake Titicaca. Days can be hot with a fierce sun, nights are freezing cold. This time of year it is raining often, the evenings resemble a northern European autumn.

Today will visit the local tourist attractions: the floating reed islands of the Uros people (20 minutes away by boat) and the (non-floating) island of Taquile (3h away).

Hostal Like Home, Arequipa (again)

Back from El Misti (5822m). Csilla summited this morning, in 6h from the base camp. Congratulations! I decided to give up after a nightful of freezing in tiny, damp and thin tour company provided sleeping bag (my own sleeping bag has a broken zipper). Also got diarrhea right after dinner. This kept me up all night as well. In the morning (1am) felt weak and knew that I wouldn't manage more than 100m up.


Our group had 8 people (plus two guides), 4 of them made it to the top, 4 stayed in the base camp (4600m) feeling sick. This makes the success rate 50% (the same as for a group that went up the day before, whom we met on the way to the base camp). All tour companies in Arequipa claim that the rate is almost 100%. They are liers... :(

Hostal Like Home, Arequipa (again)

Successfully completed the Colca canyon hike, or actually a set of 3 hikes each less than three hours, e.g. today started at 5am and climbed 1000m in 2 hours from Sangalle to Cabanaconde.

Will sleep now. Tomorrow will go on a 2-days/1-night El Misti climb.

Cosñirhua, Colca canyon

Short break, then on to the Sangalle oasis. Tomorrow will climb out of the canyon again. No llamas here.

Hostal Like Home, Arequipa

Arrived in Arequipa at 7 o'clock in the morning. It's a nice city with white houses, beautiful Plaza de Armas, and surrounded by several snow-capped volcanoes.

Tomorrow will explore the city some more (today spent most of the time sleeping as couldn't properly rest in the overnight Cruz del Sur from Nazca to Arequipa). Then will probably go on a 3-days/2-nights Colca canyon trip. Besides offering views to condors, colonial churches, llamas, and a deep canyon, it also serves as acclimatization, as afterwards we plan to do some volcano climbing.

The local tour companies offer 2-days/1-night trips to both El Misti (5822m; hike starts at 3400m, camp at 4800m) and Chachani (6075m; hike starts at 5000m, camp at 5400m). Both are supposed to be technically easy, i.e. crampons are not needed, ice axe maybe. After talking to several tour companies it stayed unclear which hike would make more sense for us and how much acclimatization we need to do beforehand, sleeping at 5000m should not be taken lightly. (No tour company seems to offer trips that would contain acclimatization days.)