Suvarov

Suvarov is a national park/atoll in the Cook Islands. We should arrive there about August 12th and will stay about a week.

Samoa

We expect to arrive in Samoa before the end of August and will stay about a month. (please note that we are no longer planning a stop in American Samoa)

Tonga

We expect to arrive in Tonga in late September. We plan to visit all four island groups over the course of 6 or 7 weeks.

New Zealand

We expect to take the first weather window in November for the 1100 mile trip to New Zealand, where we should arrive about mid month. Opua is likely as our first port. We will work our way south. We will be in New Zealand at least until April 2011.

We on Scream are not in the habit of using agents to enter and exit countries.  Prior to our arrival in Polynesia we cleared ourselves into and out of every country except one, where we used two different agents and both experiences were unsatisfactory.

We don’t like agents, but we decided to use one in French Polynesia to avoid posting a bond.  Typically this is about C$3,000 per crew member and can be paid by credit card, but we decided it would be easier to hire someone to take care of that.

Our experience with Tahiti Yacht Agents was delightful.  Francesco took care of everything in a timely and professional manner.  Everything was done right the first time and on time.  TYA’s offices are at the main marina in Tahiti (Marina Taina), and we never had to travel anywhere for checking in or out.

Francesco is friendly, funny, and helpful.  He is fluent in English and French, and reputedly speaks four other languages as well.  He took our mail for us, and directed us to businesses where we found the things we needed, all for no additional charge.  If you need more help organizing work, he can take care of arrangements for you for a 6% surcharge.

Scream has the pleasure of recommending Tahiti Yacht Agents.

We first arrived in Hiva Oa, in the Marquesas.

The Marquesas are high, mountainous islands, with beautiful skylines.  The anchorages are a bit rolly in some places, but there are some bays, like popular Anaho, which are true coves and are quite comfortable.

We rushed through the Tuamotus, which was a bit of a mistake, since the barrier reefs which form the atolls there break the sea swell, and we enjoyed our first really flat water anchorage in months in Rangiroa.

We zipped off to Tahiti, where we stayed near the capital of Pape’ete for over a month. We were enjoying watching the games of the World Cup (Viva España!!), and exploring Pape’ete and the surrounding neighbourhoods. The Tahitians take their Va’a (outrigger canoeing) very seriously, and we often had large groups of paddlers zipping past the boat while at anchor.

We had an excellent view from the anchorage of the neighbouring island of Mo’orea, and once our soccer watching was done, we sailed across the strait to check it out for ourselves.

There are a couple of deeply indented bays on Mo’orea, and thanks to the barrier reefs, both are excellent anchorages. We spent a few nights in each one, meeting up with our good friends on Sidewinder for a couple of capsize-free snorkel trips, including one to get up close and personal with stingrays and sharks.

We will soon be off to explore the Leeward Islands – Huahine, Raiatea, Taha’a and the famous Bora Bora.

At Isla Isabela in the Galápagos, one of the trips most people recommend is hiring a panga and guide for a snorkelling tour of the lava tunnels at Los Túneles. So, along with our friends Robert and Kelita from Freedom and David and Suzi on Sidewinder, we hired the panga Inmaculata with its captain Miguel and guide Diego to check it out.

Six passengers set out that day for a five hour tour. A five hour tour.

The panga ride over to the area was very bumpy, as the seas were fairly high and they drive really, really fast. Both Kelita and I were not liking it at all, and we all agreed that a slow ride on a sailboat is preferable. However, as the site is a good distance from Puerto Villamil, a fast boat is the only option. We arrived at the entrance to the area after about an hour, and saw that we would have to negotiate breakers to gain entrance to the spot. We had heard that getting in was an impressive experience, and could easily see that it would be the case.

There was some debate about whether or not conditions were good for going in to the site, but the majority of us onboard wanted to give it a try, and the captain was prepared to go ahead also, so we headed around outside the breaking waves to get a proper angle of approach. On the way we saw a giant ray, well over a metre wide. We followed it around for a while, oohing and ahhing at its majesty. Eventually, it swam off and we went to try our approach to Los Túneles.

The waves near the reefs were about 10 to 12 feet tall, breaking and rolling like good surfing waves. The captain gunned the engine, and we went in between two waves driving along the face. At one point we all realized that there was a reef on our left and a wave on our right, and something had to change. Unfortunately, nothing changed fast enough, and we were hit broadside by a big breaker. Of course, the panga rolled over immediately.

On board, we all knew what was going to happen a split second before it did, so we were all kind of prepared for it — some people grabbed on to the bars which held the boat’s bimini on, others just hunkered down low to try and take the roll as easily as possible. As the boat rolled and filled with water, Suzi and I, who were on the low side, were thrown back into the bimini bars, and had to find our way through the bars to swim out. It sounds hard, but both of us did it automatically and were well away from the upside down boat very soon.

The men all were thrown from the high side when the boat flipped, and Kelita made her way out from under the boat last. Robert and David are both surfers, and I heard Robert shout for us to swim away from the boat. I turned and saw more breaking waves coming, and remembered to dive under when they broke over me as I swam to the nearby reef.

Soon, we were all at the reef, and those who first made it on to the sharp lava helped the others up. Both Steven and I had managed to keep our crocs shoes on, and so we did most of the walking around as the others were shoeless at first and the reef was very uncomfortable on bare feet. We all got on to the reef and took stock of our situation. I had banged my left arm on the bimini bars, and Suzi had hit her neck, but was okay. Most of us had cuts from the reef, but otherwise we were all unharmed.

The panga was upside down in the breaking swells, slowly coming in to the reef. Most of our belongings were floating in the water, also heading in to where we were. We set about collecting as much of our stuff as we could, and soon had several bags up on the reef. However, the tide was rising, and after our carefully acquired items nearly washed away again a couple of times, we agreed to head further in toward higher ground. Steven and I each took a couple of bags, and swam to the next set of reefs, then climbed up. The others followed and soon we had everyone and everything on the higher reefs. By now some shoes had been found, and most of us had something on our feet to protect us.

Now that we were all safe, the captain and guide turned their attention to the panga. They and the men from our group slowly worked to bring the boat through the reefs and in toward where we were camped out. They got in close and tried to right the boat, but it was too heavy. David suggest tying the painter to the middle of the boat, and they ran the line up to where I, Kelita and Suzi were on shore. I looped the line around a lump on the lava rock to keep it from pulling us off the reef in our attempts, and with the guide at the end of the line, all three women hauled on the line as the men pushed on the boat. Timing our efforts for when a wave would lift the boat, we finally got the boat righted after what felt like a long time of trying.

With the boat right side up we could see the damage it had suffered: the only evidence that there had ever been an upright steering station was a couple of broken cables flopping around, the bimini had been completely sheared off and the covers on both motors were lost. Otherwise, the hull was okay. However, there was no way to get it to open water, so we had to leave it tied to a corner of the reef. At this point, our guide, Diego, set off to try and find another tour boat to take us back to Puerto Villamil.

Photo courtesy of Robert and Kelita from Freedom

Shortly he returned, letting us know that a boat was coming. We spent our time waiting by collecting more of our stuff as it floated in, and rationing the fresh water we’d managed to save. We were very glad to see the other panga pull up with its captain, young helper and passengers of three young French guys, who very gracefully helped us.

However, our ordeal was far from over. We couldn’t just drive out of the area we were in with the now twelve of us on board the panga. So, we wound our way through the lava tunnels, sometimes almost portaging the boat over shallow areas, until we got to a spot where the eight of us from Inmaculata could walk to another spot where we could be picked up. A sport fishing boat also come along, and offered to take some of our gear to reduce the weight. We passed one of our bags over to them, and Freedom did the same. Then we set out on a walk over the lava tunnels that most tourists will never see.

Following Miguel and Diego, we walked over some very interesting lava formations, heading what appeared to be nowhere. At one point we came across a lagoon, and had to swim to the other side. We were starting to wonder if we were going in the right direction as we could see nothing ahead. Finally, we came to a break in the plants and could see the ocean on the other side. And there was the boat with its French tourists waiting! We had to swim to the boat, and as we approached one of the French guys pointed at us and said, “They have funny looking seals here. They’re wearing hats.” At the time, this was hilarious.

We climbed aboard, and the captain began to head toward the breaking waves to take us out. We started to get nervous as we approached the breakers, and silently lifejackets were handed around and donned. No one spoke as the captain gunned the engine to start our approach to the breaking waves. No one even spoke when we immediately hit a rock. We didn’t know what to say when a few minutes later one of the motors stalled. Undaunted, the captain restarted the motor, gunned both engines again and charged up the face of a towering wave. It seemed to take forever to crest the wave and run up the next one, but it was probably all over in about five minutes. We were through the breakers, in safe water and headed back to Puerto Villamil.

The ride back to the anchorage was long and bumpy, but we were all just happy to be headed home. Unfortunately, we had a few more challenges to surmount. When we pulled into the anchorage, we asked if we could be dropped off at the main dock, where we’d find a ride back to our boats with some other cruiser. We knew from experience that getting from panga to sailboat was tricky in that anchorage, but we were told that the Port Captain’s rules meant that they couldn’t take us to the dock since we hadn’t left from the dock. Reluctantly we agreed to be dropped off at our boats, and we made for Sidewinder first. As we approached, the panga nearly collided with one of their solar panels, and after a few attempts David and Suzi scrambled aboard their boat.

We then headed to Freedom, where Steven and I decided we’d disembark, then get a ride to Scream from Robert and Kelita later. As we approached Freedom’s stern, the panga all of a sudden sped up and rammed Freedom abeam. The boat then drove straight over the painter line tying Freedom’s dinghy to their boat. The painter got caught in the props of the panga and we untied the painter and scrambled aboard Freedom, with a fair amount of angry shouting, I’ll admit. Then we saw that the captain of the panga was holding the throttle for one of his motors in his hand, several feet away from the motor it belonged to. The throttle had broken off in the on position as we’d approached Freedom, and luckily the run in with the dinghy painter had stopped the motors.

They motored away on their remaining engine, and shortly thereafter the sport fishing boat arrived with our stuff. Nervous about them getting too close, we had them toss the bags to us, and of course ours ended up in the drink. Everything had spent a long time in the water anyway, so that was no matter and we waved them off as Steven dove in to rescue our bag. We had a moment of respite on Freedom before getting a ride with David from Sidewinder back to our boat.

The next day we saw Inmaculata being towed back to port past our boat, its hull intact if a bit battered. All in all, quite the experience. But we never even got the change to make a radio out of a coconut.

Based on last year’s results and our previous research we know that $500/week is an appropriate cruising budget for a 45′ sailboat with a crew of two. We have been tracking our budget for our own planning and for the benefit of others. We divide our budget as follows:

1. Boat Maintenance : $250/week = $13,000/annual
2. Provisioning: $100/week = $5,200/annual
3. Petty Cash: $50/week = $2,600/annual
4. Discretionary: $100/week = $5,200/annual

Our budget year was May 15, 2009 to May 14, 2010. This year we covered 5,000 nautical miles to the previous year’s 6,000. We spent:

1. 65 days in El Salvador
2. 15 days in Nicaragua
3. 100 days in Costa Rica
4. 96 days in Ecuador
5. 12 days in Peru
6. 9 days in French Polynesia
7. 42 days in Canada
8. 26 days in international waters

Summary

Please note that all costs are Canadian Dollars. For comparison the Canadian dollar averaged around $0.95 US during this year, which is at more than 10% higher than in our previous budget year.
Also note that Moorage has been moved to Boat Maintenance from Discretionary, and 2008-9 has been restated to reflect this change.

Provisioning

Provisioning is pretty basic everywhere we have been this year. This has kept our costs down as the luxury items simply haven’t been available for sale.

We stocked heavily before crossing the Pacific, and Scream is still heavily laden. Therefore, our actual costs reflected here probably ought to be amortized against our remaining stores, which would reduce the expense by perhaps another $500.

I’ve read some discussions that US$15-20 per person per day is a typical budget for provisions. The only way I could spend that kind of money would be to generously supply top quality liquor. We only eat meat a couple times a week but we are not cheap in our provisioning: our brie cheese and Bombay Sapphire style of eating is budgeted at $7 per person per day and cost much less this year.

For reference, the best provisioning on the Pacific side of Central America is in Panama City and Playas del Coco, Costa Rica. We advise boats travelling south from Mexico to stock up at Mega in Las Hadas.

Petty Cash

We allocate petty cash every week and spend it freely, so we’re always exactly on budget here.

For much of this budget year we have been in cash only economies. So petty cash has been used for more practical expenses than in previous years when it usually was spent entertaining the crew.

Boat Maintenance

When we lived in Canada we insured Scream with an excellent Lloyds-backed policy from BC Yacht. So, despite the expense, we took out an offshore policy from them when we left Canada. We assumed that the high premium was due to the dangerous waters and our lack of experience. So when we went to renew after yet another claim-free year, we expected the premium to drop substantially. It turns out that a premium of 2.25% of the value of the boat with a deductible of 3% of the value of the boat is their standard. After some lengthy discussions we discovered that past claims, experience, and waters travelled are essentially irrelevant to the cost. By our estimation, it is extremely unlikely that we would do over 5% of the value of the boat in damage. So we let our comprehensive insurance lapse during the budget year. We now have liability insurance for the boat and travel health for the crew. Despite all of this, our total insurance cost is up slightly from last year, as we enjoyed several months of cheap insurance in Canada in the previous year.

Scream finally left the desert that stretches uninterrupted from Santa Barbara California to Guatemala. With the return of rain came the return of wind, and a dramatic reduction of our diesel costs. We put 800 hours on our engine last year, for only 7.5 miles for every engine hour, including all of our time under sail. This year we put on only 350 hours, some of which was for power when our solar power failed. This year’s ratio is 14 miles per engine hour. Obviously, this makes a huge difference for budget planning. Averaging in this year’s result, I’ll now recommend budgeting $0.01 per horsepower per mile for fuel.

We spent only a single night attached to shore this budget year, and only another six nights tied up to floating docks. Yet we managed to spend $660 on moorage. We paid for dinghy docks for 120 days, and spend another 8 nights on a mooring.

We heard in Mexico that haul-outs and painting were quite inexpensive in El Salvador and Nicaragua, so we didn’t haul the boat in Mexico. It turns out that there aren’t many facilities in Central America, and many of those are unreasonably expensive. A light boat of ten metric tonnes or so can be hauled for almost nothing in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, but you’d need to have all of the supplies already on board. Scream weighs 25 tonnes. For a boat of her weight the only haul outs between Puerto Vallarta and Panama City are in Barrillas, El Salvador and Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Barrillas quoted us almost US$4,000, which we thought was too much. So we were hauled in Puntarenas at a total cost of C$3,927. I understand that haulouts are much cheaper in Mexico and Panama, and recommend others use those facilities.

Scream has two 195 Watt Solar panels. On average these provide a about 120 amp-hours at 12 volts every day. This is sufficient, but we’d like a little more. Moreover, we’d like a backup in case our solar power fails, as it did in late October 2009. The wisdom in Canada is against wind generators, as Canadian anchorages have excellent wind shelter as a rule. We experienced very little shelter from the wind in Latin American anchorages, so we bought a wind generator while in Canada. We had to pay for extra baggage allowance to bring this back to the boat in Ecuador, where we we charged 80% duty in US$ on top of the amount that included 11% of Canadian taxes. In short, the wind generator has cost us $3,200 (or more than 10%) of our cruising budget for this year, and it isn’t even installed yet.

Discretionary

We had no travel expenses in the previous year’s budget. This year we took three inland trips, and flew home.   

Our restaurant expense is down as a result of cheaper costs in Central America and cost cutting changes to our lifestyle in order to better afford the travel.

While we were home in Canada we did not count our entertainment expenses against our cruising budget.

The Future

Despite having been over budget for both years, we are keeping with the $26,000 budget. We expect to overspend the boat maintenance budget again, with another haul out, a new main sail, and a new liferaft as major planned expenses. However, we expect to keep the overall budget on target by reducing discretionary spending by doing less off-boat travel. We expect our provisioning costs to be on budget this coming year.

The anchorage at Atuona was quite crowded when we arrived, and we nervously anchored bow and stern in the small space available. We were visited by friends from El Regalo who let us know that the gendarmerie only checked boats in in the mornings, so we were free to stay aboard the first night, which was just fine by us.

The following morning, our friends on A Cappella and William Piquette had arrived, and we chatted briefly. We went into town to check in, and discovered from the crew of Piquette that the gendarme had closed at 9 am. We wandered around town, and ran into the crew of A Cappella. We did some grocery shopping, including buying hot fresh baguettes, and had a lunch out with A Cappella. Everything is more expensive than we are accustomed to, but the selection is much better. There are many products in the stores from France, which is a welcome change for us.

We finally managed to check in the following morning, after being moved off our anchorage by the crew of the barge. We reanchored outside the breakwater, where the conditions were even more rolly, then rowed into shore. We got to the gendarmerie on time, and had a very easy check in. We bought some more groceries, had a chow mein sandwich and then headed out to hopefully find a calmer, quieter anchorage on another island.

We’ve been reading a lot, and Steven is fishing (in that he’s got a line out; he has yet to actually catch a fish). We’ve only had a couple of rough nights, and have managed to catch up on any lost sleep with naps the next day. We’re happy with our 8 hour watch schedules and neither of us feel terribly tired.

At times the passage has been amazing – flying fish, beautiful blue sky, sailing off into the sunset. Some times it’s been a bit uncomfortable, but nothing too bad. We’ve had moderate winds the whole time and are happy to be sailing.

All in all, it’s been very good here at sea.

There are three places where boats can visit in the Galápagos. Going anywhere else requires special permission and a guide on board for $200 a day. This is a real pity as being in the Galápagos has really made me wonder what characteristics 19th century Latin Americans desired in their ports. There are lots of nice coves in the Galápagos, while we are restricted to three marginal anchorages. From east to west the ports are:

1. Isla San Cristobal, Puerto Baquerizo MorenoThe port here is a good tourist town with plenty of attractions. There are seals everywhere: in the crystal waters of the anchorage, on the docks, the beaches, the roads, and on the swim deck of every vessel that has one (

   Scream does not). Provisioning is okay, if clearly less good than on the continent.

   

   Excellent snorkelling can be found by walking to Tijeretas, taking a cab to La Loberia, or by boat at Isla Lobos. We took a snorkeling tour of Lobos and Kicker Rock. At Lobos we swam with sea turtles, seals, rays, and various tropical fish. Kicker rock rises vertically from the depths to about 100m above sea level. We swam with reef sharks there.

   We also went to the tortoise breeding centre, where we saw a handful of adults and dozens of young tortoises.

   The anchorage is open to the north and the west, so the predominant SW swell rolls right in. The anchorage is large, which is good considering that several dozen cruising sailboats share it with an equal number of anchored local boats and a few small ships. The bottom is sand, mostly 40 to 50 feet. Shallower depths can be found along the east shore, but there are patches of rocky bottom there.

   
   

2. Isla Santa Cruz, Puerto AyoraPuerto Ayora is the largest town in the Galapagos, but the anchorage is by all accounts far worse than the other two. After rolling around in San Cristobal, we had no interest in experiencing far-worse, so we sailed past.
3. Isla Isabela, Puerto VillamilIsabella is a tropical paradise! The water is clear and the exotic wildlife is plentiful and frisky. Most mornings we watched penguins and seals fish for their breakfast in the shallow water near our boat. Swimming lizards, flamingos, sharks, blue footed boobies, and eagle rays are also on display. The snorkelling the anchorage is good and even better snorkelling can be had in the swimming hole by the dinghy dock.

   The tortoise breeding centre here has five different species with 895 tortoises as of 2009 year end. The walk there is past/west of town and is very nice.

   

   Unlike the other two, Puerto Villamil is just a small town with sand for streets. There are a few hotels and restaurants, but the shopping of all kinds is marginal. Internet access was out everywhere about half of the days we were there. Town was always hot when we visited.

   Easily the best of the anchorages, in a small, shallow harbour between Isabela and barrier islands. Anchor in 10 feet, sandy bottom and crystal clear water. The south west edges of the harbour have depth, the middle is shoal. There were no mosquitoes while we visited, but various kinds of flies were a little annoying.

We’ve already discussed the bureaucracy. Suffice it so say that Ecuadorians seem to feel the need to make everyone’s lives difficult, especially their own, for reasons that no one can fathom.

Quito

We had a 7 day upwind slog to get here, and we were luckier than most since we actually sailed the whole way having left from Costa Rica. However, that meant that we missed Panama, and we’ve heard that the cruising in the western islands is among the best in the Pacific, and the provisioning is also excellent.

Once in Ecuador, you are only allowed to stay in the country for 90 days within a 12 month period, and this period of time does not reset should you leave the country. This is often not long enough for boats waiting for March or April to cross the Pacific, hence many people take overland trips into South America or fly home for a period.

The bureaucracy to enter Ecuador is also surprisingly difficult. Regardless of what you may read, you do need an agent in order to arrive, which is an annoyance and somewhat expensive. Upon entry, we had to pay about $35 to the Port Captain, $80 for aduana ($20 to the officials and $60 for a taxi to take our pasports to Manta) and $40 for the pilot. As of March 2010, Puerto Amistad in Bahía de Caráquez is charging a fee to act as an agent – one $50 USD payment when you arrive and another when you leave. Generally these fees are in addition to the ones listed above.

As we discovered when we left, the port captain requires cruisers to go through Puerto Amistad in order to leave, even if you are only moving on to another domestic port. We were able to negotiate with Puerto Amistad to include the port fees (about $18 for us) in with the $50 agency fee, since we did not require immigration or customs and had supplied all our paperwork.

The facilities in Bahía are okay; there is limited provisioning in town, many good restaurants, and easy transportation to Manta where shopping is much better. However, it is a good 45 minutes to Manta by car and much longer by the circuitous bus route.

The mooring fees at Puerto Amistad have also increased substantially over the past two years: as of March 2010 fore-and-aft moorings are $330/month, the dinghy dock fee for anchored boats is $6/day and there is a $1/day fee for unattended anchored boats (this does not cover boat watching services, which are extra). There is now a night security watch in the anchorage, after a string of thefts occurred from anchored boats. However, the high currents in the estuary caused more boats to drag than we have ever seen elsewhere. All were successfully rescued and re-anchored, but some collisions did occur.

All in all, while mainland Ecuador is a beautiful place, we wish we had gone to Panama and traveled to the Galapagos from there instead of coming to Bahía first. Between the high fees, insecure anchorage and difficult bureaucracy, for our money Ecuador is just more trouble than it’s worth.

Huanchaco is much like San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua – a quaint surfer town, full of tourists, ex-pats and beach bums. It was a very nice and relaxing holiday for us, and we spent the time enjoying the beach, doing a little surfing and bodyboarding and generally chilling out.

The indigenous peoples of the region used incredible reed boats, now called Caballitos de Totoro (little horses), to surf the waves while fishing. Today, you can hitch a ride on one of these boats for a wet trip out and back. However, they are still used by the local fishermen, and we often saw teams of them bobbing on the waves in the mornings.

Our friend Andrew happened to be traveling in Peru at the same time, and we were lucky to get to meet up for a couple of days. The three of us visited the ruins of Huacas del Sol y de la Luna and Chan Chan for a day, which were much more impressive than I’d imagined. Huaca de la Luna, which is actually a temple to a nature god rather than a celestial one, is remarkably well preserved in parts, due to its Moche builders habit of burying old versions and rebuilding bigger, better ones over top. The painted walls were most impressive.

Chan Chan, a site of the later Chimu culture, was equally impressive in its huge size and intricately carved walls.

The Malecon has an IMAX theatre, a couple of playgrounds, restaurants and many statues along its path, both the typical ones of political leaders and more modern artistic types. There is also a large tropical garden with a duck pond and many beautiful plants.

Guayaquil also has the most impressive bus terminal we’ve ever seen. A large, three storey affair, the terminal houses the ticketing agents for all the bus lines that travel to and from Guayaquil, making transfers extremely easy. The terminal is also a good-sized shopping mall and has many eateries. We were able to kill 6 hours of waiting time between window shopping, eating and finding free wifi on the top floor.

We visited old town and new town by ourselves. They are quite pretty and remind us more of Vancouver than of other Latin American cities. We strolled through many parks and browsed little markets of paintings and crafts. Cabs in Quito are somewhat difficult in that many of them do not know where anything is, one even couldn’t help us after we provided the address. Luckily trams run through town down the major arteries and cost only $0.25.

We visited the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana where we toured their museum. Their collection of pre Columbian artifacts is impressive, while the remainder of their collection is underwhelming.

We very much enjoyed the Museo Guayasamin and the Capilla del Hombre, both of which are galleries of Oswaldo Guayasamin’s art. The architecture of the Capilla del Hombre is wonderful, and we enjoyed Guayasamin’s art. Both of these are on top of a hill north of downtown. Due to errors in reading the our tourist map, we got off the tram at the Canadian Embassy and walked the rest of the way to the Capilla del Hombre. This was about 3 km, with probably 300 meters of vertical, most of which came in the second half. Needless to say at 3 km altitude above sea level this walk took a lot out of us. We highly recommend taking a cab.

We also took the gondola up to the Teleferiqo, which is a simple lookout at 4100 m or about 1 km above the city. This was fantastic.