First post in a month! Bolivia to Argentina

So I will try to recap an entire month of memories in one way too long blog.  We were "blessed" with an extra day in La Paz in which we went to go watch some lucha libre wrestling, except it had locally dressed ladies as fighters. Despite the low budget nature of this, it was entertaining since you could throw trash at people.  At one point the man threw one of the "cholitas" right over the metal railing and directly into me!  She rolled around on the floor while Lora and I took silly photos.   We then took the opportunity to go to some Pre Incan ruins in Tiwanaku making up for some of our wasted time in La Paz.  There were some cool face sculptures in an underground pit and some neat carvings in rocks that actually seemed more intricate than the Incan ruins we had already seen.  We took a local minibus there and in order to return to La Paz we were stuck in the La Alta, the plateau above La Paz, with a scheduled bus that evening and with no idea how to get in the city.  Luckily for us the driver showed us another minibus that stopped right by the hostel. After leaving La Paz we stopped in Sucre which had a much more colonial and overall cleaner feel than La Paz.  We stayed at a great hostel in which our room was well decorated and even had a couch!  There were some cool dinosaur tracks near the city on a raised cliff, but since they did not let you get close, they put up a bunch of dinosaur statues which Lora and I had a blast taking odd pictures with. After a few days we took a bus to the pinnacle of our Bolivian trip, the Uyuni Salt flats.  The bus however was hot, dusty and a crazy lady told about 4 people to close their windows over and over despite the crazy heat.  Lora in the small desert town of Uyuni, Lora and I got addicted to a pizza place run by a Bostonian, our first real good pizza in a long time.  The next days we spent hours trying to figure out which tour to go with, and we learned no matter how much time you spend, most tours are all the same.  The siesta the town took also made it difficult to get things done in the early afternoon.  The tour of the salt flats were great. We were in a truck for 3 days and 2 nights.  The first stops are in the salt flats themselves, blinding white salt in which tourist like to use as a backdrop for silly pictures of distorted proportions.  We then stayed in hostel made nearly entirely of Salt!  The next day we went to many lagoons full of andean flamingos, some lagoons were red or green due to the minerals in the water which made for some crazy looking landscapes.  There were also boiling hot thermal pools to add more to the feel of an alien landscape.  After roughing it, we were able to go into a hot spring near the thermal pools and relax despite the air being freezing cold.  We were the only people who understood any Spanish in our tour group so we had to serve as interpreters.  Unfortunately, the other couple did not reciprocate, by taking the double beds, eating the best pieces of meat, sitting the the middle of the truck the whole time, so we were force to stop interpreting for them.  We "forgot" to tell them we were waking up at 4 am so they got a little bit of a surprise.  The tour ended in San Pedro, a more expensive and totally touristy town on the other side of the Andeas in Chile´s Atacama desert.  To our despair, the bus to Salta, Argentina only left twice a week and was book for the next day meaning we would be trapped in this damn town for a week.  There we met a 2 German couples and a Swiss couple who came to find the same annoying news.  We hunted around all day and finally had to settle for a car transfer to Salta.  The ride to Chile included more picturesque and colorful"cerro siete colores," mountains which having the car ride was nice because we got a bit of a tour.  We arrived in Salta and found a relaxing and friendly hostel to stay at.  In Argentina we got to finally get some good wine, ice cream and finally some good meat, not that mystery meat in Bolivia, at a BBQ hosted by the hostel.  We also had our first taste of Argentina spanish.  Ordering Vanilla ice cream I learned that it was not Vah nee ya, but vah nee jah! Our next stop was to visit Lora´s distant relatives in Chaco, a process which we found to be a bit difficult since it wasn´t on the main gringo trail.  We spent 2 nights, one in Resistencia with some relatives and another night in a small town with more of Lora´s family.  Besides one cousin, most people only spoke Spanish so it was quite and interesting but beneficial experience.  The heat in the town was brutal but her family was very accommodating which made for a good experience.  We then moved on to Igauzu falls, another highlight of the trip.  These massive waterfalls took 2 days to see.  The first day we went and finally took care of our time consuming Brazilian visa formalities and viewed the falls from the Brazil side.  Our Portuguese experience was a bit difficult but Spanish and English were spoken in such a touristy area.  There were many butterflies in the air and little pesky coatis sneaking around looking for a free food. There were places where you could get right near the falling water and get quite wet, which was nice in the heat.  However, the Brazilian side was mostly for nice views of the waterfalls from afar.  The second day we went to the Argentinian side in which you could get much closer to the waterfalls.  You took a small train toward the falls from the park entrance. There were bridges going over many of the smaller sub waterfalls.  The last step was a big bridge to the Garganta del Diablo which was a chasm where most of the water flows over the edge with awe inspiring power.  

 After really rushing through Iguazu, we headed into Buenos Aires which we have just finished up a crazy and busy week visiting my sister and a few friends down here.  I will save that for later because I am pretty much exhausted!

Bo Bo Bo, Li Li Li, Via Via Via, Viva Bolivia

So it's been about 12 days or so since my last post so i'll try to hit all the highlights without making this too long winded. We chilled out in La Paz to rest our weary souls for a few days barely leaving the hostel, but with good food and good beer it was pretty easy to do so. Finally, after moving to a dorm room we hit the town, and by hit the town i mean go to the other gringo hostel in the area, Loki. This one had a pretty big and cool old fashion ball room looking bar. There we ran into our friends from Lake Huachina and the Inca trail, in typical gringo trail fashion. From there we head out to the clubs but on girl in a shared cab gave us a thorn in our behind. Taxis in La Paz run around 8 to 12 Bolivianos which is about $1.10 to $1.60 or so and everyone chips in 2 or 3 bolivianos. As we're trying to find correct change for our cab this chick gets out and proclaims she'll contribute a grand total of 1 boliviano or about 14 cents to the cause, and pretty much told us to deal with paying the cab. Talk about being a tightwad! She then proceded to buy $3 drinks at the bar. Our dreadlocked German friend called her out on the dance floor which was mildly amusing.
Another major activity that has gained popularity in Bolivia is this down hill mountian bike ride on a dirt road dubbed "the most dangerous road in the world" primarly due to sheer cliffs and it being about 1 car wide. Now the road is mostly unused but bike tours going down it have become popular. The major company 'gravity assited' was too much money for us. We found another company Vertigo that used legit Haro bikes and provided good gear. The ride wasn't as freaky as expected but, going off the cliff would be pretty much death, so some caution was required. Lora and I didn't fall but other people in our group weren't so lucky. The trips starts of with a trip down a paved road where everything is brown and boring. By the time you get to the dirt road with sheer cliffs the scenery changes into a healty green of plants, small waterfalls, and great vistas. As a plus our guides kept us entertained and the mechanic checked up on the bikes mid journey.
The next day was a great day to watch some World Cup Qualifiers on TV with people from the hostel. We went to the Irish owned Hostel called Wild Rovers to watch the Ireland/Italy match which ended in heart breaking fashion, 2-2 after Italy equalized in the last few minutes. The real gem though was the meaningless qualifier between Bolivia and Brazil the next day which we went to in La Paz. We went with our hostel to the stadium and bought drinks at liquor stores that ran out of cold ones and cheap Bolivian jerseys to wear at the game. The stadium was about half full and Brazil fielded it's B team which in some sort of combination of slacking or high altidude weakness had the Bolivian team running circles around them. Our seats were on the goal side and we got to see the Bolivian side put in a nice free kick over the wall. It was quite enjoyable even though there was a quite a tourist crowd that couldn't get any chants going. The Brazilian travelering fans were mostly subdued as well. The final result was Bolivia 2-1 which is always nice to see brazil lose one in the end.
After La Paz we took a brutal 18 hour bumpy bus ride to the jungle town of Rurrenabaque to do a 3 day Pampas tour, a wet grassland of sorts. After getting off the bus we go to Erlan's nice hostel with hammocks overlooking the Beni River. The next day we head into the Pampas with a group of 6. This involved a 3 hour bus ride but the 3 hour river ride was awesome. The number of aligators, turtles and birds is simply astounding. There were about 3 gators around every river bend. We also go to see monkeys of different sorts and this big marmot like rodent. We also went hunting for an anaconda but came back empty! There were also pink river dolphins, but they were a bit shy and stayed away from the boat. We went swimming We stayed in primitive cabins along the river and pretty much traveled around by boat. Our guide Ronaldo, though speaking mostly spanish kept us entertained with guitar song, which made up for his lack of warning of the crazy walking throught grassland conditions we encountered. The second day we went swimming the river, despite there being aligators and piranhas which we went fishing for with little chunks of meat. Lora caught a few but I wasn't so lucky!

That's pretty much all i can get out of my brain after another 18 hour bus ride back to La Paz, but just be glad I didn't go over an andean cliff.

Lake Titicaca to La Paz

We arrive in Puno and follow our friend Raj from the Inca Trail to a hostel Inka's Rest. The owner and her husband were quite helpful and the husband Alfredo was amuzing with his constant mate drink and cigarette smoking. The next day Raj and I headed out to the islands as Lora had to unfortunately battle some stomach ailments. The boat stopped at the floating islands which were interestingly enough floating on a bunch of dirt and reeds. The stop was cool, however the islands were way into tourism and had a slight Disneyland feel. Afterwards we took the boat, ever so slowly to the island of Amantani and stay with the Santos family. After a meal of potatoes and sour tasting cheese we meet Sr. Santos and his grand daughter Brenda who live typical lives away from the excitement of the city which Sr. Santos said drove him crazy. We then hike up to the top of the island for a great sunset and eat a dinner of rice and potatoes. A carb monster's dream! The next day we head to the island of Taguile to look at handicrafts and eat a lake trout lunch.

The next day we hopped onto a Bus to Copacabana, not the one in Brazil but the one in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia. We get to the border and the process is as follows: 1. Get off bus and walk to immigration office of Peru to get exit stamp. 2. Get told you need to go to police first 3. Go to the police station to get entrance card inspected and stamped. 4. Return to immigration office to get exit stamp 5. Walk about 10 minutes around a wall and procession. 5. Find hidden Bolivian Immigration office, wait in line for someone to tell how to do the US visa 6. Sit down and hurrily fill out form and show documentation to official. 7. Go outside, change money to make copy of passport and yellow fever shot 8. Return to pay visa fee of $145. 9. Argue that the visa fee should be $135, get told to read the sign 10. Explain in Spanish that the fee is $135 11. Get asked for hotel details which was sitting on the desk 12. Pay $135, see the man just open a drawer full of American money for change and get visa sticker. 13. Wait in main line to get stamp and watch the visa stamper spend minutes looking through passport 14. Finally get my 5 year visa for Bolivia. We then had to get off the bus in Copacabana after paying a random 1 Boliviano fee on the bus. The bus then had no land route to La Paz which required us to take a 'ferry' across the lake which was a crappy looking boat and the bus took a rickity barge that people bucketed water out of at the dock.

We are now in La Paz at a Hostel that has a microbrewery and a free beer everynight. The beer is pretty good but in no means mind blowing. Today we will try to figure out what to do in Bolivia.

One sore knee, a bum ankle and a full week or so later

So it´s been a while since I posted on this thing so I´ll try to remember any hijinx or lame event that has occured since then besides the "i saw this cool thing, then i saw that cool thing."

So I last left out on going on the town with the English chaps and learned a valuable lesson. Drinking in high altitude is not to be messed with. After a relatively mellow few beers, the hostel bar closed and we were forced out to check out some "rash hashana" party which in reality didnt have much of Jewish feel to it. On the way out I decided to drink the last quarter beer or so that I had. The Incan gods did not take kindly to this jesture as I threw up all over the street infront of the hostel. This was no ordinary event since I never felt sick, it just decided to run it´s way out of my mouth. The English kids refered to this as an exorcism. The next day needless to say was not an enjoyable one. Went to "Paddy´s Pub" (unfortunately no relation the the It´s Always Sunny in Philadelphia one) to watch some EPL soccer replays. Lora and I then bought our obligatory Llama beanies for about $2.50 each.

The next day Lora and I headed into town to look for shoes since one of her shoes fell out of her bag somewhere along the way. Unfortunately, she apparently has giant feet and can´t find any shoes that will fit her, maybe we´ll have to wait until Argentina for that. We went up into the San Blas district which had thin cobblestone alleys and a bunch of touristy rocks in the walls, such as a stone that was carved with 12 Angles, or a bunch of rocks that supposedly look like a Puma, or as i quoted "it´s just some rock." More interestingly, in the Iglesia de San Blas there was a beautiful pulpit supposedly carved from one tree stump. Photo regulations require that you imagine the massive level detail on this large stump.

The next day we headed on a bus tour of the Sacred Valley; Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and Chinchero. There we got to see some neat Incan Ruins. Specifically Ollantaytambo was interesting as the Incans where pulling up boulders as the Spanish invaded and left half of a monument in the mountainside. Our tour guide was quite interesting always referring to us as "the best group" and the bus driver as "the best bus driver," "free pisco sours at the end", a test for the $400 train ticket to Machu Picchu and lunch as the "most important stop." As this became annoying, in typical fashion, the stops on the tour were over priced and the food was cold and probably made me sick. In Chinchero we got to see the local Quecha women make yarn out of llama wool and dye it using local ingredients such as this cactus parasite that had blood red inners.

Think that´s all? Cusco also had 4 ruins withing a few miles of it. Lora and I took our $20 tourist ticket (normally priced $40!) and a negociated $5 cab ride up the mountain to Tambomachay and walked down toward Cusco. The first were in typical ruin fashion, a pile of rocks makign walls, some carved irrigation water running through them. Ok, i lied, it was quite fascinating but I don´t have time to go over them in great detail. The last stop, Sacsayhuaman (or as joked as "Sexy Woman")had terraces that were built with these massive boulders. That´s what i call amazing. I don´t think i´d know how to move this with a Catepillar.

The next day for some reason i did not feel to well but Lora wanted to get our money´s worth with that tourist ticket we had to buy, so we went to the included scatter museums in the city. Each musuem had about 5 minutes of things to look at which made me wonder if they threw them in there to make it feel like you weren´t being ripped off for the tourist ticket. Remember $40 concidering a 3 course meal could cost as low as $3-4 is a lot of money. I ended sleeping that day. At night we ate the hostel´s (Loki hostel a gringo joint) sheppards pie. I can´t remember if it tasted good because my last recolection of it was it flying out of my mouth into the toilet. Chills and ache to follow. Oh no! the Inca trail is only in 1 day. Friday i felt like crap as well, trying to will myself into shape for the inca trail. That night I went to the predeparture meeting and realized, everyone except for me had hired a porter to carry their bags, sleeping bags and pad. I thought carrying your own shit was the norm, not the exception! Saturday at 5:30 AM i feel better and head out to km 82 with the Inca Trail group. The first day was nice and flat and the kids who weren´t carrying anything were flying down the path. Then the path went uphill and it started to rain. By the end of the first day i was exhausted, wet and had major doubts about my ability to carry this backpack. The support of the hike was amazing, 14 porters would pack up 25 kg of stuff each, throw it on their backs, run ahead of the group, set up camp, cook an amazing meal that was better than many restaurants i was in, clean, break down, run ahead of the group and do it all over again! The next day was supposed to be the harded, a hike up to about 13,000 feet. Being the macho guy I am (actually i blame this more on being too much of a wimp to ask for help) i carry my bag to the top. It wasn´t so bad, what was actually worse was walking down the billion steps to the next valley as it put quite a bit of pressure on my knees. After the hardest day we realize we had to walk up another mountain and down again. This day was brutal. There were 2 Incan sites along the way which we cool outposts along the trail to stop, rest at, and enjoy. Our tour guide Angel was similar too our guide in the Colca Canyon, always dancing, smiling and keeping everyone in good spirits. The second day was nicer, only half as much walking but twice as many incan terraces, towns and outposts. The next camp there were hot showers for about $2. I opted against this and took a free, freezing cold showers that one porter insisted was only for them. Finally after three grueling days Machu Picchu was next! But wait! We had to get up at 3:30 am, pack in the dark and wait at the gate since all the groups wanted first crack. 5:30 the gates open, but it was a 2 hour hike to Machu Picchu. There is this cool mountain Waynu Picchu to hike up but only 400 tickets are given out started and 6 am at the Machu Picchu site. So this meant if we wanted any chance to get them we´d have to essentially run the 1k up hill and 1k downhill with our backpack. This was the most exhausting thing. Steep stair cases and jerks who thought they were tough enough to run all the way there were in our way. Our co-guide Miguel and this English guy Jon got there with no problem as Raj (from India and NY state) and i struggled, but beat most of the others trying to get there. By 6:30 i was running through Macchu Picchu to the confused look of tourists, soaked in sweat trying to find the ticket booth and the Waynu Picchu office. We got there an there was a line but Miguel pulled afew strings and we got our tickets, #360 out of 400! Let me remind you i had been in Macchu Picchu for about 20 minutes and barely was able to gaze in the glory of it. Here I meet Lora who had to pass up on the trail because of her knees and take a tour and see the temples and sun dials that I would have probably overlooked if I had just run around Machu Picchu bymyself. Needless to say, everything they say about Macchu Pichhu is true. Seeing mostly the typical photo of it, in person the grandness of it stands out. It is an actual city ruins as opposed to the smaller ruins that you see along the way, or in the Sacred Valley. The run had exhausted me but I was still able to go through the site and enjoyed it despited the minor rain and photo obscuring fog. The hike up Waynupicchu was tough and involved nearly vertical stairs but the view from the top of all of Macchu Picchu was great, when the clouds weren´t in the way. It was amazing that up these steep steps the Incas had built more terraces to farm on!

We are now of the Puno and the lake that sounds like breasts covered in crap aka Lake Titicaca and then on Bolvia and the wonderful $135 entrance fee.

Canyonero!

So I last left off in Arequipa I think. We took a 3 day tour into the Colca Canyon. Our guide Miguelito kept us entertained the whole trip. At the bottom of the canyon we stayed in these little villaged serviced by mule trains, quite an adventure. The hike though the distance wasn´t too great was pretty brutal. Lora took a mule up the last day and I attempted to go at it but was pretty winded at the top. On our return our bus travelled very slowly and had a flat. We arrived at the hostel with 15 minutes to get to our bus. We hauled ass and got a crazy cab driver to get us there five minutes late. We made it! On the bus every seat was full plus the driver stopped to jam the bus full of people in the aisles. As a result we were unable to sleep very well. We arrived at Cusco and learned not to take the aggressive cab drivers. He stopped at the bottom of a big hill and said our hostel was at the top. He then tried to get us to fork over more money to bring us to the front! In Cusco I managed to go out on the town after an interesting evening with a few English kids at the hostel bar. Not too exiting but out on the town nonetheless. After a day for me to recover and lora to feel better, today we walked around cusco and saw the sights, but i´ll have to leave that til another time.

Could I have another PISS-co sour?

So we booked an extra day at the hostel, but after checking out our travel possibilities it meant that we needed to wake up at 2 30 am to catch a 4:15 am bus. We decided to take the Cruz Del Sur which is supposedly peru´s most reputable (and expensive bus). We show up at Paracas with no plans or booking to see the Ballestas islands packed with birds, even penquins, and sea lions. We hop of the bus infront of a hotel and get on a tour for only 2 more dollars than the guide book said it was. They crammed some 30 or 36 of us on a tiny boat and took us out to see the animals. We then returned and hopped on a bus to Ica. In ica we took a cab ride to lake Huachina, a desert oasis surrounded by huge san dunes. The hostel we stayed at had a pool. That night we went to their dinner with all you can drink for an hour and a half. This really turned into about and hour or so with the british, australian, and irish folk behaving as predicted. It was enjoyable to try a pisco sour, but not to slam them in all you can drink manner as the egg got super heavy. Also fun was since it was mostly people who come from countries with a Union Jack on their flag, they spoke no spanish and refered to the pisco sours as ´PISS-co´sours. appetizing! The next day i got up and attemped to sand board down the dunes on their home made board, the first of which had bad bindings. It didn´t really work out as well as i hoped but i told myself if i had a real snowboard it would be ok. We hung around the bus all day and took a 8:30 pm bus to Arequipa last night. When we got in the bus it reeked of BO and we got the seats infront of the bathroom. I´m not sure if it was the speedy hair pin turns or the smell of human excrement, but needless to say i couldn´t sleep very well on that bus.

You guys took my birthday money, got me arrested, sent to Miami with no way home except to take down the country of Peru - and I'm being a dick?

So I´m now down in Peru. We arrived on our flight with no problems, less the $26 departure tax, and $14 hostel pickup. We are in the Miraflores district , which according to sources is wealthier, safer, etc than the main part of the city. My indications say this is true. Yesterday we did our basic grocery shopping and money grabbing which took 3 different ATMs to get one to spit out some money. A pleasant surprize has been that Peru looks to be much more affordable than Costa Rica is, yet our accomodations seem to be better than anything we had in CR for the same price. Today we walked around the downtown area. This required us to get one one of the little busses they have that drive around the city. The lady at the hostel told us to take the 5C which was written on the side mirror of the bus. We waited for a few minutes watching people get on and off but didn´t see ours. Each bus had a guy yelling out the destination and collecting the money and bringing in people. After some confusion, we see the one we´re looking for just as we were about to go and ask the hostel for help. The total of the trip was about 85 cents vs a $4 cab ride. In downtown we checked out the Iglesia San Francisco, which was a very European feeling old church, but had pile of exhumed bones from the catacombs below. We also partook in ´cebiche´which is their local raw fish in citrus juice dish which was pretty good in my book. Lora also took pictures of a lady selling this tiny eggs on the street, so i tried those to limit any hard feelings. No diarrhea so far. cross your fingers.