A Summary

Hi, everyone.

I traveled from August 25 thru October 25, 2008, spending 5 weeks in the Andes of Peru, 1 week in the Amazon jungle, 1 week traveling down the Amazon to Manaus (from which I flew to Rio de Janeiro), 2 days in Rio, 1 week for the Pantanal and Iguazu Falls of southwestern Brazil, and finished with 2 days in Buenos Aires. I skipped over a large section of eastern Brazil. I timed the trip to precede the wet season of the Peruvian Andes and the Amazon.

My top 10 experiences (in chronological order):

Ceviche dinner at La Rosa Nautica (Lima, Miraflores district)
Cordillera Huayhuash trek
Machu Picchu
Manu Cloud Forest Lodge
Rio de Janeiro sunset
Hang-gliding (Rio)
Howling with howler monkeys (the Pantanal)
Caimans catching frogs under a full moon (the Pantanal)
Iguazu Falls
30-oz ribeye steak & malbec wine at La Cabrera (Buenos Aires)

Honorable mentions:

“Juanita”, Incan human sacrifice (Arequipa)
Climbing Mt. Chachani, my first 20,000 footer
Pink river dolphins in the Amazon
Rainforest canopy walkway
Recoleta Cemetery (Buenos Aires)

My least favorite experience: 1 week travel from Iquitos, Peru, down the Amazon by boat to Manaus, Brazil, due to the heat & humidity and waits involved with boat travel & border crossings.

Here's a Table of Contents for the blog, which is in reverse chronological order (for reasons explained at the bottom of this summary):

Epilogue: My New Home in Bellingham, WA
Resources
Buenos Aires
Iguazu Falls
The Pantanal, the World's Largest Wetland
Rio de Janeiro, the Most Spectacular City I've Seen
Boating Down the Amazon, from Iquitos to Manaus
The Amazon Jungle of Peru
Rafting the Apurimac, the Headwaters of the Amazon
Manu Cloud Forest Lodge
The Inka Jungle Trail & Machu Picchu
Cuzco & the Sacred Valley
The Nazca Lines, Colca Canyon, Arequipa, & Mt. Chachani
The Cordillera Huayhuash of Peru's High Andes
Lima to the Temple of Chavin de Huantar
Introduction

If viewing the entire blog, you'll have to click the "Older Posts" button in the bottom right to see them all.

Below are my favorite pics, in chronological order. The captions beside them contain minimal info. More details are included under their respective sections further down the blog. I tried to use locally-owned tour companies with a good reputation for safety and ecological and cultural sensitivity. The "Resources" section lists the books, websites of tour companies I used, and volunteer and donation opportunities I learned about. My primary inspiration for the trip came from the BBC's "Planet Earth" DVD series, which introduced me to the Amazon's pink river dolphins, the Pantanal wetland, and Iguazu Falls, in addition to furthering my knowledge of the Andes (both the world's highest volcanic and tropical mountain range) and the Amazon (10 times the volume of the next 10 largest rivers combined). I apologize for the weird formatting (gaps, right edges of maps being lopped off, captions not beside the pic they describe, etc.) -- I can make them disappear in the editor, but they reappear when the blog is posted. What follows is more like a photo album, the other sections of the blog are more like a journal with pics.






The ritzy Miraflores district of Lima.

The lighted pier in the middle of the pic is where La Rosa Nautica restaurant is located, one of the best in Lima. Excellent ceviche, a Peruvian invention. La Rosa's on pilings, so the waves roll under it. A promenade follows the cliff, one of the highlights of the Miraflores district.

Lighted cross on the horizon across the bay.

Example of Moche art, pre-dating the Incas by 1,000 years. A drinking vessel, significant because it was discovered with other erotic art in the 20th century -- previously it was believed that the pre-(European)contact peoples of Peru didn't portray sexual subjects.

In pre-Columbian erotic art exhibit at Museo Larco, Lima.

Roasted guinea pig on a bed of potatoes, an Andean delicacy. La Encuentro restaurant, Huaraz, Peru.

Free-ranging llama on the route crossing the Andes from the city of Huaraz to the temple of Chavin.

Sacred stone pillar at heart of labyrinthine temple at Chavin de Huantar. Preceded Incas by 2,000 years. Priests gave worshippers hallucinogens and led them through the temple, which was furnished with auditory and visual illusory effects, including anthracite mirrors.



9-day Cordillera Huayhuash trek. Lake Carhuacocha, with 3 summits surpassing 20,000 ft.















Sunset from the same site.

And more peaks seen by pivoting right.

The next morning.

Horses dwarfed by Jirishanca (21,000 ft).

Lake of icebergs in glacial moraine, along the Lake Siula Grande "high route".

More glacial-fed lakes along the high route.

Glacier along the high route.

My favorite view of the 2-month trip: the center peak, Siula Grande, is the tallest, at 20,800 ft.

One-armed cross in front of Lake Yahuacocha, with summit of Rondoy above (19,300 ft).

Sunrise at Lake Yahuacocha, massive Yerupaja summit at right (21,700 ft).

The Nazca culture, 1,000 years before the Incas, "drew" animal designs near Peru's southern coast for unknown reasons. Achieved by removing dark stones overlying the lighter-colored desert floor.

Here is my favorite, "the Hummingbird", photographed from a small plane.

And "the Astronaut", fueling the belief held by some that the images were intended to communicate with alien life.

Colca Canyon, at almost 10,500 ft deep, is 2nd only to nearby Cotahuasi Canyon and twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.

A herd of wild vicunas, which possess the world's finest and most expensive wool.














"Juanita", an Incan human sacrifice, frozen in Arequipa.

I took this pic from the web, because the room was too dark and flash photography wasn't allowed.

Approaching the summit of Chachani, a 20,000 ft peak, just as the rising sun strikes it, while we are still immersed in dark.

Santa Catalina convent in Arequipa.

Amaru Hostel II, my base in Cuzco for 3 weeks in between excursions to Machu Picchu, the Amazon's headwaters, and the cloud forest.

The Inka Jungle Trail following the Urubamba River to Machu Picchu. An "adventure travel" alternative to the classic Inca Trail, involving mountain biking, hiking, a cable-car ride (you provide the power) over the Urubamba, and camping at hot springs.

The Inca Trail was used by the upper socioeconomic class, this by the lower one. The Inca Trail has a 6 month waiting list in peak season, the time I was there.

The monkey Martin at a rest stop on the Trail. Note the similarity in facial hair.

Machu Picchu.

Looking passed the Temple of the Sun toward the town of Aguas Calientes, from which I hiked at 4:30 am.



Manu Cloud Forest Lodge, my favorite Lodge on the trip. And the cloud forest was my favorite jungle experience, because the elevation changes allowed one to see so much.

Me at the base of a ceiba tree, the largest variety in the Amazon Basin.











The ceiba's distinctively long trunk and broad canopy.

Sensitiva mimosa. Its leaves close when touched to protect them from insect predation.

Army ants carrying young from a rival colony to feed to their own.

World-class rafting on the Apurimac River, the headwaters of the Amazon.

A narrow chute we rafted -- fast! The entire river flowed through that shaft.

Explorama Lodge in the Amazon jungle of northeastern Peru.






















Queen Victoria lily pads, at 3 ft across less than half of maximum size. Can be large enough to support the weight of a kneeling man.

A 5" wide bird spider -- only half of maximum size -- seen on a night jungle walk from ExplorNapo Lodge.









One of the world's first, longest (1/2 km), and highest (120 ft) jungle canopy walkways, near ExplorNapo Lodge.

Pink river dolphins. The Amazon has 2 of the world's 5 freshwater dolphin species.

I took this pic from the web, because they were too quick for me to photograph.

The red-bellied piranha I caught near ExplorNapo Lodge, and ate for dinner that night.

Butterfly on Explorama Lodge goalpost.

Native Yaguas demonstrating blowgun technique near Explorama Lodge.

Family reunion?

Pet sloth at Yagua village was very interested in my beard. (I was the only person there with one.)











Rainstorm as I boated down the Amazon toward Manaus, Brazil.

"The Meeting of the Waters" where the silty Amazon and the Rio Negro join, near Manaus. They remain visually distinct for 11 km downstream.

I'm on the plane to Rio.

Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro.

Launching point for hang-gliding over Rio.












Hang-gliding with Ruy Marra, pioneer of tandem gliding, doing our Christ the Redeemer impersonations.

Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue.





The progression of sunset over Rio, from atop Sugarloaf Mountain.

Horse meets armadillo in the Pantanal of southwestern Brazil, the world's largest wetland.

Howler monkeys -- only the blue whale can make a louder sound. Their voices carry up to 10 miles. We would get under a tree of them and howl, and they would howl back.

I took this pic from the web, because my camera's zoom was too pathetic to get a good shot.

4 young capybaras, the world's largest rodent, reaching 140 pounds.

Young caiman. Note the green tones of its hide, unique among the dozens of caimans I saw.

Tuiuiu stork, symbol of the Pantanal, possessing a 10 ft wing span.

Small caiman hoping to steal any fish caught by 2 tuiuiu storks.

Iguazu Falls: more annual flow than any other waterfall in the world;

270 separate falls covering 2/3 of a 2.7 km span;

Dropping 200-270 ft, with the
largest, “La Garganta del Diablo”,
sending mist 500 ft aloft;

Over twice the size of Niagara
& rivaled only by Victoria
Falls in Africa.

Peering into La Garganta by helicopter.

The different widths of the Iguazu River above the falls (right) and below (left) in this photo.

The upper falls trail.

La Garganta del Diablo. Brazil on the right and Argentina on the left.










Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.

Built like a miniature city, with each family erecting a tomb of a unique style, and the paths like streets.

The best steak dinner of my life: 30 oz ribeye with platters of warm and cold condiments and 2 glasses of delicious malbec wine for $40 (incl tip).








Double rainbow from my dock on Lake Samish, at my new home in Bellingham, WA.

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When I was writing this blog, I naively thought that the Table of Contents I was working with would be available to my readers, and, like me, they would be able to click to the section they wanted to read. Unfortunately (like every other blog I've ever seen but forgot about while writing this), in final form it's just one run-on series of entries, and because the first one written is at the bottom, the second one just above that, etc. -- and because I wrote about the entire trip in chronological order -- the sections of the trip are posted in backwards order. (Did you get all that?)