Journey to Cuzco

Just got off a 24 hour bus ride to Cuzco. This is the old Inca capital and seems to be where all the tours and stuff go from.



The bus ride was a bit crap cos they didn´t feed us much but there were some awesome views of snowcapped mountains and valleys full of tiny shacks and farms.

Cuzco is over 3000m above sea level so it´s a good place to acclimitise. Hopefully we will find some people who are up for going on a trek through the Inca valley with us and then after that we will go see Machu Pichu.

Arrived in Peru

Got to Peru OK :) Am currently in Lima, staying in a hostel in the touristy area called Loki Hostel. It´s very friendly and full of young travelly people. Haven´t had any adventures yet, just been scoping out the area.

We managed to find a climbing centre 2 minutes away from the hostel. It´s mainly just bouldering routes with a couple of top ropes. If this gym was in England there is no way it would pass health and safety! Feared for our lives when top roping. Possible causes of death include swinging into the electrical wiring on the house opposite, or mixture of plywood and thin rusty walls failing on a fall. Plenty of mats though so np. Met a couple of scandinavian climbers there who we are planning to meet up with at a later date.

After we checked in to the hostel we went for a wander and some huge guy who calls himself "boo yah" showed us his tattoo parlour. Some really cool designs, am thinking of getting something done before leaving Peru.

Heading off to Cuzco in a couple of hours. This is a town in the mountains near Machu Picchu. Gonna do some trekking there and then maybe explore some more stuff in South Peru before heading up to Huaraz. Talking to people last night though there seems to be some road blocking going on which has stopped people travelling south. Locals have been barricading the roads!?! Maybe this is in the news but I have decided not to read any news for the entire trip.

Apart from the roadblocks we haven´t heard of any dodgy stuff. Folks who have been to Columbia, Venezuela etc seem to have only good things to say. I did wake up in the middle of the night to some English guy screaming at the top of his voice "IVE BEEN ROBBED!" for a good few minutes.

Spanish is terrible but not as bad as Reynolds´s. He´s been revising pick up lines from my phrasebook haha. More updates soon, adios :)

Climbs

There are a number of climbs that we have been looking at.

The first is a mountaineering trip in the Cordillera Blanca. This is a range in the Peruvian Andes with the highest and most famous peaks. Depending on conditions, change of difficulty due to glacier melt, climbing partners etc I would like to tackle a couple of peaks there, preferably Pisco to acclimitise fully and then Huascaran.

The rest of the hols we will try to fit rock climbing in wherever the opportunity arises. The only other climbs I have been specifically eyeing up are some sport routes in Brazil. These would be right at the end of the trip. All three look like fantastic climbs though.

Sugarloaf mountain and Corcovado both overlook Rio de Janeiro. Corcovado is famous for having the Christ the Redeemer statue on the peak. This would be really cool to climb, esp popping over the balcony with all the tourists there, although from what I can tell the route isn't entirely protected by bolts. We will have to get a guide book when there and investigate further. Sugarloaf is fully bolted :)

The third rock climb is called Dedo de Deus. It means "finger of god" and is one of the more famous climbs in Brazil. This has some 5 pitch climbs. Again we will have to check local guidebook for details on whether entire routes are bolted or only parts.

Rough route

Time has flown by the last few weeks. Am getting more excited by the day :) The ice climbing lesson in London was rly fun and am looking forward to doing some more. My room in Camberley is now totally empty, everything is ready to go.

Here is a map of potential places to visit. Will roughly follow that route although might miss half these places/countries if we find something better along the way or if we get waylaid by indigenous rioters, swine flu infections or worse.

View South America Plan in a larger map

A taster...

As a taster here are some pics from my ice climbing lesson in London.

Also a video :)

For people who I haven't verbally spammed about this enough, I'm going with my mate Reynolds. We are not going to travel to a schedule but just make our way slowly from Peru to Brazil. Will be uploading some rough ideas of things we are planning to do including a map maybe in the next few days. Stay tuned.

P.S. 8 more days WOOOOOOP :P