The MS Expedition – From Ferry to Outstanding Expedition Cruise Ship

The MS Expedition was built as a as a car/passenger ferry in 1972 by Helsingör Skibs & Maskinbygg, and went by the name MS Kattegat. She worked in various ferry routes before in 2008, $15 million dollars was invested in the refurbishment and retrofit to ensure that the ship is suited for expedition travel. With a focus on top of the line safety,

MS Expedition

MS Expedition

comfort and the unique demands of polar travel, the M/S Expedition was transformed into one of the world’s leading Antarctica expedition cruise with deals of 25% off available.

The 120 passenger MS Expedition is large enough to provide stability, speed, spacious cabins and ample public space, yet she is small enough to manoeuvre in remote areas and get you close to the action. Ship stabilizers ensure a smooth ride in rough waters allowing you to enjoy more of your time at sea.

Cabins

To ensure that an extraordinary experience, the maximum number of guests to 120. The brand new top-of-the-line cabins provide a variety of affordable doubles and triples, higher end double cabins and luxurious suites. Singles are also available in all cabin categories. All rooms provide outside cabins with views (window or porthole) and full private en-suite bathrooms.

Amenities

Unlike many expedition ships, where public space is at a premium, the M/S Expedition has multiple large public areas to enjoy during sea crossings and in between land excursions.

Amenities include:

Polar Bear Pub
Expedition Lounge / Albatross Bar
A barbecue deck
Top 360° view observation deck
Fitness center/sauna
A fine dining room serving international cuisine and large enough to accommodate all passengers in one sitting

M/S Expedition – Technical Specifications

Built: Helsingor Skibsvaerft, Denmark 1972

Ice class: Swedish/ Finnish 1B

Length: 105.23 metres (345 feet)

Breadth: 18.63 meters

Max Draft: 4.71 metres

Gross Tonnage: 6336 grt

Cruising Speed: 16 knots

Stabilizers: Fins, Type Brown/AEG

Passenger Capacity: 120 passengers max

Current Life saving & Rescue equipment: Covered motor lifeboats 4 pcs capacity of 192 people. Life rafts total capacity 260 people

Right now there is an unbeatable deal of 25% off all departures for the 2010/2011 season. Prices start from $AUD 3,765.

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Ushuaia – The Most Southerly City in the World

Chimu adventures’ Miles Buesst describes Ushuaia – right at the very bottom of Argentina.

Population: 74,000

No. of Irish pubs: 2

Ushuaia, as everyone knows, declares itself as ‘the most southerly city in the World’ and gateway for Antarctica expeditions. Its remoteness made it an ideal spot for a prison colony from 1884 to 1947: the inhospitality of the surrounding terrain was a sufficient deterrent to escape, just like Devil’s Island for the French or Tasmania for the British.

It also gives marketers an ideal opportunity for evocative names, one of the most notable being El Tren del Fin del Mundo – the End of the World Train – a narrow-gauge railway built by prisoners in order to help with the transport of materials, mainly wood, from the surrounding forest to the burgeoning town. Now, artfully converted into a tourist

Ushuaia

Ushuaia

attraction, it is a very pleasant hour-long journey through the Fuegino countryside, with a history of the train piped into the carriages with a trilingual voiceover: the English voice used is so posh, it would embarrass the Queen!

The train ride is combined with a trip to Tierra del Fuego (‘Land of Fire’ – another slogan-writer’s dream!) National Park, which is wonderfully located, abutting the Beagle Channel, the Martial Range, which are part of the Andes, and the frontier with Chile. There are countless sensational walks to be had here and a must on an Ushuaia tour; and this is also where the Pan-American Highway ends (or begins, depending on how you look at it), so be on the lookout for motor homes, cyclists or motorcyclists making this classic, trans-Continental journey. Their state of bedragglement should indicate whether they are starting or ending their journey!

Overall, the city is a wonderfully interesting destination and perfect for an Ushuaia stopover tour before or after an Antarctic expediton.

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Camping in Antarctica

Chimu adventures’ Miles Buesst describes the wonders of camping at the end of the world-Antarctica.

You are unlikely to get much sleep if you go camping whilst on an Antarctic Expedition in early February: sunset is at around 11.30pm and sunrise at 4.30am, and you certainly don’t want to miss either of them, I can assure you. Sleeping seems rather a waste of your precious time overnighting on the Continent of Antarctica, as, by staying awake, you can listen to the rumble of glaciers calving in the distance; watch the stars of the Southern Hemisphere without any light pollution whatsoever; or perhaps hear the sound of a humpback whale releasing air from its blowhole.

I had the privilege of experiencing all these phenomena while on the 11-day Antarctic Peninsula cruise on the M/V Plancius. A group of 15 passengers, of five nationalities, was taken by our intrepid guide, Jim, whose no-nonsense good humour inspired complete confidence.

Most people were keen to sleep in the open air, if the weather was favourable, but we still had to set up our three-man, igloo tents, in case the fickle Antarctic weather turned nasty. This took the best part of an hour, as we were all overexcited … as well as ham-fisted and clueless! Arranging one’s bedding was no simple matter either: there were two

Antarctica Sunset

Antarctica Sunset

sleeping bags and a liner to go one inside the other, and then place on two sleeping mats (one of which had to be inflated). Finally, all this was placed inside a snow-proof ‘bivvy bag’. Getting into this lot and zipping up was no easy matter, by the way, and needed a contortionist’s flexibility, combined with a trapeze artist’s strength (neither of which I have)!

Jim had recommended sleeping naked (with a hat on), as the warmth inside the bag was created by body heat. However, I’m afraid to say that I was too sissy for this, and slept wearing three tops, long johns and socks … as well as my woolly hat, of course. (I certainly didn’t regret that decision when the sunrise woke us up at 5am, and I had to emerge from my cocoon to minus 5 degree Celsius temperatures.)

Before going to sleep however, there was still time and light to investigate our surroundings, on a small hill overlooking Wordie House, an early British research station that has now been designated as a Historic Site and Monument under the Antarctic Treaty System. It was not all peace and tranquillity, mind you: we were sharing the campsite with a flock of skuas, an aggressive, territorial seabird, known to attack the heads of humans, putting one in mind of Hitchcock’s The Birds. Having seen one of these birds killing and ripping apart a baby penguin earlier in the day, I was sufficiently scared and walked around waving my hat above my head to deter attack.

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Why Antarctica is Such a Unique Location

Antarctica, larger than Europe or, makes up one-tenth of earth’s land mass. However, this continent is far from hospitable, with sustain winds reaching 192 mph and temperatures as low as negative 89 degrees Celsius. The continent is fully surrounded by water, specifically the Southern Ocean. It is this kind of rough terrain that has attracted many to travel to Antarctica on Antarctic expeditions

Penguins in Antarctica

Abundant wildlife – whales, seals, penguins, various aquatic life, and birds – are at home here in the world’s purest and most nutrient-rich waters.Masses of micro forage and krill inhabit under the huge ice shelves.Krill is the primary diet of baleen whales, seals and penguins, and is even used in Japan as a food source for humans.

Because of the extreme weather conditions prevalent in Antartica, all animals must learn to adapt in order to survive. The yearly rainfall is a mere 200 mm on the coast (less as you travel inland), and it is maintains the highest average elevation among the 7 continents.Seals and penguins are among the animals living in Antarctica who have adapted to the cold, and some plant forms of tundra vegetation and algae have also adapted to the cold.

One unique characteristic of Antarctica makes if quite important. A higher molecular density exists within the atmosphere at the poles. The greenhouse effect is more evident as a result of these intensified levels. The planet’s surface heats more quickly at the poles as the sun’s power is consumed more readily.

The Earth’s atmosphere composition is approximately 79% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. There are also minute amounts of carvbon dioxide and methane. The gases and water vapour are warmed by soaking up the earth back radiation. This phenomenon is referred to as the greenhouse effect.

Furthermore, due to the ’slingshot effect’ present at the Earth’s equator, the polar areas accumulate methane and carbon dioxide gases at a far greater rate than any other place on Earth.The increase in temperature caused by the greenhouse effect is four or five times that of warmer places; therefore, Antarctica is very significant for scientific research, specifically on the greenhouse effect.

The ice sheet that covers Antarctica is nearly 3 miles thick.It was created by the compaction of snow over millions of years.Excavators have discovered a great deal of information on prehistoric eras by drilling and examining core samples and their atomic isotopes and prehistoric air bubbles.

The infamous hole in the ozone layer is caused by fluorocarbons released from refrigerants into the atmosphere interacting with ozone.Overtime, this molecule has stripped away layers of the ozone.The resulting heat has produced the breaking and destruction of various ice sections.

The ice moves North and melts as it reaches warmer waters.This melting increases the volume of the oceans and causes the sea level to rise.As the icecap shrinks, so do the spawning grounds of the krill, which ultimately effects the food supply of the other Antarctic animals.

It is estimated that the seas would rise over 180 feet if all the Antarctic ice melted. Essentially, this would make New York seem like Venice, with water reaching the 20th floor of the skyscrapers.Countries at a lower altitude, such as Bangladesh, could be completely swallowed up and destroyed.

Most people who have been on an Antarctic expedition tour will tell you of the breathtaking beauty of the continent. Animals are not shy about the presence of humans.It is an inspiring sight to view the mixture of animal innocence and nature’s beauty.

Hope remains that current and future civilizations will value Antarctica enough to protect and conserve its perfect brilliance.  Many nations have joined together and made advancements toward increasing sustainability and preserving the natural environment.

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If These Streets Could Talk – Patagonia!

Chimu Adventures travelers – Ben and Josie Benoit – embark on a fantastic journey around South America and the world. Below is a continuation of their adventures as Patagonia!

On the Sunday, we set off at 7am to begin the 5 day or short W trek, armed with 5 days of breakfasts and lunches of bananas, dried fruit and nuts. We have 2 litres of water but otherwise we’re told you just top up from the rivers and streams. Where else can you do that? Paula also religiously followed the hostel talk’s recommendation to pack each individual item of ‘dry clothing’ in freezer bags. The idea is that you avoid layering on designer Gortex when it rains, accept you are going to get wet when walking and just rely on having some dry clothes to change into when you finally arrive. You guard your dry clothes with your life and just get used to being wet in the day. Luckily for us, we didn’t experience more than a few dribbles of rain throughout the 5 days :) .

Torres del Paine

Torres del Paine

After buses and minibuses to the park, we eventually start our east-west route at 10.30am. The first walk is a steep climb across rivers and gorges, winding around the edge of the mountain to the east side of the Torres del Paine. It takes us 2 ½ hours to reach our first night’s Refugio, Chileno, where we bag decent beds in the dorm. and stop for our final proper lunch, squashed cheese and tomato sandwiches. After lunch we head up, kit free, to the Torres viewpoint, another 2 hours uphill, and even steeper. Views are great: rugged, huge rocks and sparkling green lake. That evening, we sit down to a fab meal, with homemade bread and brownies.

Day 2 is a 4 hour walk westward on a narrow pathway, with some gorgeous blue lakes on our left and the front of the Torres on our right. The sun is shining and we’re the first people to arrive at the second Refugio, Cuernos, bagging the quietest dorm and the first hot showers. We settle down to very strong pisco sours and the conclusion of our Chilean gin-rummy championship in the communal area. Food is average but nice dorm. companions and peaceful sleep more than makes up for it…

We’re up with the sun on Day 3 and on the road by 6am, ready to break the back of the 27km before lunch time. Ben’s starting to feel a little miffed with the monotony of dried mango, pineapple, apple and banana for breakfast, but he’s soon distracted by the views of the lake in the eerie mist of the morning.

We’re feeling pretty happy that we opted not to camp when we see the miserable faces of the tented at the Campamento Italiano site at the foot of the valley Frances, which we reach after 2 ½ hours of sleepy trekking. Here we can dump our bags and carry on for the 5 hour round-trip of the valley. This is the only day where the weather isn’t blazing sun, but we only experience a few droplets of rain, although the valley remains pretty misty. The tough climb up the valley isn’t helped with our two wrong turnings, but we make it up to great 360 degree views of Torres and then skip back down in half the time (and no wrong turns). We’re back down to the campsite at 1pm, Benff down some more dried fruit and nuts and hit the last part of the route, an easy meander down to the third Refugio, Paine Grande. Legs are feeling a bit weak by the time we spy the big brown shack at 3.30pm, but it’s really nice inside – decent beds with 6 in a dorm, average food, and a real bar!

Day 4 and we’re up a little later, kicking off today’s 19k walk at 8am. It’s a fiercely windy walk to the fourth Refugio Grey, via the glacier (not very spectacular after Antarctica). We say goodbye to Chantal and Alexi, our Dutch dorm. companions from Refugio Cuernos, who take the boat back, and we’re wishing we hadn’t decided to stay the night here just to walk further alongside the glacier, because it’s a lot colder on the west side but still spectacular.

Day 5, we’re tired and frightened of the Argentinean witch and can’t wait to get out of here, have a warm, private shower and wash our clothes. We peg it back to Refugio Paine Grande, where a boat is waiting to whisk us back to the minibus, another bus, and finally, about 10 hours later, our hostal! 89km of walking later, we relax over a decent pizza with our Dutch friends in Puerto Natales. The w trek was a brilliant experience, scenery absolutely amazing.

Petito Moreno Glacier

Petito Moreno Glacier

The final leg of Patagonia was our El Calafate tour and the awesome Perito Morino glacier. We leftearly the next morning, on a 5 hour bus trip, seats 3-4 to get the best views at the front of the bus. Our accommodation is a cute cabana (small hut with pointed roof). We get to the glacier at 7.30am to beat the crowds and listen to the crackling of mini avalanches as the glacier advances (and melts). Later, we hike up a small mountain nearby to look back over the view of the glacier and surrounding (although clouded) scenery. That evening, we eat our last Patagonian lamb in the town’s best parilla (La Tablita) and are happy to be reunited with the Argentinean Malbec. Chilean wine is never going to taste this good.

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The Quieter side of the Party Capital

Whether you’re sunning yourself next to the beautiful people on Ipanema Beach, admiring the spine-tingling views from Sugarloaf Mountain or dancing samba in the ocean of colour on your Rio Carnival Tour, it’s hard to deny that Rio de Janeiro deserves its moniker, the Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvellous City).

Unbeknown to many tourists, however, Brazil’s most exciting metropolis is also the capital of Rio de Janeiro state, a region dotted with quaint colonial towns, classy beach resorts and gorgeous tropical islands.

When the big, bustling city gets too much, look no further than these laid-back gems, which are all within easy reach while you are on your Rio stopover tour and are sure to further your appreciation of this stunning part of the world.

Buzios

Until the mid-1960s, Buzios was just a simple fishing village on a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean. Then Brigitte Bardot breezed into town with her Brazilian boyfriend and things were never the same.

The relaxing town of Buzios

The relaxing town of Buzios

The French actress told her friends about Buzios, who told their friends, and it’s now Brazil’s most glamorous seaside resort, a kind of Latin American Saint Tropez.

Affluent Cariocas (Rio city folk) have second homes here and flood in for weekends and public holidays, filling many of the peninsula’s 20-plus beaches, up-market seafood restaurants and trendy clubs such as Pacha and Privilege.

Of course Bardot is everywhere as she even has her own promenade names after her. The walkway leads to the charming old village of Praia dos Ossos (Bones), which is sprinkled with cute little cottages, humble pousadas (guesthouses) and family-run shops and diners.

It’s close to the peaceful, secluded Azeda and Azedinha coves, where I spend the best part of two days snorkelling in the calm, warm, crystal clear waters, slouching in a deck-chair, reading books and drinking mango juice freshly squeezed by cheerful vendors trading out of old fishing boats. It’s a world away from the often-frantic vibe of Copacabana but definetly worth a visit to Buzios.

Ilha Grande

With no ATMs or cars, Ilha Grande (the Big Island) is the perfect place to get away from it all – although you don’t have to endure Robinson Crusoe-like living conditions to enjoy it.

The main port, Abraao, backs on to a village with all the necessities – hotels, hostels, restaurants, cafes and tour agencies. But away from there I found numerous blissfully peaceful and photogenic spots.

Ilha Grande offers plenty of fabulous beaches, plus enough adventures to satisfy your inner wanderlust.

Ihla Grande

Ihla Grande

A network of trails hugs both the coastline and delves into the mountainous interior, matted with lush Atlantic rainforest. Hiding in the undergrowth are hummingbirds, monkeys, toucans and sloths – as well as waterfalls and mangroves.

You can enjoy a three-hour trek to the spectacularly desolate Lopes Mendes beach, a long arching curve of sand that squeaked as I walked on it and where I waded into the sea to ride warm, gentle waves back to shore.

Some of the island’s treats are only reachable by boat, including a couple of lagoons blessed with vivid green and blue tones.

Despite its beauty, Ilha Grande has a dark history. It was used as a penal colony for much of the 20th century and in the distant past it was a slave trafficking centre and pirate hub.

Myriad myths and legends are attached to the island, the most famous of which concerns a shipwrecked pirate named Jorge Grego.

Though there are several variations to the story, the most popular states that in a jealous rage, he killed his daughter and her lover and spent the rest of his life solemnly roaming Ilha Grande before burying his treasure.

Some people still look for this loot on their Ilha Grande tour, others just prefer to relax.

Chimu Adventures offers many tours Brazil. All of our tours are fully customisable, check out our website for details.

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Entering Argentina

Chimu Adventures travelers – Ben and Josie Benoit – embark on a fantastic journey around South America and the world. Below is a continuation of their adventures as they enter the land of tango – Argentina:

The next day, we reluctantly pack up and leave the Awasi (complete with gourmet picnic for the journey). After our Bolivian experience, we’re dreading this 8 hour journey to start our tour of Argentina, but things are looking up as we settle into seats 1 and 2. It’s clean, it’s big, it has a big screen for films and a fully functioning toilet, the seats are enormous and we have a spectacular view. No matter that we’re sharing our trip with 30 Dutch tourists (some of whom have lost their tickets, adding on an hour at the border) and some Chilean nuns who insist on playing a Holocaust film in Spanish on the big screen. It makes for interesting company. The journey, once on the Argentinean side, is stunning: rolling hills tinged with greens, reds, yellows and blues and incredibly steep and windy descents. Interspersed with window gazing is some avid book reading and film translating. We arrive in 7 ½ hours, find our hostel, decamp and

Salta in Northern Argentina

Salta in Northern Argentina

head out to see what Salta has to offer. Immediately, the atmosphere is completely different to our tour of Bolivia. It’s much more cosmopolitan and colourful here. We feel safe and relaxed. The main square is beautiful, a small, green park framed by various beautiful old churches and buildings, with Mediterranean-esque bars and restaurants lining the pavements. We head for the nearest tourist trap with low expectations for food, but we devour an excellent first Argentinean steak, washed down by the house Malbec.

Days 2 and 3 in Argentina are the road-trip from Salta via the wine region of Cafayate and the beautiful countryside of Cachi on our Northern Argentina tour. The red-rock mountain scenery is fantastic, studded with cacti all the way. It’s a 4-hour drive to Cafayate, by which time everything is shut up for the 6 hour siesta, but we do find a small restaurant with barrel tables on the street which will serve us the staple ham and cheese toasted sandwich. We stumble upon our hotel in the absence of a map and it’s gorgeous – a traditional old stone house converted into modern rooms, with cobbled walkways and a small pool. The hotel is extremely helpful and books us on a vineyard tour for the 5.30pm tasting. It’s 4.30pm and we have to find some bikes in a shop in the square and head off to the vineyard. However, everything is still shut up so we set off on a power walk to make the last tasting of the day. We tour the vineyard’s warehouse and machinery and then indulge in sampling the famed local Torrentes wine (lighter than a sauv. blanc., really quite refreshing) and of course, the Malbec. Sun sets over the glorious vines and we’re feeling very content as we set off for another steak feast.

Back in Salta, we finally locate Johnny after weeks of trying to synch our schedules and head out for our first parilla (every conceivable piece of BBQ’d meat – chicken, beef, pork, lamb, all offal and entrails. Sweetbreads are the best – yum!). The next day, we check out some of the local sites – a green lake which we swim in (Paul loses his travelling wedding ring during one energetic diving stunt…could this be Mark Templeman no II?) and the mirador above Salta. In the evening, we saunter back into town and find the ‘restaurant’ road behind the square, a hive of beef-eating activity, and gorge ourselves on chorizo de beef again….

Day 5 in Argentina and we make our way to BA for a quick
tour of Buenos Aires before heading on to the Igauzu waterfalls. We land in BA on schedule and take a long walk in the rain and humidity, around Palermo, a district in BA reminiscent of north-east London. The botanic gardens were nice enough and there was still lots of lovely spring blossom – powder-blue – everywhere.

Iguazu Falls

Iguazu Falls

The next day, we take a late flight to Iguazu and transfer to our hostel eagerly anticipating our tour to Iguazu falls the next day. The next day we get to the falls at 7.30am, so eager to leave our sweat pit, and head straight for the Devil’s Throat, the most spectacular part of, and the closest access to, the waterfalls. We’re absolutely drenched infront of these monstrous, thundering, ferocious waters. After our soaking, we head back (via hundreds of spectacularly colourful butterflies) to complete the upper and lower walkways, to get equally as fantastic (and less wet) views of the falls. After another ham and cheese baguette (really need to find something else to eat for lunch), we embark on a 3-hour nature trek, which warns of wandering pumas. However, we’re making so much noise slip-sliding through the mud (and Stu is only in flip-flops), that the only things we don’t scare away are giant lizards. We head back after an exhausting but superb day for another parilla and disco at the hostel. Next up its on to Ushuaia at the very bottom of Argentina!

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Land of the Brave

On a journey of extremes – South America’s richest rewards are in its poorest country.

The cliff-hanging cycle tour down Bolivia’s Death Road is punctuated by rest stops at breathtaking precipices, where guides inform riders about the tragedy of others who have attempted the route before them: the bus that plunged from this ledge, killing 100; the four rusty crosses here that mark a car’s final, fatal turn; the backpacker on a mountain bike, just like ours, who took that hairpin bend way too fast and sailed into the abyss.

My wife and I are not so young and we are not especially seeking a near-death experience when we tackle the 64-kilometre Death Road, an hour out of Bolivia’s political capital, La Paz. It is our last full day on our Bolivian highlights tour, at the end of a three-month, whirlwind tour of South America, which has been action-packed enough for middle-aged risk-takers. We’ve swum with crocodiles and piranhas on our Pantanal tour wetlands of Brazil, strolled blithely into guerilla and landmine territory in Colombia and trekked to the continent’s fabled lost cities.

So we take this ride with the safest outfit money can buy, undeterred by its name, Downhill Madness. We start at 4700 metres above sea level and descend 3600 metres in a few hours, not so much for the adrenalin but because, after only two weeks in this much-ignored country, we do not want to miss a final glimpse of its boundless, heart-stopping beauty. Beneath our pedals, clouds drift through valleys. Don’t look down! Look up and a glacier steals the limelight.

Bolivia was our afterthought. It was not even on the itinerary when we left home. We squeezed it in only after the constant urging of travellers we had met on the road. They said the Salar de Uyuni tour, the salt plains that cover the biggest flat surface on the planet, must not be missed.

We entered Bolivia on a road rimming Lake Titicaca, the high-altitude lake shared with Peru. The postcard does not change at the checkpoint. The indigenous peasant farmers still herd llamas and alpacas; pre-Columbian ruins still speckle the countryside; the locals still speak Quechua or Aymara; the women wear the same bowler hats and smile with the same flash of gold-filled teeth; and, offshore, small boats made of reeds still carry fishing families to artificial islands, also made of reeds, a lifestyle that has persevered on both sides of the border for hundreds of years.

Our first stop, much like the advancing Spanish conquistadors in the 1530s, is Copacabana, 90 minutes over the border. There is little risk of mistaking this modest lakeside town for Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana. And yet that brazen child in Rio was named after this holy place. Pretty but shambolic, Bolivia’s Copacabana, one of the nation’s big tourist attractions, has no auto-teller machines foreigners can use. We discover it will be two days before the bank opens. Nearly cashless, we book in to the only hotel we can find that takes credit cards, Hostal La Cupula. It is a little above our usual standard so we’re relieved the next day to find $80 covers the huge double room with ensuite, three-course dinner with wine and breakfast.

Catholicism and Inca legend are fused in the town’s Basilica de la Virgen de Candelaria. It contains a wooden statue of a dark-skinned Virgin Mary, dating to 1583, to which miracles are attributed to this day. The grandson of the Inca ruler Manco Kapac is said to have carved the statue after the virgin appeared to him in a dream.

The next day we are three hours to the east in La Paz and witness again the melding of belief systems. At the 16th-century San Francisco Cathedral, an indigenous woman goes to the marble font of holy water at the entrance. Discreetly, she dips a plastic bag into the font, looks about, blesses herself, then leaves the church with her loot, perhaps a remedy for a sickly child or a dying mother or a failing crop.

La Paz perches improbably on steep Andes valley walls and sprawls through mountains that howl with the echoes of its vanquished wilderness. The view from slum alleys can be priceless, though the 18,000-year-old Chacaltaya Glacier overlooking the city has all but vanished, spoiling more than a postcard. It has been a vital source of water for La Paz.

The city buzzes – it is wild but with manners, in the way of a place civilised by indigenous and Spanish customs. A tough suburb in the heights rollicks to a brass band on the night we arrive, Aymara men and women dressed to the nines and dancing in the streets, unhindered by the piles of litter at their shuffling feet.

La Paz in Bolivia

La Paz in Bolivia

Our La Paz stopover tour deserves more than the few days we afford it, so we wear out our shoes on the cobbled streets of the Witches’ Market, knowing we’ll never again buy good leather boots so cheaply and never again find so many alpaca jumpers, scarves and blankets sold in so many shades of bargain.

But we have come with a grand plan. We will bus it three hours to Oruro, from where we will take a first-class, overnight train to Tupiza, in the far south of the country, from where we will ride horses into the canyons and sunsets that possessed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid until their apparent deaths in an ambush.

Sometimes the best plan is to have no plan. Ours is ambushed by a train strike.

Instead, we take an overnight bus further east, on one of Bolivia’s few sealed roads, to Sucre, the judicial capital. It is a historic, charming, manicured, middle-class university town with cheery boozing establishments and comfort food for Western palates. Otherwise, it is an inoffensive stop on the way to the far more interesting Potosi, the world’s highest city at 4090 metres above sea level.

Now UNESCO-protected, Potosi was built around the biggest silver mine on the planet. A scar of barren mountain, Cerro Rico, towers over the town. Founded in 1545, the mine bankrolled the Spanish empire and Potosi, current population 2700, grew to 150,000 by the year 1600. The mine was, and remains, a disgrace. More than 8 million miners have died over its life and many continue to die each year, either crushed by rockfalls in its shafts or, more commonly, of silicosis pneumonia or from the poisonous effects of carbon monoxide, arsenic gas, asbestos and acetylene vapours.

Every day, tourists enter the mine, which yields less silver today, more zinc and lead. It is not recommended for the asthmatic or claustrophobic. I am both. But I cannot resist this opportunity to witness men at work in conditions that have changed little since the Spanish drove indigenous and African slaves to their deaths.

Next on the journey is Uyuni which is not a destination but a launching pad to the world’s biggest and highest salt flats. Here on our Salt flats tour we discover infinity. All perspective is lost out here, where the earth is white, blindingly white. Risen from a lake – and before that an ancient sea – the baked salt earth covers 10,500 square kilometres of Bolivia, 3650 metres above sea level. It is one colossal mirror for the sun.

From kilometres away, the labourers are visible; six or seven salt miners. They are clothed from head to toe but not all can afford sunglasses. They shovel half a tonne a day per worker, for less than $20. For a little more than half that you can buy 50 kilos of their table salt. The supply seems inexhaustible and yet Bolivia still imports the stuff.

Convoys of tourists in four-wheel-drives crawl over the salt-encrusted lake, as if daring to be swallowed. We get out to take trick photographs. There is no foreground nor background in the infinite white, so we become tiny people inside a giant’s shoe, we recline in a potato chip and we poke from wine bottles as if we’re the corks.

We stop at a craggy island rising from the flats that is populated by giant cacti and walk among these eerie triffids. They have grown at one centimetre a year and many are 10 metres tall, so they are 1000 years old. We find the tallest cactus: more than 12 metres. From here we take in the flats. Everything that isn’t salt seems so tiny – the trucks, the tourists frolicking on the flats, all human history before and since the conquest.

Red Lagoon in Salt Flats

Red Lagoon in Salt Flats

That night we sleep in a hotel made of salt bricks and eat at its table made of salt, before another two days of wonders: pink flamingos swarming on lagoons coloured fluorescent green and red, the world’s highest desert, remote geysers spewing steam enough to power cities and thermal springs to soothe a traveller’s aching bones.

Back in Uyuni, there is a steady procession to Minuteman Pizza, the perfect comfort food for cold and weary travellers. We swear, like many others, that it is the best pizza on the planet. Maybe it’s just the altitude. Maybe it’s the fact they take donations for the salt miners to buy them sunglasses. Or maybe it’s all the amazing photos that travellers have left on the walls.

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Heading to the Salt Flats

Chimu Adventures travelers – Ben and Josie Benoit – embark on a fantastic journey around South America and the world. Below is a continuation of their adventures in the salt flats down to Chile:

On arrival, we breakfasted at a little hotel and freshened up before our salt flats tour set off at 10.30am. We were greeted by our guide (Jaime), our driver (Alberto) and our cook (Lydia) and set off in our Toyota Land Cruiser (Bolivian people nickname them donkeys). Our first stop on day 1 is the train cemetery, 3km out of Uyuni. It is a collection of abandoned steam trains, mostly British, and quite a sight in the middle of the desert. From the train cemetery, we drove for another 25km to a town on the edge of the salt flats called Colchani, one of few towns around the salt flat with permission to mine and trade salt on the open market. Mining has to be conducted manually using axes and spades and we saw first-hand how the salt is then dried, grinded and bagged. The factory we visited (by factory = two small rooms!) produces 1000kgs per day for 1 Boliviana per kg (~20p). We carted one bag around with us as far as the Chilean border but then abandoned it over worries of mistaken white powder.

From Colchani we started our tour of the salt flats. It is huge (80km sq.), it sparkles against the light blue sky and looks truly amazing. En route across the plains we visit a salt museum and wind up at ‘Fish Island’, a huge, cactus-strewn rock (made from coral), which affords spectacular views across the plains. We munch up our first meal

Salt Flats in Bolivia

Salt Flats in Bolivia

from Lydia, scale the island and take a 2km trot across the plains. Further across the plains by car, Jaime and Alberto pick an ideal spot to take the requisite comedy pictures that we’d decided to avoid (since everybody else has posted millions on facebook). We settled on 3 or 4, taken with the gang – see below. That evening, we bed down in a really humble village called San Juan, eat some more fabulous home-cooked food from Lydia and reflect on one of the best days of our trip so far.

We’re expecting days 2 and 3 to be a bit of an anticlimax – after all, we’ve seen the salt plains now – but we were wrong. First, we head to an ancient cemetery containing human remains from pre-Inca times, buried in rocks – slightly spooky, but fairly fascinating. From San Juan we drive across some testing terrain up into the volcanic mountains of southern Bolivia. Our route is via a number of lagoons that house thousands of pink flamingos and the backdrop to more breathtaking scenery. The first lagoon we come across has a sulphur stench powerful enough to put you off your lunch but Lydia serves up some great “albondigas” (meatballs) and “Keeynwa” (quinoa) and we tuck in by the lagoon side. Our little group is bonding well at this point and we challenge the boys to a game of cards later that evening.

The last stop of the day is at a red lagoon close to the Chilean border. The Bolivian authorities attempted to have the body of water recognised as a “modern wonder of the world” but lost out to the Iguazu waterfalls. Nevertheless, it’s pretty spectacular and definetly should have its place in a highlights of South America tour. Jaime and Alberto teach us a gin-rummie-esque card game that evening, which ends up as a Bolivia vs. Inglaterra match. They are incredible cheats but we win 4-3. We also spend time talking to Jaime about Bolivia and its struggles to recognise 37 different languages, manage regionalised phone networks and gas / electricity distribution (no national grid!) and the various points of view on the first indigenous president and his quest to nationalise resources. We bed down early (8pm), knowing that this is going to be a very cold night ahead, at 4,200 m.a.s.l. Josie buried herself in super warm sleeping bag and several blankets and subsequently work up at 2am absolutely boiling…

Day 3 of our tour is another great experience. We start the morning with live volcanic geysers, squirting grey froth into the cold air. Next, we visit a lagoon lower down the valley, where we swam in hot springs. We finish the tour at a beautiful green lake and huge volcano (5,900 m.a.s.l), which also provides the back drop to our destination in San Pedro De Atacama. We just have enough time over lunch for the Bolivian boys to even up our ongoing card game and we bid them farewell at the border.

thermal lake Bolivia

thermal lake Bolivia

So our final thoughts on Bolivia are definitely tempered by the great people we met in the salt plains and the fantastic things we’ve seen in the south. Its landscape is hugely contrasting and beautiful.

And on to Chile…
We’re picked up at the border by a Chilean surf dude driving a modern Mercedes people carrier and the relief when we see a tarmac road is palpable – the modern world for the first time in 4 weeks. Our first full day (the next day) includes a hike up to the local pre-Inca mirador ruins in blistering heat, followed by an afternoon of cooling off and an early evening of sand boarding. After several hours of trampling up steep sandy dunes, candle-waxing our sub-standard boards and wobbling down the bank to the inevitable sand-in-mouth wipe-out, we admit defeat. It was a fun experience but we won’t be swapping snow and skis for sand and boards anytime soon.

From the relatively conservative confines of our hostel we move on to the wonderful Awasi hotel at 9am on the Sunday morning. We have packed in a 4-expedition 2-day Atacama desert tour we are really keen to get going. The Awasi (which means ‘welcome to my home’ in native language) is a truly wonderful place, relaxing and beautiful with great food (3-course meals), wine and service.

On day 1, we opted for some energetic biking in the valley of death – an opportunity to retrace our sand-boarding route and take some pictures of the incredible dunes. Our guide turned out to be a semi-professional rider and left us for dust (literally), but did stop at one point to produce some first-class fruit skewer refreshments. After a champagne lunch and snooze by the pool, we set off on a canyon hike, amongst rugged mountains clad with cacti. That evening, we settled down to another superb, first class meal of scallop and salmon ceviche and rack of lamb. We’d signed up for pm star gazing, which departed at 11pm, and with visions of an hour’s snuggling in luxurious camping materials followed by mulled wine and quick departure, we set off eagerly. It was not to be. We arrive at a telescope-littered mansion belonging to the most self-indulgent French man and his long-suffering wife. After an hour playing with the telescopes (quite good fun, see some interesting things), we stand for 2 HOURS under the stars (no comfortable blankets) to listen to his drivel. We glean about 5 interesting facts but most of his waffle is dedicated to obvious statements (the earth is round), how you navigate Google to find a map of the stars and how you should woo someone whilst star gazing. What a waste of time. We return at 2am, tired and cold.

The next day we’re invigorated by a lovely breakfast and then meet our new guide for the day, who takes us on a 40K round-trip bike ride to a salt lake where we float for 30 minutes before receiving seriously royal treatment on our exit – robes, hosing down, drinks, fresh fruit, chairs and foot rests. In the afternoon we chill out and catch up on sleep before our sunset hike across the Valley de la Luna (Moon valley). This is truly spectacular – crater-like terrain surrounded by sweeping dunes. Our guide and driver leave us to enjoy a romantic sunset alone before whisking us back to the hotel, where they’ve set up a private dinner in the tented area by the pool.

Overall it was a great tour and we loved our time on our Atacama desert tour. Next is on to Argentina!

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Street smart: Corrientes Avenue, Buenos Aires

To understand Portenos (the people of Buenos Aires), one has to head to the places they live, dance, dine and mingle. First stop is the famous Corrientes Avenue. Known as the Broadway of Buenos Aires, the principal thoroughfare cuts a swathe through the city. This is home to sexy tango clubs, famous theatres and late-night cafes. In a further ode to sister city New York, Corrientes Avenue is known as the street that never sleeps. No Buenos Aires tour is complete without a trip to this famous street.

THE OBELISK

The Obelisk was erected in 1936 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Buenos Aires’s birth. At 67 metres, with a base girth of 49 square metres, it certainly makes its presence felt as an icon of the city centre. A favorite gathering

The famous obelisk in Buenos Aires

The famous obelisk in Buenos Aires

spot for celebrating sports fans, it has been used as a prop by acrobatic troupes and was swathed in a giant pink condom for World AIDS Day.

Corrientes Avenue, at the intersection with 9 de Julio Avenue.

TANGO HISTORY WALK

A group known as Friends of Corrientes Street Association aims to preserve the history and culture of the thoroughfare, even as skyscrapers sprout up alongside the old-time bodegas. They’ve put up 40 commemorative plaques on street corners to honour the city’s most important tango dancers and musicians. No tour of Argentina is complete without learning about the national dance and some even say tango started in the smoky clubs and intimate bars of Corrientes Avenue. Learn all about it on this self-guided walk, starting at Teatro Gran Rex.

LIBERARTE

ARGENTINIANS are great readers — not surprising for a nation that has produced notable authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Jose Hernandez and Julio Cortazar and several whose names begin with letters other than J. If you’re in town in April, check out the huge writers’ festival known as Feria del Libro for its lectures, book sales and the chance to hear famous authors read from their latest works. At any other time, browse the shelves at Liberarte, a left-leaning bookstore filled with offbeat journals, novels by local intellectuals and several cage-rattling political manifestos.

Corrientes Avenue 1555.

TEATRO GRAN REX

IT’S worth a visit to this grand theatre just to peek at the art deco architectural style and 1930s-era glam details. When it was unveiled to a giddy public in 1937, it was the largest cinema in South America, with a glitzy interior modelled on Radio City Music Hall in New York. Today, it’s the venue for international touring musicals, pop performances and other large-scale shows. For an authentic Porteno experience, book ahead to see some of the city’s most dynamic tango dancers strut their stuff on the stage.

Corrientes Avenue 857.

CAFE LA PAZ

LEGEND has it that revolutions have been planned here, no doubt by turtleneck-wearing, beret-bearing student activists who sip whisky late at night as they plot to overthrow the capitalist regime. In a handy position close to cinemas, bookstores and theatres, the ambient cafe is also an appealing open-after-midnight destination for gourmet pizza and a nightcap. The most popular beer in the city is an icy Quilmes Cristal; local Argentinean white wine is also inexpensive and delicious. The revolution can wait until tomorrow.

Corrientes Avenue 1523.

Source: The Sun-Herald

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