Cordillera Blanca

On Sunday we arrived to Huaraz (3000m), the city where most of the And's Cordillera Blanca tracks start. We got caught by local guy and we went to hostel of his choice as it was very cheap. Hostel Nana for 35 sol (10 usd, 260 czk) for quite good two bed room with hot shower and Wi-Fi and very friendly landlady. We in the end bookend 4 day Santa Cruz tour with a guide for 350 sol (100 usd, 2600 czk), but found out later it can go even 50 sol cheaper. We looked for acclimatization options and I decided to go biking and Ivo to do short hike. I rented bike for 50 sol, got a hint for nice single trek starting 1000m above Huaraz and went incredible 4 hour ascent up. It was quite tough to breathe this attitude out. I did a short detour as I missed start of a trek, but later jumped down on it. It was hard one and I had to carry the bike over some very stony parts but I was great fun in the end. I stopped in two thirds as I saw some local barbeque. The people weren't really used to gringos - white people. But the barbeque was great. I did some small English lessons with local childs and as it started to get darker I went to finish the trek. It was 45km in total.

Next morning we woke up before six to join the collectivo to take as to the start of Santa Cruz trek. We paid national park entrance fee at the entrance gate to a guy who was illiterate and couldn't count. He had even hard time to use calculator as he had to match numbers on the notes with numbers on the calculator :-) It was 4 days trek going up from 2900 to 4750m and back to 3300m. And total distance of 48 km. The scenery was fucking beautiful. We went to see the lake on the second day, with beautiful glacier scenery. Third day we passed the highest pass point with beautiful scenery on both sides. There was stream along the way most of the time so I took freezing bath on 3rd day. But it was fucking freezing during every night. At least we got surprising food from the guys, like fresh fish on 2nd day or popcorn on the last night. The last day we took collectivo back through mountains passing 4700m with nice view over Huarascan - the highest mountain in Ands. Very beautiful experience where pictures speak for themselves.

Amazonas

We arrived to Iquitos airport quite 10km from the city. That was Tuesday morning. There were hordes of taxis and mototaxis fighting for us. Poor people. We took mototaxi ride for 5 sol (1,5 usd, 40 czk). In general transportation is very cheap here, but streets incredibly busy. I saw guy paying couple of soles for scooter rental. We jumped into hostel and met one local guy named Jorge. He was very calm and was direct contact to the jungle. He spoke quite English. We liked him both. We checked one more agency, but liked the local guy more, rather than fancy shared touristic tour. The price with the guy was 400 sol (120 usd, 3000 czk) for 3 days Amazonas jungle trip. We went around the city later that day and found out everything quite expensive mainly because most of the things are imported. Iquitos is the biggest city in the world not accessible by cars. But we still found also some local places with very cheap food. The difference is quite serious from main promenade's 30 sol lunch to market's 3 sol launch. The promenade was quite busy in the evening with musicians, street theater and some ridiculous gambling like guinea pig running to a random hole while people take bets on the holes.

Next morning we met our guide 7am with his wife and took a ride to Nauta. You could see a lot of tropical nature along the way similar to Thailand for example. We were shortly in Nauta and our guide collected the food and we went to check the market and take breakfast. It was probably the most authentic market so far. No other gringo (white tourist) there. Breakfast was variation of food and some special fruits for couple of soles again. We took a 2 hours boat ride to Jorge place within one small community on the river. His place was basic without electricity and bath room, but still okaish for what we expected. Only his father lives there. Jorge takes tourists there from time to time. We went for fishing in the afternoon. The goal was clear - catch the dinner. We cought couple of piranhas. We went to observer river join later during the sunset to se dolphins catching the fishes. Fish for dinner as every day and after that we went for night fishing again around 9pm during the full moon. The fishes sleeps at the coast close to surface. We took headlights, paddles and spears. It was quite successful hunt and I never thought it would be so easy. We cought couple of fishes of breakfast and also a frog :-)

The Jorge was partially illiterate. He never attended school but learnt some letters from people. He had mobile phone but he had hard time to use it. He wasn't even sure how to plug it into outlet. His father was even more extreme. He never left jungle. If you looked into his eyes, you couldn't see anything. They were covered with white cloud - so scary. When I ask how he goes to doctor Jorge answered that he is a doctor - he is a local shaman. That was interesting fact as I wanted to proceed the Ayahuasca shaman ceremony. We talked and made a deal that next day when we plan to stay in jungle, Jorge's father will join us and do ceremony. In the morning we packed our stuff and left for jungle after breakfast. The plan was clear, stay whole day and night inside jungle. We took the boat, found the place and set the base camp. Sleeping and cooking was very basic. As we were supposed to proceed with ceremony in the evening we had to take a diet. Only rice and fresh vegetables and fruits. Afternoon we went for a trip to jungle. It's hard to spot any wild life in jungle. But we saw few monkeys and birds, lizard, giant dragonfly - at least 20cm wing span. And many different kinds and colors of butterflies. I also saw strange glowing purple leafs on one of the trees. Jorge found some larva in some nuts and ate few together with Ivo. I didn't joined them :-) It took some time before we found the way back as we lost the track. Jorge was super oriented and said that he can do couple weeks tour and he won't be lost in a jungle. We made our way with a machete. Some parts were quite tricky and at one point a stepped into little swamp so deep that I got some mud into my rubber boot. It was super hot and sweaty weather. It felt and even smelled like in a greenhouse.

Back in the camp, Jorge said bye to us to went for a father so we were left alone. We sprayed ourselves with army load of DEET so that it was dropping even from my balls. The sun was leaving us and jungle was getting louder and Jorge nowhere. We were still trying to keep calm and he came with father just after sunset. It was time for night jungle trip. We won't go far so the rubber boots are not necessary, Jorge said. Going through the nature explaining all the poison friends while walking in sandals wasn't the greatest feelings. Poisoned scorpions (poison can kill) and ants (20 hours to die). Extra large or extra strange insects. I felt like doing my biggest mistake in my life. Not to say that we're going to spend night in jungle along the Indian with machete and shaman with white eyes and they gonna serve us with their special tea and we all gonna vomit afterwards to release the demons. Starting in just couple of moments.

It's a next day, but I still feel like its continuous day. I didn't slept much. I still feel dizzy but my stomach is at least ok. I took a short early morning swim in river and I had time to thing about last couple of hours. Honestly I had interesting experience, but I'm pretty sure I don't wanna repeat it. In short, we had two most terrible, definitely organic, shots coupled with couple of shaman joints. Looked like everything was in the hands of this jungle expert who never saw the city. He was doing ceremony around it consisting of strange words, songs and smoking on each of us to our face, hearth or head. Again and again until the release was supposed to come. But before that were stoned states. I felt super slow and super relaxed nearly flying. Ivo started to release shortly after the second shot and I knew that it gonna happen to me too. My body was ringing me some alarms. I had stomach problem and also felt the high blood pressure and hotness. But I didn't released. I lain down later as I was feeling sleepy. That was another state where I felt like dreams coming true. I felt like in a dream but I could manage it's script. The scenery was changing every second and it was incredibly fast paced. Most of the scenes were very abstract and incredibly creative. The shaman was still siting next to me and blowing his smoke. He even offered me 3rd shot but I rejected. He was waiting for my release, but I was enjoying my dreams. This took me couple of hours before my body said stop, we gotta clean you. He gave me some more non-oral medicine afterwards to further clean me and I felt little refreshed after all this and relaxed for two more hours before sunrise. The shaman was careful and was taking care of whole night. Even I didn't felt any new mental direction or any strong real life thoughts, it was still interesting to experience this on a physical side. But what fascinated me was sense of those people for nature. You could feel it at every corner. For example the shaman had hard time to see top from a bottle dropped in front of him many times during the ceremony, but when he first time entered tent in the night, he spotted ant meter away right away without any light. The Jorge was same, when walking down the jungle in the night, he entered some area and just shout "spider" and turned light on spider climbing up the tree 2m away. His wife was on the other hand specialist with a fire. I saw her sitting behind the pans and didn't saw her hands, but she kind of touched the fire to put more fire on, like you would turn the button on the oven. Very impressing. They truly were born in jungle.

Kuala Lumpur (Pav.)

Zdravim,
tak nejak se o tenhle blog delime s Markem, ono je to i prihodne nazvane cestovani casem a prostorem, tedy alespon pro toho kdo to cte, jestli vubec nekdo krom nas dvou :D ... nevadi, i tak me to bavi sem tam neco nasmolit, tedy do toho ... (tem s lepsi cestinou nez je ta moje se predem omlouvam)

Tak nejak jsem na sobe letos z jara zacal pocitovat abstinencni priznaky po cestovani , osobni rovinu tu rozvinout nehodlam, co se prace tyka(KISS) keep it simply stupid, uz me to proste sralo, a nemel jsem pocit zlepseni v mne prijemnem casovem horizontu, tedy jednoduche reseni, I QUIT ! Super to by jsme meli ale co ted, mno rikam si sam sobe, na jizni ameriku neumis spanelsky, casu dost, zkusenosti mas lehce z asie, videl jsi jen zlomek tak to dotahnem a naucime se u toho neco noveho ...


Alef, jeden muj znamy se dopustil podobneho cinu, zlomil tu hul pravidelnosti a znameho komfortu a odesel jak "hloupy Honza" do sveta za poznanim a dobrodruzstvim. Musim priznat, ze mne trochu inspiroval, kdo vi, mozna jsem jen v sobe hromadil odvahu se rozhoupat a proste uzral cas. Tim se dostavam k meritu myslenky, tento clovicek aktualne provozuje ***** PADI center v Thajsku, sest let zpatky to byl nouma co odesel z korporatu jako ja, mno potapeni je super, do ted je moje setkani s karetou obrovskou v indickem oceanu jeden z nejsilnejsich zazitku co mam a tak si rikam skocime do toho po hlave a vylezeme jako divemaster, mno uvidime ... zatim je to plan. 

Kuala Lumpur ... tak, malinko jsem nastinil co se tak seslo ze jsem zrovna tady, KL je z pohledu evropana proste krizovatka asi jako Singapore, tam uz jsem ale byl a tak padla volba na KL, musim rict ze rozdil neni tak markantni jak jsem cekal, je to ale o dost spinavejsi nez SGP, denne vidim zeny bezdomovce spat na dlazbe pred obchodem na ulici i s detma, pro evropana nic moc na traveni ale drzim se drzim a penize z ruky nedam, koupil jsem mistnim detem bonbony jak jsme si zvykli s Markem v Indonesii protoze penize by utratil jejich rodic za alkohol.

Co mne bavi je ten kontrast krestan vs. muslim viditelnej temer na kazdem rohu, i kdyz tady je muslimske vyznani v tezke dominanci v kazde restauraci je menu vyrazne oznacene podle toho z ceho je jidlo pripraveno, western cusine, muslim etc. ... alkohol je tu extremne draha sranda, ja pinda z cech nejsem zvyklej platit za pivo 250,- ... jeste ze pivo nepiju ale rum je stejne drahej a to uz me sere :D ... no nic, neprijel jsem sem chlastat ale potapet se, zatim se na to nedostalo, vse ma svuj cas ... tak se tak valim treti/druhej den v KL, zeru co se mi libi, nasledne to plivu ven pac to chutna o 180 jinak nez to vypada ale je to sranda ... koupil sem neco co vypadalo jako susenej ananas ale bylo to palivejsi nez co jsem doted zkusil, jeste ze se tu daj koupit rambutany na kazdym rohu.

Ubytoval jsem s Reggae Mansion, musim rict ze jsem podle nazvu cekal malinko neco jineho ale jsem maximalne spokojenej, pokoje tu jsou bud single, double nebo pro 16 a 24 lidi, na jednu stranu to vypada masove ale v momente co to clovek vidi mu dojde jak dumyslne je to udelano a pokud nejste nejaka fiflena tak to date, resp ... uvedomite si ze jste na cestach na pul roku, musite setrit kde to jde a nocleh je asi nejsnadnejsi, nebot ve finale chcete jen suchou teplou postel kde budete spat, srat na to ze neni zlatej lustr, zarovka udela stejnou sluzbu.

Je 4:18 rano mistniho casu, jet lag dela svoje a zatim spim uprosted dne a ted ne a ne zabrat, davam tomu chvilku a srovna se to ... do te doby se mejte uzasne a budte happy!

Pav.

Traveling alone

I prepared this special post as this is the first time I'm traveling alone. It was unplanned as my mate got sick before the flight. I was very scared originally to go to developing country, do crazy stuff without knowing more than couple of Spanish words. But I decided to go as most of the travelers I met so far and were travelling on their own were recommending it. And after two weeks experience I can say I love it. I never felt so much flexibility. I never was kind of forced to meet new people. I'm basically boss of my time. If I want to stay alone I can. If I want to meet new people I can. And its much easier to meet other travelers on the road with similar goals than meeting new people in the bar. There are only few things making it difficult. Sharing some small expenses like taxi's and having to organize everything myself. But I found the second point actually benefit and first point I don't care. Because I don't have trouble to spent money here and there if necessary and I always choose the best option for me. Sometimes I fly, sometimes I stay, sometimes I move fast. Sounds little bit selfish, but that's how I prefer it here where I move every second day or so. So far I met those people which were very graceful to me and I spent with them more than one moment. First I met Yayushka on the plane from Lima to Cuzco. Originally from New York, living in Mexico with Russian name. We had a short talk as he sat next to me. Surprisingly we met two days later on the Machu Picchu gate so we spent a day together. And furthermore what the chances are, we got the seats next to each other on the train back to Cuzco from Machu Picchu. Yayushka went back home to Mexico.

Then I met Slovak girl Jana who is travelling around South America for 13 months already. I met her on Antimani island where she was host in some other family. And also Leila, Argentinean girl, we danced together where possible :-) We further moved to La Paz together with Jana and spent another day before our ways separated.

Then I met Francisca, Chilean crazy girl on a bar in La Paz. I met her once again when I came back from Uyuni and when I got sick and she was nicely taking care of me. Lovely girl.

I also met Sandra from Mexico on a 3-day Bolivian trip. She was travelling on her own so we paired to help each other with photos and stuff.

On the lonely times you could enjoy Wi-Fi spots at every place to keep in contact with people and manage stuff little upfront. Even some buses had the Wi-Fi onboard. Last but definitely least were the little flies especially aggressive around Machu Picchu. You don't feel them biting you. But give it a day or two and they will show their power with incredible itching. My leg even grown from so many bites. Not really friendly mates :-)

One more surprising thing about people here is that in a two weeks, I didn't saw any single local person smoking. I saw a couple of tourist though. I will keep watching but something is different here :-)