We are currently near the Andes mtns in Chile. Going north in our Jeep. We started in the south of Chile ... weather was bitterly cold with strong winds at the start of September. Fire starting was very difficult. After one month, where we depend on campfires for heat and food, we are getting better at this art. Its a tough learning experience.
We reached the Desert of Atacama three days ago, now in early October. The low altitude desert looks like the planet Mars. No jokes!! I woke up one morning and looked at the landscape ... and I thought ... we're not on Earth any more. This place looks EXACTLY like the photos of Mars that were taken by the Mars rovers. Very cool !!
So if you ever want to see Mars ... go to the Desert of Atacama in Chile.
Apparently NASA does test their equipment and rovers here. I think thats a very smart idea. I hope they continue this type of work ... there is still a tremendous amount of information that can be gleaned from this desert in Chile.
We are doing our best to keep the place pristine. I wish other people would sto dumping bottles and trash in the desert.
Here is one cool thing ... one of the survival techniques ACTUALLY WORKS. Here in the low desert of Atacama, altitude 2200 feet, about 30 miles from the coast, there are dense fogs at night.
I spread out a tarp on the back of the Jeep to try to keep things dry. I weighted the tarp with rocks. I was amazed to discover the next morning ... pools of water at the locations of the rocks. There is so much condensation, you get real pools of water. I think that if you had about 5 tarps, each anput 20 foot square, it would be enough water for one person for one day.
First time ... i have seen this idea work under real conditions!!
WHY does the technique work here? The Atacama is an enormous desert, extremely dry. In many places there are no plants at all. Only gravel, sand and rocks. The convection of hot air is very strong. By noon, convection winds can be very strong ... enough to destroy a tarp because it flaps violently. By evening, the einds die fown. A heavy marine layer moves in, for regions of the desert within 30 miles of the coast. The fog is so heavy that it blots out all light, and there is much condensation. This condensation from the rain-fog produces the pools of water on tarps, if you spread them out to collect water.
This is it! Not blogging anywhere else. wish i could share photos ... we have fantastic photos of the lakes and volcanoes of the Andes.
This trip has 2 purposes ...
1. We are looking for a permanent home somewhere in the Andes. This is harder than it sounds .. the governments of countries in S. America have a variety of policies, some friendly, bot others a real nuisance. Corruption is rampant in S. America.
2. We are looking for new medicines from plants, trees and fungi. We will be sending extracts to the Cancer Moonshot program that was started by VP Biden. We are focusing on unusual plants that have not been investigated before, and special plants used by the Indians. The Indians have some plant medicines that they share, but there are other plants that they do not reveal.
Plenty of problems on the road. One thing that has surprised me ... all of the zippers on our equipment have failed. The zipper on my fleece jacket stopped working ... a nuisance. The zipper on the back of the jeep (I have a Jeep with a soft top) also stopped working completely, and cannot be rescued with WD-40. When these items get a lot of hard use, the zippers just arent tough enough to survive. I wont buy any more expedition gear with zippers.
But there is one exception. I have an expedition bag made by North Face That bag has taken a real beating and it keeps on trucking. And the zippers are all working. it is possible to build good gear ... people just have to be serious ... thanks North Face. These bags are red in color, with black straps. I think mine cost $100.
And no ... we dont receive $$ from North Face. The comments are honest evaluations :-)
What is the zipper brand that is on your North Face bag? (Chances are it is YKK, a fairly common zipper used by lots of companies) and what size? That is probably significant as well....
I doubt that there is any fastener that is absolutely fool proof. I have even had problems with hook and loop systems which are reasonably dependable...
Cleaning and lubing zippers helps a lot. Lots of people don't think of it, but certainly helps. You can also get replacement zipper pullers in case you break one.
Good question about zippers ... i dont know enough about the technology. But apparently some zippers arw much tougher than others. I managed to fix the zipper on the Jeep. But they need something tougher too :-)
We left Chile and entered Peru. The cities of Tacna, Arequipa and Puno are all desert cities.
The big challenges were the altitude changes, which are HUGE in Peru. Tacna is at sea level, but Atequipa is at 7661 feet ASL. We stayed a couple of days at Arequipa to try to adjust. But the next part of the journey still knocked us for a loop. The road to Puno, beside Lake Titicaca, passes over a mountain at 14800 feet ... higher than Mt. Whitney in California. Lake Titiis ar 12,300 feet, or close to this. But you cant avoid the climb to almost 15000 feet. Its a big change, another 7000 feet in altitude. It has taken us 3 days to try to recover from this.
Boy, you nailed it with that comnent. we have been fighting altitude sickness on and off for a week. I used a strategy to adapt 'slowly' ... 2 days at 7600 feet (Arequippa, Peru) and 2 days at 12300 feet (Puno, Peru). Even with this preparation, it was no easy task during the first week at very high altitudes in Peru.
There are two meds that people use to fight this problem. The first is a prescription drug called acetazolide (spelling?). The second is coca leaves. I used neither of these methods, and just fought through the symptoms. My wife tried the prescription drug. It seems to help, but beware that the drug should NOT be taken on an empty stomach. It can cause stomach acidity and vomitting ... no fun when you are fighting other problems.
Coca leaves deserve a special explanation. Peru and Bolivia have a 'double standard' for how they view the coca plant. Leaves from the coca plant are widely available in Peru. They are not considered a drug. If you walk into the tourist hotels, you will find a basket of green leaves at the table (table for tea, or for breakfast). Peruvians regularly chew these leaves, and so do many tourists in Peru. In addition, if you go to health food shops in Cusco, you will find large containers of a green powder. This is 'coca tea'. It is the leaves of the coca plant, dried and ground into a green powder. Peruvians commonly put this powder into hot water, as a tea extract. These uses of coca are very common in Peru, and they are legal. However, if the drug is refined into the pure form of cocaine, that is highly illegal. That is how things operate in Peru. Altitude sickness causes a constant feeling of being very tired. People chew the coca leaves as a type of 'pick up' for the metabolism. I couldnt tell you if the coca leaves actually increase the adaption of the body to high altitudes, or if they only affect metabolism.
Personally, I just drank a lot of water and allowed my body to adjust naturally. But it was no cakewalk.
It takes time to acclimatize - realistically, there are no shortcuts. High altitude mountaineers do by the mantra - "carry high, sleep low." When shuttling loads on a long approach, you take a load to your hgh point for the day, descend and sleep, climbing up the next day -repeating until you reach your objective.
Do be aware that HAPE and HACE (high altitude pulmonary/cerebral edema) can be fatal. Know the symptoms and descend immediately.
It takes time to acclimatize - realistically, there are no shortcuts. .......................... Do be aware that HAPE and HACE (high altitude pulmonary/cerebral edema) can be fatal. Know the symptoms and descend immediately.
Every time I got up to 14,000 ft we kept the aircraft pressurized to 6000 ft so no problems. That was in a pressurized aircraft and no oxygen mask. Is the issue at those altitudes the low pressure itself, or the partial pressure of oxygen? As I recall from flight physiology years ago, the reason we breathed 100% oxygen in jet training (the jets carried liquid oxygen, LOX) at altitude was to keep the partial pressure of oxygen in our blood at "normal" levels. wiki/Blood_gas_tension is germane
But that's just for short periods to high altitudes, not for living there. I'm sure living there is significantly different and requires the body to adjust. How much can a typical/normal body adjust? If time allows, how high can a normal surface dweller go and stay without an oxygen tank.
My longest time was a mountaineering patrol on Denali, over twenty years ago. We had been at the Advanced Base Camp (14,000 plus) for over a week and were planning to push on to the summit in a long day (according to our oximeter readings, this was quite feasible). We never got tofind out if this would have been the case, because on the morning of our attempt, we were engaged in treating a HACE victim at the ABC. He was staggering at 17,500 feet where he had been camped, and was coherent and walking normally by the time he had descended to the ABC.
So much for reaching North America's highest summit. The neat thing was that our evaluation and handling of this person was monitored and later critiqued by Dr. James Wilkerson, author of [/u]Mountaineering Medicine[u], the bible for climbing medicine. In a way, that was a more nifty experience than reaching the summit.
Descending does wonders for high altitude complications.
hey guys! This isn't Pete but I thought it was a relevant share here.
My son and I were talking the other night about how we have to watch out for our hiking partners, and the effect things like heat/cold/dehydration are having on them. We didn't talk elevation, because it's not something we deal with where we hike here in Ontario, but this is perhaps a timely reminder as we follow Pete through the Andes.
HAPE at 10,000 feet is very unusual, but people vary markedly in their reaction to altitude. HAPE is much more likely at 15,000+.
My take away from the video was the utility of the Inreach, and the nice low key helivac by the NPS. Yea NPS! (an old retired NPS geezer couldn't resist that.)
The mantra is "climb high, sleep low". Ascend gradually.
well, I thought that I had escaped the altitude problems. No such luck.
Dream on ... this is Peru.
We decided to take our Jeep to the cloud forest in the eastern Andes. Eastern Peru. This involved using the road between Cusco and Quillabamba. In case you ever decide to become "Quillabamba-ed" yourself ... let me explain that NO western visitors go there. we were it.
On the positive side ... the road quality was generally good. OK ... one piece of good news!
But this road goes straight up, and straight down. There are many twisting curves, but the rate of climb is huge. Starting at an altitude of 9515 feet on the western side, you cross over at 14150 feet, then descend into the jungle town of Quillabamba at 3300 feet. The return journey is WORSE. by the time you have acclimatized at the 3300 foot level, you must ascend and return back over the Andes, climbing almost 11,000 feet of altutude change (from 3300 to 14150 feet) in 2 hours of driving. At the top of the Andes ... I was literally gasping for breath and praying for the road to start descending.
While this sounds problematic .. the altitude is NOT the principal problem. The top of the mountains are shrouded in heavy mist, rain and fog. There is no guard rail. If you go over the edge, you will fall hundreds or thousands of feet. The road is slippery and the curves are tight.
Peru has decided to make the experience into a "sporting chance". Peruvian drivers are truly impatient and reckless ... they will pass on double yellow lines and blind curves. The trucks and buses cannot fit into the curves, and also stay in their own lane. GOING UP we passed one large semi-truck that had jack-knifed and blocked most of the road. GOING DOWN we had a very near-miss with a large truck that veered into our lane on a curve ... approaching us head-on at a good speed ... I have no idea how we missed each other ... we both swerved hard ... literally a hairs breadth between our Jeep and that truck.
Finally made it out of Peru. But not before Peru took its final revenge. The main road between Peru and Brazil connects the cities of Cusco and Rio Branco. This road rises to a peak elevation of 15,530 feet (4735 meters) above sea level. However, there is not a single sign to warn travelers about the dramatic elevation change. We toughed it out and made it actoss, but my wife had serious symptoms from the altitude. On the Brazil side, the road drops down through a tremendous elevation change to the low jungle of the Amazon. Peru needs to wake up, and put some warning signs on the road ... giving visitors a real heads-up.
The State of Acre in Brazil was a big surprise to me. I was expecting a vista with Amazon forest and rivers. But what you actually see .. is green pastures, horses, and a lot of white cows. The farmers have cleared most of the tropical forest, and replaced it with grass. If this trend continues, Acre will look more like Missouri (USA) in another 10-20 years. There are still large groves of tropical forest, but the farmland is bigger. Please keep in mind, this is just the view from the main highway. But the trend is not good.
On the roads in Peru we saw large logging trucks, carrying logs that are 6-8 feet on diameter. These were old-growth trees ... maybe hundreds of years old. Its a real tragedy to see this process in action. If Brazil and Peru dont get serious about protecting the Amazon, they are going to lose a very precious resource.
Thanks for the feedback from readers here. I agree with your thoughts ... the risks on the roads were very real in Peru. Yesterday, three Brazilian tourists were killed in a head-on collision on the road that comes from Cusco (Peru). Last week 3 people were killed descending the Andes. Same thing. Head-on collision. I have no doubt that Peruvian motorists are responsible. Their driving is insane. We drove the same roads. We are grateful to God that we are in one piece. We had two very-close-miss incidents with trucks in Peru.
We have driven a across the main highway through Acre, the state of Brazil closest to Peru. I expected to see a lot of tropical forest (rainforest), but I saw only some small groves. The southern part of Acre has become a "tropical Missouri", or a "tropical Iowa". Its just farmland, with horses and white cows. Some farms have isolated tropical trees, some have preserved the trees in small groves. But most of the land is agricultural.
In southern Acre, I saw no tropical tree with a diameter greater than 2-3 feet. All the really big trees have been felled or burned. That is a tragedy.
In eastern Peru, we did see very big trees ... remnants of the old rainforest. Some farmers have kept these trees alive.
But as I mentioned, Peru has very active logging. They are felling the big trees. We saw 3 different logging trucks, all carrying logs with big diameters.
The question is ... why do they need this wood? One possible answer ... the transcontinental railroad. Peru and Brazil have approved the project, a railway line across S. America. Train tracks need a lot of steel and a lot of wood. I have no positive proof, but the connection is possible.
I don't really know, but I'll wager that much of the demand for that tropical wood comes from the developed countries. i doubt that much will go into railroad ties, which are often nowadays made of concrete, not wood (at least in the USA, not at all sure about Peru).
Bacpacjoe ... mentioned teamwork. It was vitally important 3 days ago. I got "hit" by the extreme tropical heat in the Amazon Basin. The combination of high temperatures and high humidity can impact the body quickly. I was affected by heat exhaustion and heat stroke ... it developed very quickly.
For us,the big problem was that we just arrived from the mountains of Peru where the climate is vastly different - and cooler. I spent 3 hours in the ER in Brazil, while they pumped IV fluids back into my body. Its no fun. My wife did a fantastic job of getting help, and getting cold water onto my body ... fast.
As a practical tip ... if you go to extreme tropical climates, keep some plastic bottles handy ... filled with ice-water. Just take some empty Coke bottles, fill them with water, and freeze them in a hotel refrigerator overnight. In an emergency, pour the water directly on the victim's head. Its a life saver. I am OK now, but recovery took a couple of days and lots of electrolytes.
Thanks for comments. Have to say ... the heat stress in the Amazon Basin is at a higher level than I have ever seen before. I have been to Kenya in February ... hottest month there. But the Amazon is a whole new level of heat stress. The sun is vicious ... when combined with high humidity ... its a dangerous combination.
We are adjusting our activities ... cooler times of the day. Some more thoughts on heat exhaustion soon. But the bottom line - we are slowing down and adapting at a slow pace.
A few quick tips, in case future visitors use this thread for preparation for Amazon trips.
1. Give yourself plenty of time to adapt to the climate. Bring a lot of electrolytes. Schedule activities for the cooler times of the day, avoid direct sun between 10am and 3pm.
2. The State of Acre does NOT give antimalarial pills to visitors. You cant buy any pills for malaria from the pharmacies or the hospital. The same thing also applies to Peru - but we expected this in Peru (its a poor country). We did not expect this in Brazil. This was a shock to us. None ... nada ... no malaria meds for travelers ... you cant get them. Make sure you bring a good supply from your home country. Mosquitos were not a problem inside the towns, Rio Branco or Brasileia. But the forest is a whole different story.
3. Advice from a local doctor who lives here ... a. Avoid forest explorations after 17 hour i.e. after 5pm. Malaria mosquitos are active in the jungle after that time ... b. Be very careful about the snakes. Many people have been bitten and died ... c. Be careful with the local water - there are a lot of amoebas and health contamination issues.
4. The roads do contain potholes. Expect to drive slowly.
5. Prepare ice-water for emergencies. Acre and Rondonia are notoriously hot climates.
Pete, will you be going north to Ecuado? Quito is a beautiful city with a pleasant year round temperature due to the elevation of approximately 9000 feet. However, once you drop into the Amazon basin it's a whole different story! I haven't been there in over ten years, but it was a friendly city then with a lot of tourists from Europe etc. Safe travels, the roads in Ecuador sound similar to what you are seeing, I.e, curvy dirt roads, no guardrails, long drops!
Sorry for the long delay on this thread. We travelled through the Amazon Region of Brazil for a long time. We finally made it back to central Brazil in December.
The trip was amazing!!, and we saw a lot of incredible things. But the hardships were also much bigger than i expected.
By far the biggest danger ... were local drivers. Especially drivers on the mountain roads of Peru. They are impatient and reckless. Although the Internet has reports about robbers and terrorists in Peru ... we never had these problems. But we did have 2 incidents with oncoming trucks, dtiving on mountain curves. Both vehicles were way over the centerline, and the collisions would have been head-on and devastating. I only avoided them by very quick reactions ... and a miracle from above.
The effects of high altitudes (the Andes), and extreme climates in the lowland Amazon, were also very difficult problems. I fought a 'running battle' with heat stress in the Amazon forests for many weeks. The problem was worst in Acre, but the Amazon is hot everywhere. If you ever drive in S. America, be very careful with the high altitude passes in Peru, and the hot-humid conditions in the Amazon Basin.
As a 'last laugh' ... we drove 9200 miles on this trip in our Jeep ... and we never had any car insurance!! I am not an irresponsible person ... the problem was that the insurance was impossible to obtain. In Chile, they refused to give us insurance ... no coverage for foreign-registered vehicles. And US companies will not cover you in S. America. In Peru, one company offered insurance, but only if we paid for a whole year. That was clearly a rip-off and we didnt accept. These types of ridiculous scenarios are common in S. America. The S. American countries do not create laws or business to facilitate safety and good travel for visitors ... they just want to extract money. Always keep this in mind if you travel there. And NEVER lose your paperwork!!
If anyone wants specific advice ... you can send questions by personal mail here. But it may be a long time before I log into this page. Above all ... beware of miscellaneous advice and travel tips on other Internet forums that supposedly offer info about travel, Jeeps, expeditions etc. We found that most of the Internet tips were completely wrong, and none of these forums described the real difficulties in S. America.
I would say this ... NEVER drive your American car in S. America. It is not worth the hassles, costs, and risks. If you want to go there ... rent a local vehicle in S. America.
There are amazing places in S. America, but the problems on the road can be very real. Illogical situations are commonplace.
Finally, a couple of thoughts that may be of general interest ...
The signl biggest surprise to me on this journey - was the declining quality of fresh water in S. America. The problem does not affect the country of Chile too much, because access to he forests and mountains of Chile is very restricted. But the problem is acute and growing - in Peru and the Amazon Basin.
I expected to discover that the eastern Andes mountains would be a pristine habitat. Dream on. No doubt that is still true for parts of the mountains where no human settlements exist. But for many streams and rivers in Peru where villages exist - the water pollution is horrible. When water melts from snow, above the 14,000 feet level, it is pure and drinkable. But very quickly these streams descend and pass through mountain villages. I have never seen any people on Earth who pollute their rivers - as much as Peruvians. The streams are used as dumping grounds for human effluent, trash and all kinds of junk. It is truly a horrible sight to see. By the time the water descends to the 10,000 foot altitude level, after passing through a dozen villages and settlements, it is a polluted river. I wouldn't dream of drinking that water. And frankly, these streams still have a long way to go ... before they enter the Amazon. I cannot imagine what the people at the 'bottom end' of the water cycle are actually drinking.
In cities like Puerto McDondaldo (Peru) and Rio Branco (Acre, Brazil) the rivers have been turned into a horrible dirty-brown mess. In Peru, there are actually tourist lodges thriving off the "untouched Amazon paradise" myth. You must be joking. That myth may have been true 40 years ago. But the rivers in Peru are now tainted by human sewage, garbage, and high mercury levels of the gold mines in the E. Andes. There is no 'Amazon paradise'. Likewise, the water at Rio Branco in Brazil was disgusting, and we took to calling the town "Rio Horrivel' (Horrible River). All of the wildlife that depends on this water is being threatened with serious pollution problems.
In the state of Rondonia in Brazil, we drove into the capital city of Purto Velho. The smell in the city was so ba - we could not believe it. The whole city smelled like human sewage. How could people actually be living in a place like this? And how could this city ... be the capital of anything? Don't the politicians who run this place have the slightest amount of shame? Eventually I figured out ... we arrived in Purto Velho at the start of November. This is just before the big rainy season in the Amazon. So all of the dirt, the junk, the human sewage - builds up to very high levels. And people just ignore it, because they get used to the smell. People in the Amazon just use the rains as a giant septic tank ... everything will get washed down the river - when the real rains come. So they do nothing, they never improve the city's disposal systems, and the problem gets progressively worse. For us, the smell was so bad ... we could hardly go out to eat at a restaurant. Who wants to think about food?
Recent studies by the World Wildlife Fund have shown dramatic declines in animal and bird populations in S. America, especially creatures affected by fresh water. Our own personal observations support this. The declining standards of water quality, and the complete disregard for any type of modern water treatment, are taking a terrible toll on the Amazon region.
Please know that the Amazon region is a huge place. No doubt the central and northern regions are in better shape. But anywhere that there are villages and cities - this problem is growing at an alarming rate. It is truly sad.
in our quest to find new plant medicines - we have effectively become "21'st Century Indians". We discovered during our trip that the real Indians of S. America have deep political problems. For this reason, they rarely communicate, or only at a superficial level. Therefore, ethnobotany (the relationship between plants and indigenous people) is rapidly becoming Mission Impossible.
this is sad, but really a true statement at this time.
Our solution ... is to become a new generation of Indians. If the societies of S. America will not respect the Earth, then our approach is to preserve the priceless treasures that we still see. We do not collect 'dead plants'. Rather, we preserve rare and precious plants, and they live in our garden. I admit that this was no small task to achieve ... I honestly thought that some of our plants would die, after crossing deserts, mountains, and jungles. But the plants were more hardy than we expected, and we devoted much attention to their care. So we learned - and are still learning - about how to make these plants thrive. Our growing garden is therefore an unusual collection of rare and medicinal plant from many places. And we are now the 21'st Century Indians. A change that we didn't really expect - but it was the only way to try to save the life forms that are truly precious. So we hope that some day in the future - one of these plants will provide new answers for cancer or other serious illnesses.