Iris, a British lady of considerable character and pluck, is on a 23
week overland expedition from Quito in Ecuador to Caracas in Venezuela.
After this, she plans to do a 3-month voluntary placement in Ecuador,
and then visit Central America for another overland trip between Panama
City and Mexico City, ending up with perhaps another 2-month voluntary
placement somewhere in South America again. This amazing journey will
take Iris one year. Here is an extract from Iris’ journey notebook.
13th December 2002: Iquitos, the Amazon,
and Bolivia
I am in Iquitos – at the frontier of the Amazonian Jungle. We arrived
here by plane five days ago and the next day after arrival went off early
in the morning up the Amazon to a Jungle Lodge called Muyuna Lodge. It
took us 2 hrs 15 mins to get there (140 kms or roughly 90 miles) and we
thought that fast but on the way back it took less than 2 hours and we
stopped for petrol. Maybe we were going with the current on the way back!
Anyway, it was quite an experience although unfortunately I was a little
under the weather there and so missed quite a few late night and early
morning excursions and one day’s excursions into the jungle. I think
the heat caused a reaction – I was dehydrating fast and had to rest and
rehydrate with electrolyte solutions and it worked. Within 24 hours I
was back on form.
We saw lots – local medicinal trees, local insects (the odd spider but
I missed the tarantulas (1) because of my illness (2) because they only
visited them at night and I wasn’t about to do that – I’d
rather face that kind of fear in broad daylight!!!) The trip I most enjoyed
was to a local village where we were invited to a couple of homes to see
how they lived and worked and to cook our barbecue of fish kebabs (catfish),
which were delicious. Unfortunately, my camera broke down, which I didn’t
realise until much later and all my excellent photos (especially of me
holding the local anaconda round my neck and one of a little 3-yr old
showing us his ultimate “clockwork” toy – a live baby caiman
(crocodile)). This afternoon we fly back to Lima and if I have time to
email again I will, before we move on to other beaches and other camp
sites!
23rd January 2003: from the Amazon in Ecuador
to the Salt Flats of Uynuni (Chile)
I spent five days on the Inca Trail and needed a shower at the end of
it as we didn’t have any such luxuries in our rough campsites. Occasionally,
we got a proper loo (washroom – Beetle) ,if loos in Ecuador,
Peru or Bolivia could be called “proper” – I’ve experienced
it all – no water, no light, no toilet paper, no soap, no sink at times!
– but Chile spoils us on the whole with beautifully clean loos with all
facilities in just about every service station en route! But more often
than not it was squat over a hole in the ground and get on with it! Of
course, at the end of the Inca Trail we were able to return to Cusco,
to our hotel there, and get a couple of nights with hot showers and to
celebrate New Year, which most of our number did in style, but as I think
I said, Judith and I just had a quiet meal and were early to bed.
And then we were off to other climes, travelling off down through Peru
and into Bolivia and that was our first real shock, to see how poor Bolivia
is. No proper infrastructure, roads that are just rough tracks so that
at times one is fording rivers without benefit of bridges. Our first big
stop was La Paz and what a town that is! I loved it there. It is so frenetic
and vibrant but mainly because of the ethnic groups (local Indians) who
set up stalls in the street so that pavements are barely visible and very
often one has to wend ones way through shoppers pausing to browse between
the stalls that are set up on both sides of the pavement with a very narrow
passage between them. But you can buy just about anything in the street
from a tiny screw which would fit a pair of spectacles to replace one
lost, to a full bathroom suite and more besides. Some of our group needed
to replace cameras which haven’t stood up to the climate and so
they got their replacements in La Paz in the street markets and came out
with some very good bargains.
But the incredible thing about La Paz is its altitude (over 4,000 metres)
and the way it is literally built down the mountainsides and I reckon
in most of the streets coming down from the summit, your knees must touch
your chin trying to get up those slopes! We were only in La Paz a couple
of days and so not enough time to see everything, but we had a city tour
and went to their Valley of the Moon, so called, but which should really
have been called “Lunar Valley” because it gets its name from
the fact that the landscape is lunar, not because of any religious connotations.
From La Paz we went off to Potosi – a very, very long drive along increasingly
difficult roads and especially because the road through the mountains
is being upgraded and there is lots of roadwork going on. Potosi is even
higher than La Paz at nearly 5,000 metres altitude and claims to be the
highest town of its size in the world. It is an incredible place and
the first night one almost took one’s life in one’s hands
trying to negotiate its narrow streets with all the traffic milling around
and it is also amazing how everyone comes out at night – the streets were
thronged with people and of course all the shops were open until whenever,
it seemed. We stayed in a hostel there for a couple of nights before going
on to Sucre, which of course, as I told you, is the capital city of Bolivia,
vying with La Paz for that title, as La Paz thinks it should be the capital
city as the seat of government is there. However, Sucre is a lot quieter
than La Paz and I suppose more “upper class” as there are few
ethnic groups there and everyone looks very cosmopolitan and prosperous.
We stayed two nights in Sucre and then took off for Uyuni which really
is at the back of beyond, a real frontier town, the gateway to the salt
flats. But as usual the ethnic groups are there in their hundreds, setting
up stalls for the tourists, and I can see that in a few years, if things
go well, Uyuni will become a large town or even a city because it is clear
that the inhabitants are planning for it that way with some quite amazing
edifices being built there. We stayed just the one night there as the
jumping off point for the salt flats and the next day all piled into our
jeeps and away we went.
Our first stop was at a small settlement just on the edge of the salt
flats where the salt is processed and one sees big piles of salt waiting
for the process to commence. And then we went on to the salt flats themselves,
and talk about “white-out”, without sunglasses we would have
been suffering from salt blindness! We were heading for a place called
“Fish Island” which is in the middle of the salt flats and is
literally covered in tall cacti. People wandered off to have a good look
at the place, but I was feeling the heat and had a slight tummy upset,
and so I was just content to sit in the shade and let the more energetic
ones do the exploring. Reports were that it was just an island of cacti,
and once you’ve seen one…. We had lunch there and were off to
our first overnight stop in a hostel where we had to bunk up, six to a
room, sharing one bathroom. The only saving grace was that we had hot
water and electricity from a generator, but of course, we had to wait
for the generator to be switched on before we got those luxuries!
Next day, we left the salt flats behind and were off to see a volcano
from a distance and to explore three lakes each full of flamingos. Needless
to say, lots of photos were taken and at one lake we had lunch and so
could linger to explore and appreciate the incredible colours the lakes
turn from the mineral deposits pouring into them – yellows, pinks, browns
– one has to see the contrasts to really appreciate them.
The next night was spent in a really rough hostel. There was a cold strong
wind blowing and here again it was dormitories with bunk beds and very
basic toilets with no running water at all, we had to flush the loos with
a bucket of water taken from a big tank, and the sink could be used just
to spit one’s mineral water out as one brushed one’s teeth
but again no running water there either. We had been told there was no
electricity but in fact they had just fitted some bulbs in the dormitories
and so when the generator kicked in at about 20:00 we were able to see
to go to bed, but in the morning, when we got up at 04:00 to get away
early, it was pitch dark except for our torches and the occasional candle
dotted about!
This last day on the flats, was very cold. We visited some geysers and
hot springs and people actually stripped off and laid down in the hot
springs; others were induced to just soak their feet, whilst the more
trepid of us just kept all our clothes and boots on and just waited for
hot drinks and breakfast to be served el fresco. And we did get hot drinks
and scrambled eggs and toast from the camping gas rings, so it was worth
the wait.
And then on to the border – the whole point of getting up early was to
get us to the border with Chile at a place called San Pedro de Atacama
and that is where our jeeps deposited us and where we were herded into
coaches for the crossing into Chile. And what a difference in Chile.
We were like schoolchildren let out after a long exam period. Okay, San
Pedro was a town of adobe houses, but the camp site did provide us with
hot showers and running water and electricity, and the town’s people
were very friendly and welcoming without being as mercenary as in other
places, demanding one buy something, one could just wander around at ones
leisure and look at the merchandise without having to keep saying: “No,
gracias.”
If you’d like to contact Iris, whether to wish her luck with her
trip or to ask questions about her itinerary and places visited, I am
sure she would like to hear from you. She can be contacted on: irisej2002@yahoo.co.uk
