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.