South American Adventure
Posted on April 10, 2008
by Nathan Fulton 
0 It was time to make our way south via Inca Express, destination Puno, Peru’s gateway to Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is the highest body of water in the world and the largest landlocked body of water in South America. As we struggled up the staircase of our hotel, due to Puno’s high altitude, we felt somewhat old. Having to take a break at just about every floor we found our room at what seemed like the top floor of the hotel. It is important to make a note here before you jump to a conclusion that we are still unfit after all our walking, that all hotels in Puno must have oxygen on the premises due to the altitude.
The sky burnt with an orange glow as the sun reflected off the mountain peaks of the Andes. Our view of the Andean sunrise was blocked by the towering mountain spires. It was apparent that somewhere, somehow a god of some sort, be it Incan or not was watching over us today. We made our way to the KM 82 checkpoint, however, something was not quite right. JAYDE’S CAMERA!!!!! After telling the rest of the group to keep walking and a frantic 1 hour search, we finally managed to find Jayde’s camera by fluke. As a porter passed with our duffel bags strapped to his back we just about tackled him as a last ditch effort before filling a police report. Apparently, somehow, Jayde’s camera had managed to roll off the bed and land in one of our duffel bags.
The overnight buses in South America are always an experience. It is often whispered on these buses that if you have not boarded a night bus with “Eternal Flame” blaring from the on-board television system then you have not lived. As our overnight hostess handed out our “night survival kits” we received more than our fair share of strange looks as our group sung at the top of their lungs… “Is this burning, an eternal flame……” Given that most of the group at this point were deliriously tired, it was not long before we are started counting z’s.
From the border in Peru, Sebastian led us to buses down a dark alley way. As we frantically piled 16 backpacks onto the roof looking over our shoulders, a man continually screamed “HELADO, HELADO, HELADO” not 6 feet from were we were standing. Given the temperature was in excess of 35 degrees, the thought of having an ice cream (helado) running down ones arm was not very appealing. We piled into the bus and sweat was running freely, however our decision to not support the local ice cream man was reinforced when the ice cream halved in price for a local, but in the next breath told us the price was twice as much. We happily said goodbye t0 the ice cream man and drove out of Tumbes. Our next stop was to be the Peruvian Immigration office to acquire the necessary paper work to enter Peru.
As our feet touched the tarmac at Quito Airport, we were assaulted with a wall of coldness like that we had experienced more than a week before hand. We were back in mainland Ecuador, where there was minimal blue sky, and the wind coursed across the Andes. It seemed hard to not think of our Galapagos as the pinnacle of our trip given the beauty of both the flora, fauna and people on those islands in the pacific. But we just had to look back at our trip to date and remember the good friends we had made and the extraordinary sites that we had seen to remind us that this was South America, and there will always be places that are unique and beautiful which cannot be compared to anything else.
The ‘Nathan Diary‘ was later used to write the Fulton’s infamous work ‘The Life of Nathan‘ (2055). The excerpt below was taken from the ‘Nathan Diary‘ during the journey around the Galapagos Island’s from the 27th of February 2008 to the 6th of March 2008. Although the exploration that was conducted during this time could never be used in any scientific research, it is hoped that generations to come will look at it for inspiration to rediscover the discovered for themselves.
Today is Monday, and as we sit at the airport waiting for our flight to take us to Santiago Chile, the delay of 4 hours and 15 minutes has given us a chance to look back at the journey so far. Easter Island, or as it is known to the Chileans, Rapa Nui, was a great first stop to ease us into the South American culture. If one was to overlook the high prices, the lack of English speakers and the excess amount of gluten in the local diet the last four days have been a breeze. Overall, we have become better at speaking in Spanish and attempting to negotiate taxi fairs to and from Volcanoes…..
At nearly 3000 metres above sea level, flying at close to 180 mph, carrying 300 terrified passengers whom have no idea what is happening as the aircraft decends below mountain peaks and into the cloud cover, and you’ve got to land a plane in the middle of a capital city. Due to the high altitude, you must maintain a higher velocity to keep the plane from ploughing into the buildings a few hundred feet below you. The runway itself has a ‘hump’ in the middle which means that when the wheels hit the runway you are going uphill and when you finally stop you are facing downhill. Although these are all constant, now throw a couple of variables into the equation and you have one of the highest risk airports in the world. Rain, hail and wind all make this a difficult piece of tarmac to land a few 100 tonne aircraft on, but when this is done at night…. it truly becomes exciting, The runway itself doesn’t have sufficient enough drainage so when it is raining, the pilots have to literally slam the aircraft into the runway to break the water tension and stop the aircraft from aqua planning off the runway into the residential and commercial buildings that surround the airport just past the perimiter fences.
We have arrived in Punta Arena, the gateway to the southern tip of Chile, home of the Torres Del Paine National park, and is the southern most city in Chile, A short stop-over for our next destination, Puerto Natales. As we made our final approach into Punta Arenas international terminal we were hit with sever turbulence. The plane was buffeted around as the powerful winds that howl across the south pacific finally made landfall. It became apparent that this was not going to be one of those beach holidays where we could absorb copious amounts of vitamin D and moan about the sand in every crevice. This would be a holiday where we could finally utilise those thermals and woollens that we had carried for the past few weeks……
Endurance is defined in the English Dictionary as “the ability to continue doing something difficult or painful over a long period of time”, and tolerance “willingness to allow people to do, say, or believe what they want without criticizing or punishing them the degree to which someone can suffer pain, difficulty etc without being harmed or damaged”. (more…)