Pause

It’s been brewing and stewing and I’ve finally reached that crunch point where my funds are no longer sustainable and I have to suspend my walking adventures …everyone sigh – oooooh!!! Yeah, I know 😦

So what now then?

Well, since I am now engaged and my girlfriend lives in Germany, it seems like a good idea to venture that way. Figure I might try to start a business in the world of hiking if I can get the visa for it. Hopefully that will support me sufficiently to continue walking the world for love. Who knows, but things are changing and I really hope I can keep doing the thing that I love so much.

As for the rest of South America, it was really unreal. Bolivia was particularly captivating, but not just for the hiking. We were there for Gran Poder, a massive costumed parade of marching bands and dancers paying homage to Jesus, not without a drink or two or three or four of course!

We spent a fair stint of time in La Paz waiting for the weather to improve  in a particular region and so Jana took on some more Spanish lessons – rather useful. And in theory this time would help us to adapt to the high altitude. We hiked the Choro Trail with an extension at the start and well actually, that was the highlight of the walk. Perhaps we have turned into landscape snobs but it just wasn’t a hike that was particularly impressive. We attempted  a couple of other trails too but were struck with sickness. Our warm up high altitude hike around Mt Illimani certainly introduced us to the effects with a slower pace and stopping every time we needed to take a drink.

Then the hike of all hikes in Bolivia was the Cordillera Real Traverse.

This is probably Bolivia’s equivalent to Peru’s Huayhuash just a lot less known and traversed. We did a new route along the front of the mountain range which meant we had fantastic views to Lake Titicaca along with the incredible mountain scenery. Unfortunately we didn’t finish the whole route as planned since I was suffering substantially and quite sick from the high altitude and cold.

We did the standard classic hikes in Peru and loved them all. More so because by that stage we were better adapted to the conditions. Though one condition Jana wasn’t so adapted to was the incessant beeping of car horns common throughout South America. She was pretty much done so I was glad when we got to Ecuador and things changed, including the transition from the rugged grey and barren mountain landscape to green green and more green. It was very refreshing.

The hikes we did in Ecuador were the Quilotoa Loop and the Condor Trek though we pulled out of the latter when we were hit with a snow storm and couldn’t see a thing with no signs of improvement for the remainder of the trek. So what’s the point really!!! One very special highlight before this though made our efforts worth it.

We had intended to leave South America after our time in Ecuador but we heard so many great things about Colombia and the travel warning was reduced so we ducked into the country for a whirlwind 3 weeks. We missed out on the Lost City trek as it was closed after a hurricane had swept nearby so we only did a short trek in the Los Nevados National Park. The funny thing about this hike is that for the first time we took a guide since we had no maps or gps data and park regulations stipulated this requirement, and it’s the first time we’ve been lost! How’s that hey!!! Well OK we weren’t completely lost but we certainly weren’t on path.

So Colombia was the end of South America and it was home sweet home for me. LOVE Australia.

I’m off to my second home in July and if I can possibly squeeze in another short hike – well, of course I will 🙂