Volcano El Misti - The Destroyer (of Duncan and Nina)

I believe it was my brilliant idea to give a 5,800m Volcano a crack on our relaxing, boozy jaunt around South America. Surely after spending a handful of days in cities over 3,500m we'd be fit and firing enough to tackle a steep mountain with 15kg packs on our backs.

El Misti towers over the city of Arequipa and is one of those typical looking Volcanoes - conical with a big crater at the top. While active it apparently hasn't puffed any smoke or caused any concern for over a hundred years. Still it is a very impressive Volcano when you can see it from anywhere in the city.

The idea to climb El Misi actually came from the Atacama, where you can take day trips to local Volcanoes some or which are still active and where I believe you can see lava. Disappointingly I missed out on doing any trips there, but it was great that Arequipa presented an alternative.

Our hike started deceptively well at 3,400m. Even though that's pretty high it was like traversing a gentle hill in the Australian bush. Not too much effort at all. However after a few hours of carrying 15kg at a nice warm temperature of 25 with increasing altitude and an ever rising degree of steepness - things started to get a bit more difficult. None the less we powered on for about 5 hours without too much fuss.

After our easy start the last hour of hiking on day 1 was very tough as the terrain changed to volcanic ash, which was like climbing sand dunes, plus the altitude was starting to cause us to have significantly more fatigue. By the time we reached our camp for the night at 4,500m we were pretty stuffed, but it was worth it to see the amazing sunset over the city of Arequipa - laid out in front of us.

After a quick dinner at 6pm it was time to hit the hay as we had to be up at 1am to tackle the summit - the reason of which I'm still not sure. One of our ultra boring, non social, Swiss origin hiking group advised me not take any sleeping tablets due to the altitude too which meant sleeping was going to be difficult.

In hindsight I'd recommend not sleeping at 4,500m, in the freezing cold, with uncomfortably cold sleeping bags at 6pm with no sleeping tablets. To say it sucked was an understatement and I think I had an hour of sleep at best before arising at 1am for 'breakfast' at surely -2 degrees or less. I'm still not sure how I managed to get up considering for 99% of the night I was committed to abandoning ship.

Once awake, fed and rugged up in nearly every wifebeater and pair of boardies I own we set off for the summit with the twinkling lights of Arequipa shining on our backs in the clear night.

Again it was more volcanic ash hiking, very tough going and a lot of switchbacks as the steepness had increased considerably. A few hours in my hands and feet were super cold and painful due to inadequate gear and decreased blood circulation, however I was in a good frame of mind. However about 3-4 hours in Nina and one of the other girls were struggling and I was walking 3-4 steps and feeling like I'd just sprinted 100m. At this rate we we were going to take another 4 hours just to get the final 500m out of the way.

So a few of the group went on ahead (no big loss, they were the worst group of people that we'd met all trip), while we battled on for a bit longer. At 5,290m we pulled the pin and decided to go back down. I thought I just about had frostbite on my toes so I was very keen to get to some warmth and the other girl with us was flat on her back and not moving so that was a pretty good indication she was done!

The journey down was much more fun - 'skiing' down the volcanic ash chutes which took about 30 minutes, compared to the 4 hours going up. After a few hours kip back at the camp the rest of the group who summited arrived back and we set off down to the base.

In the end we were unsuccessful, but I'm glad we gave it a crack. It certainly gave me a much better appreciation for the preparation needed to summit a much higher peak.....if you know what I mean!

Our briefing the day before climbing.....boy this makes it feel like more than just a walk in the park.

Volcano El Misti keeps growing in height as we get closer and closer.

The equal worst group of people we met in South America. Spending just 2 days with them was a chore. For the record they were Swiss and French.

The group sets off while I listen to some tunes on the way up.

Sunset at 4,500. Our day turned from high 20's and beautiful to freezing cold at about 4,000m.

I was still smiling at this point! For the next 12 hours there was no more smiling.

Stuck at 5,290m - at this point we were smiling because we made the decision to go down.

Skiing 800m down the volcanic ash was the fun part! It took about 30 minutes to go down what had taken us 4 hours to get up. Nina is already a fair ways in front of me here, down the bottom left.

The Chee

We'd heard not so good things about Curitiba (coora-chee-bah) - particulary that it was colder than PA and that the people aren't friendly.

I take my hat off though, we thought it was awesome. It definitely makes the coveted list of places I recommend! Again we were unlucky to only have 1 1/2 days there but we packed in a city hop-on/hop-off bus tour, a visit to a modern art museum, the botanical gardens as well as the Aussie game.

Curitiba was very Melbournish. It has lots of nice parks, a lot of foreign influence, great food, a cool Brunswick st type area in the historical part of town and it was very well organised for the Cup. 

We also experienced local hospitality when we found ourselves arrive at our accommodation after dark in a somewhat sketchy part of town, only to believe this wasn't houses at all but rather closed shop fronts. We went into the chemist to regroup and get some help, which drew a small crowd of generous locals williing to help. One guy went off to see if he could find the place and the residents, while a lovely mum/daughter combo offered up their phone .... Not to mention their place to stay at if all else failed! In the end it all worked out and mum drove us all for dinner at the local mall with Rachaela - the daughter. Thanks again!

The Aussie game was one to forget. I'm not sure what happened with the team, but up front nobody took Tim Cahill's mantle to be the guy wanting to score, the midfield were to timid to push forward or deliver passes that the forwards could run onto and the defensive marking was woeful. The Spanish did not play well, but they were able to cruise like a training run, make some nice passes and put the Aussies to the sword. It was absolutely a bizzare performance as the loss of Cahill and Bresc (well as a starter) seemingly stole the mental confidence from the rest of the team. It was this game where I would have loved to see Archie Thompson and Mark Schwarzer make cameo appearances off the bench to help steady the side. My analysis is that perhaps a few of the old heads being reserves wouldn't have been such a bad idea.

Cocks beyond the Rocks

Winding our way up to Curitiba, we stopped at the beachside town of Balneario Camboriu.....the Vancouver of Brazil.

A nice surprise was that it was much warmer than we expected, as Porto Alegre and Curitiba are pretty much like Melbourne in terms of winter weather. So once the shorts were dug out of the pack, it was an opportunity to take it easy for a few days, see the baby 'disco jesus' - surely Rio's baby brother, plus explore the rainforest along the coast.

One surprise as we were wandering along the park boardwalk a few km's from town, was an odd number of individual blokes or those with a 'mate' loitering beyond a rocky outcrop along the beach....close to dusk.

Nina pointed out that it was unusual for so many dudes to be interested in nature or contemplating life, and that perhaps this was a similar meeting place to that in Stanley Park, Vancouver where dude love in a park is all the rage.

Either that or we just wandered into an outdoor drug lab. Either way I wasn't that keen to see what the night awakened.....

Disco Jesus! Younger brother of Rio Jesus.

Vancouver's brother from another mother.

A nice place in summer I'm sure.

Look they have utes here too! I saw a more typical aussie type ute as well.....we aren't the only ones!

Porto Alegre

Unfortunately we stuck around in Cuiaba a few days too long. The city was not ready for the cup, a bit ho-hum and the Pantanal area just didn't deliver for wildlife, so we were left with not a great deal of highlights - plus a $180 fee for a stone crack in our rentals windscreen. Hint - Don't put Cuiaba on your travel itinery, unless you want to see the Brazillian version of the Calgary Stampede!

Porto Alegre was a refreshing change. It was great to see our friends Carla and Christiano again, who we met in Bonito, and they took us out on a great day to a quaint German town called Gramado, a few hours north of Porto Alegre. Aside from the European feel, the much appreciated fresh air .... I couldn't help but wonder if we'd run into Giselle Bunchen - surely one of brazil's finest German heritage exports!

To top off our stay in Porto Alegre, the Aussies put in a brilliant performance against the very strong Dutch and it was stirring to see how much respect Australian football earned with non-Australians who watched the game. I think Cahill's goal will probably be right up there for being one of the goals of the tournament too.....it may have even welled up a tear in the eye of one Nina Edwards!

Pre-game there were no expectations. Just the hope the Aussies would put up a good fight against the Dutch.

Nina representin'

I was definitely proud of the boys after they had put in a stellar performance, with the only negative being that they made a few rookie mistakes costing a few goals and a win over a great team. The highlight was certainly Tim Cahill's left foot blast from the other end of the game, definitely my pick for goal of the tournament.

There were so many Aussie fans at the game, overall it was probably 70% Aussie, 20% Brazilian and 10% Dutch. A massive change from being hugely outnumbered at the Chile game.

Our local Porto Alegre friends Carla & Cristiano, who we met in Bonito, were lucky enough to go to the game as well.

The day after the game Carla and Cristiano took us to Gramado, a quaint little German town a few hours north of Porto Alegre.