Rock climbing has only recently become a popular activity in Chile and Bolivia and this is most obvious when you see who is climbing – most people are in their 20s. Unless you are a mountaineer, or fancy a go at climbing the formidable Torres del Paine, then the crags are probably best visited as an element of a wider trip to explore the country, as they were for us. Saying that, there is plenty of potential for rock climbing in these two beautiful countries. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Climbing in Chile and Bolivia: Places with potential
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Christmas season in Cusco and the Sacred Valley
New Year’s Eve in Cusco
We arrived in Cusco from Lake Titicaca on 23 December 2015, just in time for Christmas. In the end, we spent more than three weeks in and around Cusco and the Sacred Valley, which gave us plenty of time to explore the many, many Incan sites in the area. We’ve selected our favourite of these for an accompanying blog here – there is so much more to this area than Machu Picchu! As well as seeing how modern Peru marks Christmas and New Year, we caught the festival of the “Coming of the Kings” in the Sacred Valley at Ollantaytambo, and, despite it being the rainy season, we did some delightful walks along some lesser known Incan trails and even managed a little rock climbing, as well as the fantastic Skypod experience.
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Top 10 Incan things that aren’t Machu Picchu
Cusco was the Incans’ capital city and the valleys leading to and from it, especially the Sacred Valley, following the Urubamba river towards Machu Picchu, are full of Incan delights. We spent more than three weeks in the area (see this accompanying blog to read about what else we got up to), giving us plenty of time to sample many of them. Machu Picchu gets all the attention, but there is so much more to it than that! In this blog, we pull out our 10 favourite Incan things from our time in the area, plus a little bit about Machu Picchu at the end.
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Rock climbing in Argentina: A land of plenty
Argentina is a huge country and a great destination for rock climbers. Whether you only go to one of the well-developed crags, each of which could easily occupy much more than a week of your time to explore fully, or just sample these crags in passing and discover a few hidden esoteric ones as part of a grand tour, Argentina has a wealth of options. Continue reading
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Yellow Van Days 