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Chris + Elli: World Tour
  • Chris Keeley
  • Elli Thomas

Chris + Elli: World Tour

Around the world in a year and a bit Читать далее
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  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    1

    La Paz

    22 янв.–5 февр., Боливия ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    Onwards through the Andes. We took a night bus from Cusco to La Paz which went via Lake Titicaca and over the border to Bolivia, which involved an incredibly long wait for the guards to open customs, before getting into La Paz. We did get some sleep and didn't have too much of a shock to the altitude of La Paz, which is after all the highest capital city in the world at 3,650m (4,150m if you include Él Alto, but they are insistent that they are different cities, even though that's clearly not true).

    We had a nice comfy apartment and a fairly slow start to La Paz, a bit of wandering around, some trips to go bowling and to the cinema which was bizarrely normal, and then Elli got really ill, which was a real kick in the teeth after a few days of bad digestion issues followed by an incapacitating cold. It's likely that the altitude didn't help and the fact that any time we went outside we had to climb the hill.

    After eventually recovering we actually got to do a bit of exploring. La Paz is actually a completely insane city: La Paz is in a valley, but which is at such high altitude that craggy rocks just emerge here and there. There's a huge canyon running down the middle, and then the city grows up the cliffside until you finally get to the precipitous cliff edge and then Él Alto at the top on the plateau. We took the teleferico, which is probably one the best public transport systems we've ever seen (incredibly cheap, clean, efficient, not overcrowded and extra points for both uniqueness and incredible views) all the way round the city. You can do a huge loop which gives amazing views of the city.

    The city centre itself is sort of charming in a few places - plenty of backpacker tat but some excellent fabrics and prints, lots of cholitas wandering around everywhere you go, and places where you can buy dead dried llamas to give as an offering. According to someone we met it's bad luck to build a new building in La Paz without killing someone first, so we were glad of the warning not to go to any parties in Él Alto, where there's a not insignificant chance you might get killed by someone who wants to get on and finish their house.

    We decided you couldn't go up to La Paz without properly climbing a mountain, so on one particularly chaotic day we found a taxi driver who would drive us along the plateau to Chacaltaya, which is the former ski resort that was until 2009 the highest ski resort in the world (and then the glacier melted). It was quite late by the time we set off but our driver gamely set off, and all was looking well until a huge cloud rolled in. We finally made it to the top and the abandoned ski resort only to be stuck in a snowstorm. We sat it out for half an hour, questioning our life choices, until miraculously the clouds parted and the sun came out with the most incredible view back over La Paz. We hiked the rest of the 200m up to 5,421m; now officially the highest we've ever been, and a definite high point for both of us.    Читать далее

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  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    This is one of the "incredibly overdone" classic tourist photo shots
    It's requiredNo health and safety hereTetanus = avoidedCar for scaleIt's like the level didn't loadIt is very difficult to take these shots without a third personWet saltMandatory funMore mandatory fun

    Uyuni

    6 февраля, Боливия ⋅ 🌬 17 °C

    After a snails pace in La Paz slowed down even more by illness, we dramatically ramped it up with a dash across Bolivia to the Uyuni salt flats. Having figured out that you can basically only travel anywhere in the country by bus and at night, we decided on two back to back night buses to take us to and out of Uyuni, with the day in between to visit the salt flats, which we'd both had as a "cannot miss" on our South America plans.

    We had an incredibly comfortable first night bus (complete with meal service, blankets and lots of American tourists) and were suddenly plunged back into backpacker world when we arrived and were led off on a tour.

    Uyuni used to be the main hub for Bolivia's train network, until (as our guide pointed out) the previously British run company was reformed by Sánchez de Lozada in the 1990s and made it shit. Which is why we took the night bus (there was one train, but it arrived at 3am and only went once a week, which is so useless I don't know where to begin). So instead now all the tourists go to the Uyuni train graveyard which is a big heap of rusting metal, but it is both scenic and a lot of fun to be de facto allowed to climb all over them (you wouldn't be allowed to do that at home).

    Then onwards and we rolled off the edge of the road onto the salt flat, into a huge sea of nothingy whiteness. It is honestly like nothing either of us have ever seen - a frankly mind bending expanse of salty white and we drove at 100km for about an hour into more white. It hurts your brain if you try to look at it for too long and when we asked how people don't get lost there, we were told that they apparently get lost all the time. Probably for the best that we didn't hire a car this time.

    Stopped at the Incahuasi island which is a similarly dramatic and fantastic sight (and is full of coral from when the salt flats were indeed a lake) and ate a comically undersalted lunch.

    We were let loose on the salt flats to explore and take photos and then to be subjected to obligatory group activities, which we could cope with for the first part, although which got a bit much by the time it was 7pm and we were in wellies in inches of water. At least by that point everyone else was exhausted by the whole thing, and we were given wine. To our sadness, we got back too late to be able to find any proper food before sprinting back to the bus station for night bus number 2. Our only salvation was the woman who Elli persuaded to make us egg and chips (instead of salchipapas, which is normally covered in sausage) and a packet of chocolate biscuits before an incredibly sweaty night's sleep onwards to Cochabamba.

    All in all though, Uyuni is definitely worth going to and probably not worth hanging around in so we think we did pretty well all told, just don't look at the bus safety records if you want to get any sleep.    Читать далее

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  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    Our palace
    Unfortunately the local band seem incapable of all playing the same tune at the same timeFrom our balcony, with a view of Christ the Redeemer on the hillEnjoying the city of the eternal springA mountain of silpancho (a Cochabamba classic)

    Cochabamba

    7–15 февр., Боливия ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    We went to Cochabamba (the city of the eternal spring, although I think we've been to multiple places now which claim that moniker) to have a nice relaxing time and do some pseudo-work before we go home. It didn't exactly go to plan, and instead we had a week of Chris being in excruciating pain from dental chaos and Elli trying her best to find a dentist who would remove the problem tooth and learning some very weird new Spanish vocabulary. It was... a bit of a mission, and we met a whole family of dentists during our time, none of whom were willing to get involved. Alas, painkillers it was, and surgery delayed to Rio. This feels like perfect symmetry with our last week across Asia, just before we went home, when Elli had her own wisdom tooth out in Istanbul. Poetic.

    Anyway all of this was made slightly less awful by the fact that we paid £53 a night for without a doubt the nicest place we've stayed the whole trip, perhaps the nicest place we will ever stay. Our penthouse flat had a 360* view of Cochabamba (complete with nightly carnival rehearsals from the big band and a view of Cochabamba's version of Christ the Redeemer). It had three bedrooms, four beds, three baths, six toilets, eight sofas, three dining tables, a steam room and a ping pong table. And a piano. We swanned around in total luxury and complained about the fact that it took several minutes and a long walk to find anything once you put it down somewhere.

    Beyond that, well, Cochabamba is supposed to be famous for its food, and maybe it was somewhat better than other food we've eaten in Bolivia, but that's not saying much. All the local dishes seem to consist of three people's worth of potatoes, a slab of beef and a fried egg, and I'm not against that (maybe without the beef) but we are really stretching the definition of fine dining here.

    Nonetheless, come for the weather, stay for the deep pile carpets and the jacuzzi bath.    Читать далее

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  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    On the copa-Copacabana
    1Shrimp bobo and cassava chips at Bar UrcaStrong all you can eat sushi offeringsA rare fog free photo of Christ the RedeemerAnd eventually huge views across RioChrist the Redeemer, obvsPay by the kilo, eat until you want to throw upA 5-0 slaughtering by Flamengo at the MaracanaCopious amounts of açaiOur last beach selfie, until next time.

    Rio de Janeiro

    15–24 февр., Бразилия ⋅ 🌙 26 °C

    And so to our last stop on the longest of long holidays, to Brazil and Rio de Janeiro. If we wanted sun and beaches, we absolutely got it. And curiously enough the mirror image of our arrival in Istanbul 3 months earlier: this time 3 hours behind instead of ahead, we mark the end of a leg and our return to London with an impacted wisdom tooth and emergency surgery.

    The moderately terrifying surgery was over in 5 minutes flat on our first morning in Rio, and we stocked up on half a pharmacy's worth of medication, only to go back for the other half the next day when Elli came down with tonsilitis.

    It's not what you'd plan but since when has this trip been about the plan? Once we had the energy we wandered up and down Copacabana beach and spent a couple of days frying in the heat, eating mostly ice cream and açai, and mercifully it wasn't too long before we graduated to beer and shrimp bobo. The beer is cheap and plentiful, the stew is solid but has cemented our view that South American food unless you are into large slabs of meat is not really much worth yelling about, but the views are always pleasant, especially in Rio, and the general pre-carnival atmosphere is slightly mad all the time so it makes for good people watching and plentiful options to listen to bossa nova on the beach.

    We were pleased to find that Rio does do a very strong all you can eat sushi, and later on, a delightfully novel (albeit slightly expensive) pay-by-the-kilo buffet, so all things considered it hasn't been a bad week of eating.

    We couldn't go to Rio without seeing the Big Statue of Jesus, so off up the mountain we went to add yet another instalment to our list of monuments we have seen in the fog. We spent a couple of hours watching clouds pass over which is a new meditative hobby that South America has bestowed upon us, and finally saw all the hills of Rio in all their lumpy glory - it really is an amazingly green and hillocky city.

    Elli struggled for several days to buy tickets to see the football and once she had managed to get them out of sheer bloody mindedness and thanks to insane Brazilian disorganisation we went to see Flamengo vs Marica at the Maracaña. If Brazilian football is an institution, this was the dress rehearsal, with only half the crowd present, but we still got something of the effect. A 5-0 result did at least mean a lot of enthusiastic goal celebrations even if no great surprises re: the outcome!

    All in all we made it to the end of the week mildly battle scarred, a little sunburnt, and really now very ready to go home, which is probably about time.    Читать далее

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  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    TEASpotted by Elli's sisterMade by Elli's mum

    London Heathrow - Home Again

    25 февраля, Англия ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    And finally, on the 471st day, we came home.

    The last leg was a characteristically spicy journey involving standby flights to Heathrow courtesy of Ash, who is also incidentally winner of the coveted prize of our most extensive visitor on the trip.

    Initial nervousness was reasonable (including a lot of speculation about what to do if one if us got left behind) but we both made it on board, there was champagne, there was whisky, there was Actual Proper Tea, no sleep was had, Fi (Elli's sister) acted as ground based plane spotter to wave us in from South London, Heathrow Airport provided every form of exhausting badly organised chaos that they could think of, and we made it back to Elm Park with a fabulous welcome home banner from Gill (Chris' mum, and winner of the prize of most engaged Findpenguins commenter) at the station.

    From these two travellers who are very ready for some home comforts, that's a wrap. Thanks and congratulations to anyone who managed to follow along 🌎👋🛩    Читать далее

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    Окончание поездки
    25 февраля 2025 г.