Thankfully I have enough identification on me to prove my identity at the bank, so that I have enough cash to tide me over to Saturday. Bondi is not as manic as I was fearing, probably due to it being relatively cool at 25 degrees Celsius, and grey and overcast.

That’s about it for this years travel blog. I am often asked how many photos I have taken on a trip – the answer for this trip is whatever 550GB divided by an average file size of 25-38MB is.

The LAN flight from Santiago passes quickly, and in no time we are disembarking in Auckland for a 45min stopover. My only ambition is for a quick shower before getting back on the plane. Auckland turns out to be a eventful stopover as I am as usual randomly selected for the explosives test. Well, this time I get my money’s worth, as a swab of the exterior of my camera back throws up an explosives reading. All that wind in the Atacama must have blown some dust from the mining operations my way. That or the sulpur from the salt lakes is enough to trigger it. Out comes the duty sergeant, and out comes the black Labrador to check the bag. The dog is completely uninterested in the bag, so I it looks like I will have time for a shower afterall.

Before heading back to Melbourne, I have 4 nights at Bondi Beach in Sydney. Music to any traveller’s ears when arriving at a hotel at 10am is yes, we have a room available for early check-in, and I will love the Swiss Grand Hotel forever for it.

A sunny early morning in Bondi:

Far less lovable is the Bendigo Bank ATM retaining my ANZ debit card when I try to withdraw some Australian dollars. The ironic message from the universe is not lost on me. Now I am stuck in Sydney tonight with no cash. My only other card that can access cash (also an ANZ product), stupidly only works overseas. Yeah, welcome home. What time is the next flight back to South America?

One of my favourite places in the Atacama Desert is Salar de Tara. Nearby is Salar de Pujsa, home to a large number of Andean and Chilean flamingos, some ducks, and various shore birds. It is a great way to spend the day prior to driving to Calama in the late afternoon for the 18:30 flight to Santiago.
Strong winds play havoc with the take-off of a couple of Andean flamingos:

More graceful when airborne:

LAN is reliably on time, and it is sad as always to leave the long, thin country that is Chile, for the long flight back to Australia. The love affair with Chile and the Atacama Desert is far from over. I can already see myself returning for a fourth visit to the Atacama in the near future.

Today is an all-day hike from Machuca to Rio Grande, starting at about 3400m, and descending on foot to about 2700m near to the village of Rio Grande. This is a gorgeous hike, quite easy, and passes through some stunning scenery and groups of abandoned stone houses. Pierre insists he is not hung over, but he is moving much more slowly today and I can keep up with him most of the time J. The abandoned settlement of Penaliri is the venue for a short picnic lunch, before walking down further to meet the 4WD waiting at the improvised bridge over the Rio Grande.

 It is really easy to go to San Pedro de Atacama and think it is all about geysers, lagunas and salt flats. Without hiking in the more remote areas (we didn’t see anyone other than the local shepherds all day), you miss out on scenery like this:

I visited Lagunas Miscanti and Miniques on my first trip to San Pedro in 2006, and wanted to revisit them to rework some photos. We are also heading out to Aguas Calientes and Laguna Tayuacto, which are further afield and less regulated.

At Laguna Miscanti, we encounter a convoy of Brazilian tourists in no less than 15 vehicles, and don’t linger. Laguna Tayuacto is a find – completely deserted, accessible down to the water line (which Miscanti and Miniques are not), and absolutely spectacular. Gracias Pierre!

It is absolute bliss to arrive at Awasi for my second visit. Pure luxury by this stage is a shower that works, a comfortable pillow and a bed that is not made up for minus 10 degrees when it is 27 degrees in the room. I actually managed to sleep for a solid six hours last night, a vast improvement on the two hour stretches in Bolivia due to (bizarrely) it being too hot in the hotels I was staying in.

This morning is a visit to Puritama thermal springs, which I have never visited before, but is now on my must-visit list for future trips. Puritama is made up of 7 thermal pools fed by a running river of hot water. It is reasonably busy, so I end up in the 7^th and coolest pool, at the end of the complex. It proves to be a good choice, as the waterfall is at its strongest here, and provides an excellent, relaxing, warm water pummelling for the back and shoulders.

One of the reasons I have been to San Pedro three times is that I can’t get a sunset photo that I am happy with. Pierre and I hike through Moon Valley from an abandoned salt mine to a vantage point up on a very windy ridge, which puts the tripod I have lugged along on the hike to the test. Pierre is a mountaineering trainer, and by definition very fit, and the only place I feel like I can maintain the pace he sets is on level ground, which is rarity in Moon Valley. On descents and ascents he leaves me for dead. After three hours of hiking, following a relaxing morning, I am sure I will sleep well tonight. And I still don’t have a sunset shot that I am happy with.

An early start this morning, with geysers and lagunas on the agenda before crossing into Chile around midday.

We start with the red lagoon, at around 4400m, famous for the red tint it shows from a particular form of algae, before ascending to around 4900m, to see the active geysers nearby. The geyser field is small but active, with boiling mud pools throwing up regular splashes of grey, clay-like mud.

Near to the Bolivian border, Laguna Verde is a popular spot for the rich green colour of the water, directly underneath Licancanbur volcano. Today there is a howling gale adding white-caps to the surface of the lake, and we don’t linger long.

It is 15 Bolivianos to exit Bolivia at the border, and the transfer company is already waiting for me to clear immigration, so that we can proceed to the Chilean immigration point in San Pedro de Atacama, about 100km away.

The Chilean government has been busy improving the road leading into San Pedro de Atacama from Bolivia and Argentina, but have yet to fix the problem of Paraguayan truck drivers throwing their rubbish out of the truck window onto the roadside.

I arrive at Awasi at around 2pm, and declare the rest of the afternoon a rest day J until I meet my guide Pierre for the next 4 days at 5pm. Given it is my third visit to San Pedro, Pierre throws away the defined list of outings and gets the map out. I am well adjusted to the altitude having come down through Bolivia, and the only thing I am wedded to is making tomorrow an easy day so that I can catch up on some much needed sleep.

Today is the last full day on the road in Bolivia, and we are close to the Chilean border. There are many lagoons on the way to the Hotel del Desierto (it is literally the ONLY building in Ojo de Perdiz), and there are many flamingos on each lagoon, as well as some approachable vicunas. There are some spectacular volcanoes along the way, as well as a lot more traffic heading to or from Chile.

Pescado Island, or Fish Island, gets its name from its shape, which resembles…a fish. It is a substantially larger island than nearby Isla Incahuasi, and is rarely visited. Luisa and I decide to circumnavigate the island on foot, which is about 6km roughly. It is an amazing island, with dead coral reefs that show that this area was covered by a sea. It is also home to a healthy population of cactus, and judging by the number of dead birds and animals that have been washed down to the ʽbeachʼ area, also has a healthy population of wildlife. Much to our surprise, we find hummingbirds sampling the sprinkling of asters and other plants that manage to survive here. Los mujeres locos (the crazy women) have been gone so long by this point that Simon the driver arrives to find us.

Travelling at Christmas has it’s down side – we can’t find a hostel open in any of the villages we pass through to stop for lunch at, so we end up setting up a table in the entrance to Los Galaxis. This is a rarely visited tourist stop, and was only discovered in 2003, quite by accident, by two men looking for chullpas (mummies). On opening the cave, they found not mummies, but an amazing geological formation. The only way I can describe it is to call it a natural version of the nave in Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Completely white, it is a combination of petrified coral, and what looks to be seaweed or some form of sea plant. Higher up in the cave is what appears to be the formation of rock quartz or amethyst. It seems to have escaped the attention of visiting geologists, who tend to come to visit the volcanos, but to find a cave like this with coral and seaweed that has gone through a catastrophic volcanic event  at 3700m above sea level is astonishing.

Elsewhere in Bolivia, the fall-out from the governments sudden doubling of the price of gasoline is being felt. The radio has reports of gas stations closing down and the cost of public transportation in La Paz doubling overnight. The hotel I stay at tonight in San Pedro de Quemez has enough diesel to last until tomorrow night, and even then they only have the electricity on between 6pm and 11pm. At each hotel I have stayed at, and they are the ʽbestʼ hotels in the region, hot water is only available in the evenings, and electricity is only on for a few hours each night. Each room has a candle, but I find my headlamp is more useful for finding the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I am glad to be heading down in to Chile, as there are apparently travellers stranded in Uyuni as the tour operators are having trouble obtaining diesel, and there are protests on the streets of La Paz.  Luisa and Simon have enough diesel on top of the 4WD to pick up their next passenger at the Bolivian border on the 30^th, and to return to Uyuni, but they have no idea after that whether there will be enough diesel in Uyuni to undertake future trips.

Coquesa is a small (make that tiny) village on the shoreline of the Uyuni Salt Lakes. Surprisingly green, it is able to support a sizeable population of llamas. It is also home to a series of caves that house mummified remains of indeterminate age. One of the caves is accessible to tourists, and the others are walled up and protected by the local community. The cave at Coquesa is not for the faint-hearted or the claustrophobic. It is entered through a 1 metre high doorway, and has one family group and other assorted mummified remains. One of the mummies still has hair.  Luisa and I try to hike up to the viewpoint to look into the caldera of the Tunupa volcano, home to the Coquesa mummies, and some very odd looking white-faced llamas with short ears. It is starting to rain by the time we make it halfway, and we are not properly equipped for cold, wet conditions, so we turn around and head back down again. I jokingly tell Luisa that the conditions will be clear by the time we reach the village again, and it turns out to be so – the weather around the volcano changes so quickly that the caldera is again visible from the village by the time we arrive for lunch.

Tunupa is a stunningly beautiful volcano, and I spend most of the afternoon trying to capture the colours it displays. I have quite a few opportunities to do this, as Luisa and I decide to walk to Chantani, the next village along, which is about 3.5km away at an altitude of around 3700m. In Chantani, there is an amazing one-man museum with the collection of a lifetime spent fossicking for pottery, dead animals, beads, and stone utensils. Across the road is a sculpture garden, with local volcanic rock and coral used to create sculptures of llamas, condors and even the occasional elephant. It also has the cleanest baño I have found outside of a hotel so far in Bolivia. I tell Luisa that the owner should put up a sign that he has the cleanest baño in the area, and make some money by charging to use it. Compared to the latrine on the hiking path up to Tunupa, it is heaven-sent.

Tonight’s accommodation is at the Tayka Salt Hotel in Tahua, which has spectacular views of the other side of the Tunupa volcano. Sunset is again disappointing if you look towards the west, but the light on the caldera of the volcano is spectacular, particularly with the backdrop of the nightly thunderstorm.

First off today is a visit to the salt processing plant at Cholcani, and the by now requisite market. At least this market sells trinkets made out of salt. Then off to Isla Incahuasi, which is a lava rock ‘island’ in the salt flats about 45 minutes outside Uyuni. Covered in ancient cactus (the oldest is approximately 900 years old), it is reminiscent of Los Cardones National Park in Argentina, and I am sure the species of cactus is the same. We circumnavigate the island on foot (it is roughly 1km) and then climb up to the top for the view across the salt lakes.

By late afternoon it is clear that it is going to rain. Tonight’s accommodation is at the Hotel Luna Salada, which is made of salt and perched on a rocky outcrop. There is no TV here – the entertainment is the thunderstorm rolling across the salt lakes, literally restoring them to water filled lakes, accompanied by rolling thunder and forked lightening. This is the low season in Uyuni because it is the rainy season, but who cares. I can stand outside watching the storm until it hits the hotel, then watch the salt pans fill with water as the sun goes down. Hopefully tonight’s sunset is as spectacular as the one seen from the train.

Today is a 3.5 hour bus ride to Oruro to catch the train to Uyuni, another 7 hours away. Except it is a 5 hour bus ride, with a grumpy guide who doesn’t want to be working on Christmas Eve, he wants to be home cooking dinner for 25 of his family. Oh, and it’s a 5 hour ride without a baño break. In the oldest bus they could find. Whilst I don’t have a Bolivian farmer and his wife perched on my knees with assorted livestock, it’s not far away from it. My seat has stains on it reminiscent of the person who didn’t make it to the a much needed baño break. The highpoint of the trip is watching a local family smuggle their dog on to the bus wrapped up in a blanket like a baby. It is a relief to wave the guide off at 2pm when the bus finally arrives at the train station in Oruro. I suspect he is meant to make sure that I get on the train okay at 3:30pm, but I just can’t be bothered humouring him any longer.

Street graffitti in Oruro:

The train is a step from the bus, it has two baños in the carriage (muy importante), and a chicken roll and Sprite is handed out after about 4 hours. The seats are comfortable, and I happily have no one sitting next to me, so some additional leg room helps.

In the Galapagos, we lamented the absence of flamingos in their ‘usual’ lagoons. Well, I’ve found them, they’ve migrated to a rapidly shrinking lagoon outside Oruro – there were hundreds of flamingos in the lagoon, if not thousands.

It is 10:30pm on Christmas Eve when the train finally pulls into Uyuni, with the usual South American scrum process in place for collection of luggage (ie everyone crowds into a tiny room to claim luggage and hit a bottleneck at the door with the guy collecting tickets. I am met by my guide for the next 5 days, Luisa, who I immediately like, and two other people that I assume are part of Luisa’s family. Off to the Hotel Girasoles, which is pleasantly rustic hotel to spent the night in before departing for the salt flats in the morning.

Given my past adventures with Customs at Lima airport, where carrying two cameras is against the law, I am not looking forward to returning. By the time we arrive from Quito, it is 10:40pm, and the queue to clear immigration is substantial. There seems to be an unwritten rule that all international flights into Lima need to be as late in the evening as possible. Since the check-in attendant’s unilateral decision in Quito to check my bags through to Quito, all I have to carry is my cameras, laptop, and the clothes I’m standing up in.

Lima runs a Russian Roulette system of random checks, which I’m sure is rigged somehow. You have to press a button after handing over your customs declaration which determines whether your baggage and hand luggage is subject to an x-ray assessment. Proving that I’m not totally unlucky, this time I get the green light rather than the red light, and am waved through to the arrivals hall.

Similar to my spot of hotel economising in Santiago, I have used a hotel where I can get a corporate rate, in this case the Crowne Plaza in Miraflores, which I can’t say enough good things about. I had sent them an email request to arrange a car to meet me at the airport, which is dutifully waiting for me. It is a nice, comfortable car, with a silent driver, who happily doesn’t want to know the ins and outs of my mother’s birthplace, and which can be charged to my hotel room. Perfecto. The reception desk is so organised, or I am the last arrival of the evening (it is 11:30pm by now), that they have my reservation form ready and waiting for me. I offer my American Express card as the method of payment and the receptionist promptly says “Seeing you want to pay with American Express….” I mentally fill in the gap “it will be additional 2.2%.” What she actually says is “we will upgrade you to a business room that includes breakfast.”  Wow. That’s a first. The concierge does everything bar carry me to my room, which is a palatial corner suite. Wow. The only downside to all of this love and attention is that the hotel is on a busy road, and near the intersection of an even busier one, so there is quite a lot of traffic noise, despite the double-glazing. The hotel has tried to address this by producing a sleep kit that includes sleep mask, ear plugs, lavender mist and some kind of sleep-inducing CD. The ear plugs and lavender mist are enough for me, and soon enough it is 7am and time to get ready to return to the airport at 8am.

10 hours later, and with a total of 3.5 hours of flying time, I arrive in La Paz and negotiate a fare with the taxi driver to get me into the centre of La Paz. This seems to be an eventful journey, as in the first 10 minutes we enter what appears to be a pedestrian Indian market and have a minor accident caused by the taxi driver taking it in to his head to drive the wrong way down a one way street. By the time he tackles crossing what appears to be a shanty town by playing chicken with on-going traffic, I’m starting to think I’m about to meet the drivers three amigos to be robbed at gunpoint. As I’m considering the bullet-blocking properties of a Canon 5D Mark II and 5 blocks of the finest salted Ecuadorian chocolate (pretty good I think), and the weight and height advantage I have over the driver (he barely reaches my shoulder), we hit the top of a hill, and the city of La Paz unfolds underneath.

I’ve fallen hard twice in the last 4 days now. The first was tall and gorgeous with melting brown eyes, and the second is this first view of the city of La Paz. What a beautiful city, nestled in the valley below, at a mere 3600m above sea level. By the time I reach the hotel, the Radisson Plaza (also an economising corporate rate choice), it is almost 7pm, and I’m leaving again at 9am to head to Uyuni. La Paz and I will have to meet again. By the way, according to Tripadvisor, the Radisson is the worst hotel known to man. The décor is dated and the rooms need a refresh, but its clean, comfortable, the food is good, and the view from the 15^th floor restaurant is mesmerising. It is also one of those rare hotels where you can still open the windows, and I spend a considerable amount of time hanging out of the window of my 9^th floor room gawking at the view of this surprising city.

An early start this morning to be packed and ready to depart the Beagle. Before we disembark for the last time, we take a panga ride around Black Turtle Cove, with two other pangas from the Samba ship for company. As I make my way to the waiting panga, I can see the raised fin of a large Galapagos Shark slicing through the water, less than a metre away from the panga, which is still tied up to the Beagle. According to the wildlife guide, white-tipped reef sharks and Galapagos Sharks both reach 2m in length, but the Galapagos sharks seem to be wider, heavier and altogether heftier and worthy of respect. Puts swimming back to the Beagle into context. If I was an American, I’d be constructing a wildly exaggerated story of how I’d swum through shark infested waters.

Black Turtle Cove is a shallow set of networked coves, home to resting white-tipped reef sharks, sea turtles, and some marbled and eagle rays. There are many reef sharks resting around the mangrove area, and many sea turtles. The local pelicans are practising their version of the plunge dive, which is more akin to a crash dive. It is a pleasant way to end the two weeks on the Beagle.

Surprisingly, the flights from Galapagos to Quito via Quayaquil are only half full, so it is a pleasant journey with an entire row to myself. All economy class travel should be this way.

Tomorrow and the day after will be spent travelling through Lima in order to get to La Paz, for the start of 5 days overland through the Uyuni Salt Lakes, to reach San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

Today is the last full day of the cruise, and we start at Chinese Hat. For some reason Sombrero Chino is disappointing – maybe due to the fact that the access to the island is limited to a small section of the foreshore. We encounter another recently delivered sea lion mother and pup, and a nearby Galapagos hawk, which has been feasting on the placenta.

A great morning snorkel session follows on the opposite shore. No less than 4 white-tipped sharks in the water, one of which swims unconcernedly beneath me as it goes about its business. There are a lot of fish in the water, with many more smaller fish than we have encountered previously. It is also possible again today to swim back to the Beagle, rather than clamber back into the panga, so I continue the Australian national pride activity of being first off the side of the panga and last out of the water by swimming back to the boat.

This afternoon, we take a short hike around Dragon Hill, home to some of the more photogenic landscapes that the Galapagos has to offer, and also home to some duelling land iguanas.

North Seymour is home to a small colony of Galapagos Sea Lions, and a large crèche of great frigate birds, and magnificent frigate birds. The great frigate birds breed all year round, so we are finally treated to the sight of a number of black male frigate birds with their trademark red pouches, who have built nests in the hope of attracting a female. There is also a small population of blue-footed boobies, some with chicks, interspersed in what is really a giant crèche area for frigate birds.

Snorkelling today is along the coastline of Bartholome Island, quite good conditions, some white-tipped reef sharks in the water, with Galapagos penguins putting in an appearance near us in the water. A short video of the penguins swimming in the water is here:

The afternoon is spent climbing up the boardwalk/stairs to the top of the hill for the view over the islands. Todays funny photo is brought to you courtesy of a marina iguana doing chin-ups at the landing site. Their sharp claws allow them to hang on to rocks and in this case, a piece of concrete with a vertical drop of more than a metre.

Unfortunately the viewpoint faces due west, so this is really a morning activity if you don’t want photos with the sun burning out every frame.

During the hike up, we can see devil rays leaping out of the water from between 500 – 1000m from the shore. These huge rays, with a wingspan of more than 6 metres, apparently leap out of the water for unknown reasons – some biologists think it is to rid them selves of parasites. It looks like they do it for fun – they make a huge leap out of the water of a couple of metres, twist around and belly-flop back in to the water. I managed to get a (not great) shot of one of them from the landing platform at Bartholome, shown below.

On arrival at Santa Fe we are greeted by the sight of a female Galapagos sea lion struggling to give birth. It is a longer and harder labour than that of the elephant seal I saw in South Georgia, but she succeeds in delivering a live pup, and immediately sets about teaching it to climb over the rocks to get to the beach.

This afternoon we finally have some decent snorkelling, complete with white-tipped sharks! These gentle two metre sharks with delicate white points are too busy looking for a spot in the bay at South Plaza to be bothered by snorkelers. 

South Plaza is also home to the hybrid iguana – where marina iguanas and land iguanas have bred and produce offspring that dies before reaching maturity. The offspring show the traits of both species, but look a trifle odd with the colourings of both land and marine iguanas.

Late in the afternoon there is a half decent sunset- they are hard to come by in the Galapagos as the sky clouds over in mid-afternoon. The Lindblad/National Geographic Endeavour is anchored at North Seymour for the evening, along with a few boats from the Gap Adventures stable.

Around 3am, the captain sets sail for Punta Pitt, around the northern tip of the island. We disembark for a short 2 hour hike up the old lava fields to reach a viewpoint that allows red-footed booby sightings, the only place other than Genovesa Island that these birds are found. There are quite a few juvenile birds around – one takes a fancy to the panga, and happily sits on the bow of the boat as far as the Beagle.

Today’s snorkelling is akin to snorkelling at an Australian surf beach. The visibility is not too bad, but the wind is whipping up over the hill and creating snorkel-filling waves.

Punta Suarez is one of the highlights of the fortnight to date. Home to marina iguanas with brilliant turquoise, red and green breeding colours, the waved albatross, the Galapagos hawk, a sea lion creche and nesting nazca boobies, it is a photogenic spot.

 This juvenile waved albatross still has its downy feathers, hence the Louis XIV look.

When fully grown, it will look like this adult.

The afternoon is spent at the very pretty Gardner bay, home to some fearless and endemic Espanola Mockingbirds, and more Galapagos sea lions. The sun is out, so the snorkelling along the point is by definition terrible. Poor underwater visibility and lack of marine life make it another short session. Even the sunbaking sea lions nearby couldn’t be persuaded to come into the water for a swim.

This afternoon we make a shortish navigation to San Cristobel Island, the capital of the islands, although with a significantly smaller population of around 8000 people. Kind of the Canberra of the Galapagos.