Posts Tagged ‘nationalpark’

This was a special moment. After one of the worst nights sleep I’d ever had I’d been away from the tent early and been to see Old Faithful. Whilst the geyser itself remains as spectacular as ever (except for the cone which was hacked away for souvenirs by early tourists) the surrounding area has been turned into a geological Disneyland, overrun by coachloads of tourists for whom Yellowstone can be crossed off once they’ve witnessed Old Faithful spouting.

Without a doubt, you have to go and see Old Faithful, a visit to Yellowstone would never be complete without it, but take your time and go and see some of the less well-known geysers and you’ll get to see something truly unique. Getting to Lone Star involves driving 10 minutes past Old Faithful and an hours walk. I was alone for the majority of the walk, apart from squirrels and deer grazing by the river that the path follows. This was good because if nobody was walking away from the geyser it probably meant it hadn’t recently erupted (it has intervals of between 3-4 hours), but bad because I was a little terrified of meeting a bear, and the lack of other walkers increased the possibility of that in my city-slicking mind.

But, I made it to the geyser unscathed, delighted to discover a group of around 20 people already gathered, who told me it was due to erupt within the next hour. And sure enough, 40 minutes later they rhythmic belching and hissing graduated into a fully-fledged jet of scalding water being fired 50 feet into the air, roaring like a small jet plane. It lasted for another 20 minutes or so, then fizzled out. One of the spectators noted the time in the log book, and slowly the group dispersed, witnesses of a unique and beautiful natural display.

I got here early on a beautiful summers day and already it was starting to get seriously hot. I had a lot to do that day so I didn’t stay too long but it’s not a big place so I got to see most of it. It’s a starkly beautiful place, very little vegetation and surreal rock formations all around. The red of the rock and the deep blue of the sky stays imprinted on your brain for a long time.

So this was supposed to be the big one. After leaving Monument Valley I’d driven along virtually deserted country roads to Page, Arizona where I spent the night, and in the morning headed off to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, about 2 hours away. I stopped on the way at a service station where the attendant was having enormous problems trying to understand a 50-something French lady who obviously spoke very little English. I asked the lady (in French) if I could help and without drawing breath she launched into a rant about how she’d been travelling with friends who turned out to be a bunch of arseholes and how she was now travelling alone and wanted to buy some coffee and she was from Clermont Ferrand and it’s not like France here is it?

She continued in this vein for the next 5 minutes, seemingly unaware of the fact that French is not the native tongue in Arizona, seeing nothing unusual in the fact I could understand her. Before too long, I paid for my own coffee and muffin and away I went, her chattering still in the background. She’s probably still there.

About 20 miles after leaving Page (top photo) you are faced with a choice, Grand Canyon North Rim or South Rim. This is the last chance you have to decide – as the crow flies the two are something like 10 miles apart (and visible to each other), by road it’s over 200 miles. So choose carefully young one. I went to the North Rim – to be honest I can’t remember why now, but there was a good reason at the time.

Before too long the scenery began to change dramatically and the rocks and desert began giving way to hills and trees as the road entered the Kaibab National Forest and after an hour or so of this you came to the North Rim itself. I set my tent up (I was getting pretty slick at it by this point) and headed down to the Canyon itself.

Everybody knows that pictures and words cannot do justice to a natural wonder such as the Grand Canyon, so I won’t try. I will say however that it’s breathtaking, there’s no doubt about it, but it doesn’t do much if you know what I mean.

You turn up, you ooh and ahh (and let’s face it, you’ve never seen anything like it before, it is incredible), then you move to another spot to get a slightly different perspective where you ooh and ahh some more. You stay for sunset, you come back for sunrise. Then you leave.

I think maybe I was suffering a little bit from not being able to share this with anyone. I’d spent an hour or so with some very nice people at Old Faithful in Yellowstone, but apart from that I’d barely spoken to a soul (eccentric Frenchies aside) for a week and it was starting to tell.

Slight lonely grumpiness aside however, you’re never going to regret going to the Grand Canyon and it certainly is one of those things you should try to see at least once in your life. My advice – take someone special with you!

Looking through my photos from last year earlier today I realised that I hadn’t written a lot about the Roadtrip I took from Seattle to Los Angeles last year. I’ve mentioned it, but haven’t really done it justice given the adventure it was, so over the next few days I’ll post some pictures and tales of what happened.

After leaving Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks, I headed south towards Utah and Arizona. I had no real route planned, but the Grand Canyon was down there somewhere and I wasn’t going to come all this way and not pay it a visit so I based my navigation on this, using it as a target. I left the campsite at Grand Teton, 5 days after leaving Seattle, nice and early and drove south.



Through Jackson and onto Alpine, Wyoming where I stopped for some breakfast and then ever southwards, briefly touching Utah, then back into Wyoming where I made a slight detour to head through Evanston. After Evanston I entered Utah again where I would stay for the next day or so. The Northern part was fairly green and hilly and after some dull Interstate I crawled through the traffic in Provo, third largest city in Utah and home to the Church of the Latter Day Saints Missionary Training Centre.

I’ve not had many happy experiences with Mormons so for this reason I decided not to stop in Provo (although I enjoyed the billboards advertising Modest Clothing, Next Left!) and carried on over the wonderfully named Soldier Summit, through Helper (names after the Helper locomotives based there, used to help freight trains through the the mountain pass) and stopped for the evening in Green River, 470 miles from Grand Teton.

Green River wasn’t particularly accurately named, I saw nothing green and no river, I had definitely reached the desert at this point, miles of dust and rock, not much else. In the morning I headed to the Arches National Park just outside of Moab.



The arches, created over thousands of years through wind erosion are pretty spectacular, and the wide open space, hot sun beating down and red rock combine to create a special place, even taking into account the large number of tour buses (and tourists) sharing the space with you.



But the highlight of the day, and probably the highlight of the trip came later in the afternoon as I left the town of Mexican Hat in Utah and headed toward the Arizona border. I knew what was coming, but it still managed to take my breath away.



Monument Valley is one of those places you know even if you don’t know it. You’ve seen it before – scenes from some of the most iconic Westerns have been shot there, but the one that stuck out for me was the scene in Forrest Gump where he stops running. You see the same view as you drive towards it (photo above).



I had thought about spending the night there, they advertise a campsite (it’s part of Navajo Nation and the tribe run the site) but when I got there it was more a rocky car park than campsite so I spent a couple of hours taking in the view and as any good Western should end, rode off into the sunset.

Three weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend some time in the Parque Natural Nacional de Tayrona on Colombia’s Carribbean coast. I first heard of it when it was featured in a Top 10 Beaches list in the Guardian a few years back, and within hours of arriving in Colombia, fellow travellers began talking about it as one of the places to see whilst here.

And, of course, they were dead right – it’s a wonderful place; wild, beautiful, unspoilt, unique and utterly charming. If you are in Colombia it should definitely be on your list and to help you here are some tips based on our experiences there to help you get the most from your visit:

• a bus from Santa Marta to the park entrance costs 5000COP – if you are staying at the wonderful Dreamer Hostel, you can pick the bus up from the main road a couple of blocks away
• entrance to the park costs 34000COP for non-Colombians, 12000COP for the locals
• from the entrance a minibus to the start of the trail costs 2000COP
• there are 3 official places to stay – Canaveral, El Paraiso (Arrecifes) and Cabo San Juan plus a private campsite about 10 minutes walk from Arrecifes
• only Arrecifes and Cabo San Juan are actually on a beach, and it’s only safe to swim at Cabo San Juan (a sign at Arrecifes reminds you of this by telling you over 200 people have drowned there!)
• Arrecifes is roughly an hour from the start of the trail, Cabo San Juan another 45 mins from there – both trails are rough and involves a fair bit of scrambling and clambering
• prices for Cabo San Juan are 15000COP with your own tent or hammock, 20000COP to rent a tent or hammock, 25000COP to rent a hammock in the outlook, 50000COP in a room in the outlook (all per person, per night)

• having spoken to 3 people who slept in the outlook it can get very windy and cold at night, take a sleeping bag if you can or just try it for one night and see how you get on!
• food is available at both Arrecifes and Cabo San Juan, but is expensive – 8000COP for a breakfast, 20000-30000COP for a lunch or dinner
• the best swimming is at La Piscina between Arrecifes and Cabo San Juan
• the sun is STRONG – wear sunblock at all times – especially when swimming / snorkelling (this is from painful personal experience!!)
• keep an eye out for the blue landcrabs in the last 200 metres before getting to Cabo San Juan
• bring a torch / flashlight and mosquito repellent
• there is a boat to Taganga which leaves at 2pm and costs 40000COP, otherwise you have to walk back and get either a taxi or the bus back to Santa Marta

I think that’s about it – the most important thing is plenty of money – it was more expensive than we were expecting (and we’d been told it was not cheap) and we had to leave a day earlier than planned because of this. These tips are all personal opinions and the prices are correct as of March 2010 when we visited. I really cannot recommend Tayrona enough, it is absolutely amazing and unspoilt place and a highlight of any trip to Colombia!

What’s This?

There are times when it simply just doesn’t work out. We got to Ecuador last Thursday and found a nice relaxing hostel in the historic centre. Friday we just mooched around, Saturday we took a trip up to the Cajas National Park which was beautiful – it contains hundreds of lakes and lagoons, all over 3,200m.

After that however, it started to go a bit wrong, or at least not to plan. I woke up on Sunday feeling like death warmed up, so that was Sunday and Monday out of the way. Tuesday, feeling much better we checked out ready to head to Banos, between Cuenca and Quito. While waiting to pay, I checked my email to find a very alarmed note from a nervous mother pointing out the fact that Banos is situated just 3 miles from a highly active volcano and that the British Foreign Office has been advising against visiting it for the last 3 months.

Now, normally I’m very much a member of the think-positive-and-nothing-bad-will-happen school of travel, but the reports of explosions, molten lava and pyroclastic flows was all alittle bit too much, even for me.

So we sat on a bus for 11 hours and came to Quito. Where Laura has been ill for the last 2 days. So, hopefully, after more than a week, we can actually do something..

The Guardian has published its Readers Travel Awards 2009 – of the 5 winners in the Best Overseas Travel Destination:

1. Iguazu Falls
2. Macchu Pichu
3. Ankgor Temples
4. Grand Canyon
5. Great Barrier Reef

I’ve been to 3 of ‘em in the last year.

My Top 5 is, in approximate order:

1. Macchu Picchu, Peru

2. Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

3. Perito Moreno Glacier, Patagonia

4. Monument Valley, Arizona

5. Ilha Grande, Brasil

After my run-in with the law on I-90 I decided to leave it after 600 miles and headed across Montana the 100 miles or so to Yellowstone. I wanted to get there as early as I could as I was planning on camping and I didn’t have a reservation. I stopped for breakfast in Ennis, MT which was a real little Wild West place, the waitress called me Honey as she refilled my coffee. Although I did manage to find (steal?) a Wi-Fi network so I could update my Facebook status, very important for today’s traveller.

I stopped briefly at the nicely rhyming Earthquake Lake, formed after a massive earthquake blocked the Madison River, a reminder of the geological instability of the area. It all looked very benign, but the dead trees still sticking out of the water were a bit erie.

So onto Yellowstone proper. I had heard about the huge crowds and sure enough about 10 minutes past the gate (free entry day, yay!) the traffice ground to a halt. Having a huge camper van thing in front of me I couldn’t see what was holding us up, so I was just calmly sitting there when, from behind the camper van, two bloody enormous great buffaloes lumbered past the car. As you can imagine, frightened the living hell out of me. They looked at me with their big crazy staring eyes and carried on their merry way past the traffic jam. Very Yellowstone.

My first night was not a great success. In order to keep costs down, I had bought a cheap sleeping bag when I purchased the tent in Ketchikan, thinking, it’s Summer, it’ll do. I’ll let you into a little secret, it didn’t do. Not by a long chalk. Yes, the calendar read August, but I hadn’t really taken into consideration that Yellowstone is over 2000m above sea level. I have never been so cold in all my life. At 3am I had to get into the car and turn the heating on. I ended up sleeping the rest of the night in the car. Not a happy camper. I did get to see the stars though – I’ve only seen the Milky Way twice and both times I was absolutely freezing and high up, the first time being at 4300m in Bolivia.

I liked Yellowstone, the landscape was on the pretty side, rather than stunning, and every couple of miles you see clouds of steam appearing above the trees, making it look kind of other-worldly. I joined 15000 other tourists and watched Old Faithful do its old, faithful thing and then I went for a walk (all the while singing out loud as recommended in my Bear Aware pamphlet) to the Lone Star Geyser which erupts every 3 hours or so. I timed it nicely and got there about 30 minutes before it erupted. Whereas Old Faithful shoots high, it only goes for about a minute, this one went on for nearly 20 minutes, very cool.

After this, I went to West Yellowstone to buy a proper sleeping bag and watched the sunset over the Madison River, and very beautiful it was too.

The great US roadtrip has such a romantic image, and whilst not entirely the case (I’m sure Kerouac never got stuck in roadworks on the I-80), it is proving to be quite an experience. I’m currently St George, Utah (and won’t be returning after backing gently into somebody’s car earlier and driving off like a coward) and have two more days until the car has to be back in LA. I’ll write up some stuff later but for the time being here are some jontyjago roadtrip stats:

Miles driven so far: 2,245
Days since leaving Seattle: 8
National Parks visited: 5
People who have asked if I’m Australian after hearing me speak: 7
Most miles in one day: 526
Nights spent under canvas: 4
Nights spent warmly under canvas: 3 (nobody told me Yellowstone would be below zero in sumertime)
Favourite beer: Moose Drool
Favourite sign: LOTTO GUNS AMMO BEER
Favourite town name: Smoot, Wyoming
Times stopped for speeding: 1
Tickets for speeding: 0
Breakfast of choice: 2 eggs up, hash browns, english muffin & coffee
Best meal: A fresh Garden Wrap and soup in San Juan River Cafe, Bluff, UT
Worst meal: Packet of Doritos
Bears seen: 2
Elk seen: 15
Bald Eagles seen: 1
SUVs been tailgated by: 4,327 (approx)
Hottest temp according to the car: 101F (somewhere in Arizona)
Coldest temp according to the car: 26F (Yellowstone)
Times been over the speed limit after being stopped for speeding: Only a couple
Longest stretch of straight road: something like 12 miles in Arizona
States visited: 6 (Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona)
States left to visit: 2 (Nevada and California)

Biggest “Holy Shit, look at that!” moment: Coming over the hill and seeing Monument Valley