Anne Around the World

Solitude is one of my favorite parts of travel, and something I always seem to overlook the importance of when I am planning a trip.  After all, isn’t the point of travel to go somewhere new, to experience a different culture and new foods and to see how life really is? And aren’t we, as travelers, practically obligated to savor every moment and experience as much as we possibly can?

I always travel alone which surprises many people.  People first ask “don’t you get lonely?” and I respond that there are people everywhere to talk to, but that I meet a wider variety without a constant sidekick. Sometimes it is in fact lonely, especially on holidays or after a bout of food poisoning, or over dinner, but to me it is offset tremendously by the freedom.  Part of the appeal of the freedom is simply the selfish free-will; deciding on a whim to sleep in, or wake up early, picking and choosing the parts that appeal most to your individual path.  But all of that, really, is superficial and easily negotiated.  When I really notice the lack of anyone familiar is upon seeing something truly spectacular, whether unique in the world or utterly common.

Wow.

With a companion, it is often wonderful to have another face to reflect the beauty you are experiencing in the world at that very moment, perhaps to prove that it is even real.  But the more I experience the world the more I also find the joy in solitude, in seeing a sunset that no one else will see precisely the same way, in shuffling through my own thoughts until everything I have worried about, wondered about or pondered is well thought through.  I often think fondly back on the third-day-in-the-wilderness afternoons in Patagonia where my mind was so empty I took to counting to move my feet along, and the beauty of the world was simply reflected in my eyes. 

I spent many days hiking in beautiful solitude through Cappadocia. Meeting others occasionally, but only in passing, and pausing around every corner to gape in wonder. This photo is from one evening, just after sunset, on the outskirts of Göreme.

Today was a most outstanding day. When I was planning my trip my friend Sunny had lots of great advice from a similar trip she had done, and she said that one of the highlights of her trip was visiting the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave (Cave of the Stone Sepulcher), a cave that contains Maya artefacts and remains. The Maya used the caves for religious rituals, including some apparently gruesome sacrifices.

I had tried to arrange a tour through a local agency and they said that they would call me by 6:30 yesterday evening to give me the details; they never called and I was really disappointed and once again the people at the hotel impressed me beyond words. None of the places we checked had tours going, but they got a guy on the line who agreed to take me. I had to pay for two spots since that is their minimum, but it was well worth it to me in order to see the cave and it turned out to be great since I got to ask all the questions I wanted.

I ended up having a guide, Abraham, and a guide’s helper, Francisco, along with me, it felt sort of like my own personal entourage. They were hilarious and also mountain bikers, so we had a lot to talk about. To get to the cave you go 7 miles off of the main highway down a rough dirt road, then hike in a good distance through the jungle, crossing 3 rivers. There are no bridges, so you wade through the water. The ground level of the cave is filled with water, up to chest deep in places (though you have to swim a short distance into the cave, since the water is about 12 feet deep there. That was quite an experience, swimming into the turquoise water at the mouth of a cave! Once we got beyond the entrance you could begin to see the magnificent stalagmites and stalactites. It was like a cathedral until we turned out our lamps and sat talking in utter darkness.

We walked about half a mile into the cave, scrambling over rocks and swimming through the deeper spots until we came to what they jokingly call the Maya elevator, a large group of tall rocks you climb up to reach the upper chambers where the artefacts and ruins are. We took our shoes off there, since they would damage the fragile cave floor, and walked in socks into a cathedral-like structure where there are whole and broken pieces of Maya pottery. The theory is that these carried offerings that the people brought in to offer to the gods, and they are traditional vessels for things like corn, and blood. A bit further along we came across a skull belonging to one of the 14 sets of human remains found within the cave, followed by two sets of bones jumbled together, one a person of at least 40 and another who was in their teens or early 20s. Abraham said that in some cases it was a great honor to be sacrificed to the gods by your own people, but that they would also sacrifice captured enemies hoping to win favor from the gods. The latter was a bit more brutal, and even involved skinning the victim and a warrior subsequently wearing the skin. Ewwww. The assumption is that the skeletons in the cave were enemies brought in against their will and sacrificed there.

The highlight is definitely a skeleton in a chamber even further up which you access by a roped-in ladder. There are actually 2 skeletons up there, one of a child which they think had hydrocephalus and the other of an adult woman whose skeleton has minerals from the cave deposited on it (after having spent the past 1100+ years in the same spot) so that she glistens. She is called the Crystal Maiden, and it’s very striking to see…an experience I’ll never forget.

When we got back out of the cave we had lunch of ham & cheese burritos and veggies. They were the best vegetables I’ve seen all trip and I devoured a ton of them as well as two burritos. Then wet, cold and stuffed to the gills we stumbled back across the rivers and headed back to San Ignacio. It was an extraordinary day.

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I decided to take a couple of days to visit the Torres del Paine National Park, one of South America’s most wonderful parks and something that two days certainly does not do justice to, but I figured that a little taste was better than sitting around in touristy, flat El Calafate.  So I booked a tour from my hostel that would do a day tour through the major sites of the park and let you return on the bus the following day (or many days after) and took a night to camp in between.  It was not, perhaps, the best decision, but I saw some beautiful things.

First we had to cross the border from Argentina to Chile, which is exceedingly easy on a bicycle and which is excruciating on a bus filled with passengers, as there is paperwork for the bus, long lines, and luggage checks on the Chilean side.

We had a guide, named Roberto, who annoyed me. He insisted on speaking English to me, though I didn’t understand a word he said in English. When he’d speak Spanish, no problem, but he would always address me in English and I couldn’t understand a word of it. Nor could he understand what I said in reply unless it was in Spanish. Nevertheless, he was really chatty. The tour amounted to half of what we’d been promised, and it turns out that it would have easily been manageable hiking if I’d just gotten off the bus when we first entered the park.  But you live, and you learn. But I did get to see the Torres del Paine and the Cuernos del Paine, and a lot of guanacos, which are apparently nearing extinction, though you wouldn’t know it from their numbers around the park.  Perhaps the most striking thing to me though was the beauty of the clouds.

I got off the bus not a moment too soon and got a ride up to the camping area up from Laguna Amarga with a guy from the big hosteria there.  He was really wonderfully nice and we had a great chat on the way up there.  I tried to pay him the normal rate and a good tip but he wouldn’t take any money at all and wished me a good trip.  Quite the contrast to my experience all morning.

I found a good campsite but the wind was terrible.  Fortunately I’ve had some experience staking a tent in the wind thus far (did I mention that it is always windy?¡?) and secured it well.  I had just my day pack with my tent and sleeping mat/bag inside, a knife, matches and a flashlight.  Also some cookies.  So I headed out to the little kiosk for something more to eat.  Camping in Torres del Paine isn’t exactly wild unless you are on the backside of the TDP circuit.  The kiosk was closed for the moment, but waiting outside I found a pair of guys that had asked and heard that it would open again later.  One was from Germany, Tony, and the other, Phil, was from Denver.  But he works in Boulder.  Small, small world.  So I ate dinner with them at the restaurant and after had a bit of wine by the campfire until it got too windy.  All night the wind blew like crazy, like nothing I’ve ever seen.

In the morning I packed up camp and took a hike to the lookout at the base of the Torres del Paine.  The hike was lovely if a bit windy and rainy, and crowded.  By the time I got to the base of the Torres they were hidden by clouds;  oh well, great hike, beautiful park.  But one that I will definitely have to enjoy with more time in the future.

I really missed the pace and the ease of travel by bicycle, though, and the different way that people treat me, less as a common tourist and more as someone that is taking the time to enjoy the country.  It made me very sad to pass everything so quickly and in so common a manner.

View more photos in the gallery…
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I arrived yesterday in El Calafate, Argentina, after a rainy and rather bland bus ride from El Chaltén. El Calafate is really touristy as El Chaltén was, which is a bit of a shock to me after so much time in areas where tourism is not big business and things are a lot more simple. Of course, there are a few reasons that tourism is big business here and one of them is the Perito Moreno glacier.

Perito Moreno is Argentina’s most famous glacier and for good reason. It is absolutely stunning. It is one little extension of the southern ice field, the third largest in the world after Antarctica and Greenland.

I ended up taking a tour that allows you to walk on the glacier. We took a bus from El Calafate to Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and as we got a ways into the park you could see the glacier from a distance. We went first to the scenic walkways where you see one side of the glacier and then back across to the other side where we donned crampons and set out walking on the ice. It was incredible, and even moreso than I imagined. The glacier has the most amazing blue colors that I have ever seen, and there are big holes in it that water runs through. It was also amazingly cold for a nice summer hike!

We walked on the ice for about an hour and a half, then headed back to the hut where we had started. On the way back our guides rounded a corner and there waiting for us were cookies, glasses, and Scotch. They filled the glasses with glacier ice which was really cool…(though I normally don’t like ice with my scotch, it doesn’t so much matter when it isn’t good scotch!)

From there we took the boat back along the glacier and to the shore where we caught the bus back to El Calafate. An amazing day! Tomorrow I go to Torres del Paine National Park (back to Chile) for a too-short look at one of South America’s most beautiful spots.

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Perhaps due to too much reading as a child I developed a romantic notion of border crossings early on which, with my first actual experience crossing an international border (from the US to Canada) was quickly dashed; instead of the grand adventure I’d expected, only a bit of bureaucracy and we were in a different country. In border crossing after border crossing I’ve experienced long lines, checkboxes about fruits, vegetables and animal products rather than the wild adventures I’d dreamed of. Until yesterday.

The border crossing from Villa O’Higgins, Chile (the end of the Carretera Austral) and El Chaltén Argentina (in the shadow of might Mt. Fitz Roy) cannot be done by car or bus.

It started with a boat crossing Lago O’Higgins, a 2.5 hour crossing that generally has great views of the surrounding mountains and glaciers. I rode to the port on Saturday in pouring rain, loaded my things on the boat and took a seat. About half an hour later a member of the crew announced that there were horrible winds and waves over 7 meters high, we would have to postpone the journey to the next day. So it was back to El Mosco, where we were joined by two great Italian guys, Marco and Luca. I spent the day helping Jorge with his computer and then we all shared some wine and dinner as the evening wore on.

The next morning we were back on the boat, and this time we left, arriving a little late in Candelario Mansilla. There the border crossing is over a path that cannot be navigated by vehicles (other than bicycles!) so crossing is either done on foot, bicycle or horseback. I got a horse to carry my trailer and gear, and rode the bike, more or less. At the start you pass through Chilean immigration, then 15km later (up a steep and rocky road initially, then up a nicer path for 10 more km) to the Chilean/Argentine border.

From there it is another 5km to the Argentine border post, but along a path that is narrow, deep and filled with obstacles like rivers without bridges. Some had a single log over them, so I’d have to carry the bike and walk across, or roll the bike and walk sideways very carefully with my feet below the pedals. It was not really ridable, except in small sections. Marco was a fast walker and luckily I had his help for some of the trickier river crossings. I might have been very wet otherwise.

We got to the Argentine border post with what we thought was an hour and a half before the next step, a boat to the other shore of Lago del Desierto. Turns out, though, that Argentine clocks moved an hour forward that very day. So we had, in fact, half an hour, and that would have been fine except that the horses had not yet arrived with our luggage and would not, in fact, for another 2 hours. So we were stuck at the Argentine border until the next day, since the boats run once or twice a day.

Fortunately the Argentine border guards had a refugio, simple but good protection from the wind, where the two Italians, two Israelis and I could spent the night. They cooked us a delicious dinner of rice, beef, potatoes and homemade bread, and of course great wine.

This morning we woke to catch the boat which was supposed to come at 10:30. But 10:30 came and went, no boat. A lot of wind, though, and it turns out that the boat left the port and turned back due to waves in the center of the lake. It did finally arrive a little after 2, but we didn’t leave again until almost 6 since the winds had picked up again. After a choppy ride to the opposite shore, I decided to skip the final 40km ride over rough roads due to the fact that 1) it was new year’s eve and 2) the wind was blowing badly enough that I couldn’t stand up. Great idea, but the bus wouldn’t take my bicycle. Fortunately for me, the guy from the boat was headed to El Chaltén and offered me a ride.

It has been a wild, wonderful couple of days, and my most memorable border crossing to date…

(I’ve been taking a ton of pictures, and will update the past several posts with them tomorrow when I get speedy enough access to allow it.)

View more photos in the gallery…
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It was an amazing day at Machu Picchu, though the sun rose into thick fog so we didn’t get to see the sun shine through the window in the temple of the sun. Still, we got several hours extra at Machu Picchu out of the deal, and I had a wonderful time exploring and photographing. The photo above is of the Temple of the Sun at sunrise.
The first hour or two that we were at Machu Picchu is was raining, and raining enough that I couldn’t take photos except with the disposable I brought along. Add to that a seriously sore knee, thousands of steps and a tour that focused at least as much on the Spanish conquest and rudimentary astronomy as Machu Picchu. Jerry, One of the guys on the trip, took a picture of the group that was absolutely brilliant. All pancho-clad and soggy-looking with the most incredibly long and bored faces you’ve ever seen. Every face was hilarious and we all had a good laugh at it later that night over beer.

The temple of the condor. The natural rock formation is meant to form the condor’s wings.

The highest point pictured here is the main temple at Machu Picchu, which contains the “Hitching Post of the Sun” which of course our guide told us was a sun dial (it’s not). This is not to be confused with the Temple of the sun, where the solstice phenomenon we were hoping to observe occours. That temple is in the complex below the main temple.

There are llamas at Machu Picchu. They are planted there for the tourists and also it seems to help control the vegetation, though that may just be wishful thinking on my part. I was taking photos in a little orchid garden and this llama walked right behind me. Llamas have very interesting feet.

The rock quarry at Machu Picchu, where new stones were cut and shaped. We saw a stone that was left in the process of being split. No one knows how it was done exactly, but some theories think that the gaps were carved and wood was placed into the gaps and then soaked in water so that it would expand. In any case, a decent it of work.
We all met in Aguas Calientes before taking off to the train station to say goodbye, though it was only really a goodbye to our guides as the porters and cooks had already left and the rest of us were near one another on the train and met up for drinks once we got back to Cusco.

We all met up at the Cross Keys, a British-style pub in the Plaza de Armas. I figured that I should have a pisco sour while I was in Peru, so I had one there and it was seriously powerful. That, and a Cuscueña, had me singing for the rest of the night. And, since I woke up to catch my flight a mere 4 hours later, a good part of the next morning as well.

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