Was it aliens?

After getting to drive the truck, we were dropped off in the nearby town of Nazca, for those interesting in booking a flight over the famed Nazca Lines, could do so without any link to Oasis Overland. Yup, they wanted no liability in us booking the separate flights, since they’re considered dangerous. There have been some pretty bad crashes over the years and I guess are infamous for not maintaining their planes. After getting my research on, I decided I still wanted to do it–how can you go to Nazca and not see the famous lines?

Apparently pretty easy, as Richard and I were the only ones wanting to make the flight. We found a company recommended in the guidebook and then had a nice little meander around town before it was time to check into our hotel/campsite(Rachael and I upgraded to rooms instead of camping, cheating, I know, but it was crazy hot and we wanted air condition).

That night, we had our last cooked dinner. Lotte and Sarah did a BBQ for us, not unlike our first cooked dinner of the trip(a BBQ prepared by Claire and Wiz). Perfect capstone!

Next morning(March 29), after signing off on who got dibs one which of my electronics, Richard and I got picked up bright and early by a duct tape van(definition: van held mostly together by duct tape), and set off of the airport. Not the most auspicious start. But after we were essentially VIP’ed through airport taxes and laughable security screening, we only had to wait a few minutes and were taken out to our plane. The plane itself was from a different company than the one we booked, but nicely had had better rankings in Lonely Planet than our original one. So we took that as a good sign!

It was a relatively small plane, four passengers, and two pilots:

Getting on the plane, I realized I hadn’t been on a plane in almost 3 months, considering the job I left in November required multiple flights a month(if not weekly), it felt like going home a little.

We had a short runway stretch, and then we were off! We had headphones for the pilots to guide us around the varying sites. I was pretty glad the first few we saw were triangles, to give me a chance to adjust to looking for the lines in the sand and figuring out the best pictures to take. What an amazing experience! Its really pretty fascinating that these have lasted hundreds of years in the sand! Not to mention the gorgeous landscapes we also saw. Here’s a small smattering of pictures from our flight.

From many of the pictures, you can see it looks like something from out of space! I seriously felt like we were over Mars or something with the desert like reddish sand.

After our thirty minute tour, we headed back to the small airport. Unfortunately the flight that landed before us has a slight incident…so we had to circle quite a few times as they cleared the rubble and the ambulances and firetrucks did their thing…just kidding, it wasn’t that bad. There was an ambulance and firetrucks, but apparently that was more precautionary than anything else. One of their tires blew during landing, but there was no fire and everyone made it out safe.

It was a pretty amazing/surreal ride though. Very glad I did it! Thanks for the early birthday present Dad/Mary!

Mummies and Truck Driving!

March 28th, on our way towards Nazca, we took a detour to visit the Chauchilla cemetery to visit the grave sites/tombs of many prehispanic peoples. Bodies discovered here were dated within hundreds of years of each other and estimated to have people from about 200 BC to 300-400 AD. Pretty amazing that they’ve lasted so long. We took a tour of the cemetery and learned about some of the burial techniques used by these people. People were buried in fetal position–with the idea that they were leaving the earth/going to the spirit world in the same way they entered.

People were mummified in these fetal positions, placed in ceramic urns, and buried in tombs all over this desert. Apparently, because of the valuables buried with them, this particular site was badly hit by grave robbers until about the mid 1990’s when the Peruvian government stepped in and protected it. As a result, there are some(understandably) less well maintained graves/mummies. But still a pretty cool site to tour around!

Leaving the site, we were along a rural dirt/rock road, and Dave decided to let us all try our turn at driving Bob! Unfortunately, as I never learned how to drive manual, I was initially disqualified from the opportunity. I was pretty gutted, especially after seeing the triumphant faces of people after they drove their two minute stretches along the road. Learning how to drive stick has always been on my list of things to do, but living in the US, it’s not as easy to come by the manuals as I feel like it should be.

Anyway, after the last person had their turn, Danny asked Dave if he could try to teach me how to drive a manual so I could try and drive the truck(and therefor become a real/true trucker). He agreed, and gave me a short lesson as we drove for my few minutes. Not the smoothest ride, but I was pretty pleased I didn’t stall once(way better than my last attempt at learning 7 years ago). It was one of those huge bubblings of excitement–am I really driving this massive truck? Am I really pressing down on the clutch and switching gears? AWESOME!! Definitely one of the coolest things I did on the trip!

Reality and Religion in Arequipa

We arrived in Arequipa late-ish on the 24th. Morning of the 25th, many of us were signed on for a “reality tour” of town. Really what this meant was getting more of a scoop on class hierarchy’s and the side tourists don’t normally see.

It started with a visit to the market only really meant for the lower two classes of Peru(our guide gave us descriptions of the 5 classes of Peru, top elite only having 8 families, and then down from there). Interestingly enough, in the wealthier parts of town food is, understandably, more expensive. So many of the upper classes send their servants to this market to get the cheaper products for the same price. The market itself was pretty cool, it was interesting to see things like dehydrated potatoes(so they last longer–just add water!), lots of fruits(apparently on the left of the aisle we walked down is the older fruit meant for grandparents to make preservatives, and the right side was for fresh fruit–not sure how much of that was made up). And then onto the beef section, where we saw such delicacies as entire cow hearts, bull penis(complete with testicles), etc. Pretty interesting market.

From there, we moved onto a rock quarry. Apparently this is an incredibly dangerous job, not only for the falling rock, but also for the inhaled dust, and sunshine magnifying off the stones. And when I say rock quarry, I really mean this stone pit, where workers use all manual labor to break up rocks and try to get them into a precisely measured rectangular shape. On a good day, they can only make around 12, and only get paid 1 sol(roughly $0.36) a piece. Really shamed quite a few of us, who think nothing of overpaying 3 soles for a Twix on the street as a treat. We also learned that most of the people working try to have at least 4 kids(who will then join them in their work), they have this many kids assuming the death of at least a couple. I can’t even imagine that kind of mentality. Having lots of kids, knowing some will die. Not sure how much of this was true, but it definitely made a lot of us really think and count our blessings.

Our next stop was a cemetery in another one of the lower class districts. The cemetery plots were split up into different categories based on how one died. Kids(before being baptized) had small plots up front, there were victims of murders, those that died natural deaths, etc. Being a mostly Catholic country, any person that committed suicide isn’t allowed to be buried in the cemetery(we were told this was fairly common, as grandparents don’t want to be a burden on their kids). Families get around this by bribing the night guards who place the bodies in other spots around the cemetery.

The graves themselves were highly decorated, and most unlike the cemeteries I’ve seen at home. Little homes are built to be reminicent of the homes they lived in during real life. Meant to be a place for the spirits to come in and out of and inhabit. On the deceased’s birthday or Day of teh Dead, they have parties around the grave to celebrate the lives of their loved ones, making their favorite food, having favorite flowers there, etc. I, personally, love the idea of having these celebrations of life every year as a way of keeping that person with you. Pretty cool!

Our next stop was a family corporative kitchen. The people responsible for cooking rotate weekly, but they provide affordable meals twice a day for those in the community. With an emphasis on children(who go to school nearby), elderly, and crippled folks. It was originally started as a way for women to make sure their families were still provided for, if(as day laborers), they were gone from the home all day and couldn’t provide the food themselves. Our tour group apparently partially sponsors some of these locations, but rotates sponsorship as soon as they really take off.

After the school was another venture aimed at the day laborer women–subsidized childcare for children too young to go to school.

In general, I found the tour pretty informational(sorry for passing on too much), and really nice to see a separate side from our regular wanderings around town. I’m not sure how much was overemphasized as tourists, or maybe even downplayed to us as tourists, but still loved getting the gist of the communities from a more inside source.

After the reality tour, I was pretty wiped. I’d been getting progressively more sick over the proceeding days, and called uncle getting back to the hotel. I spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping, and watching TV. It was glorious.

The next day, I actually wanted to see around town. Though not feeling much better(killer sore throat, headache, aches, and some lovely congestion), I medicated a bit and set off! In the town square was a burning effigy of something–another riot. I think this one might have been part of a national strike on mining conditions. But we tried not to get close enough to confirm.

In the middle of town was a gorgeous plaza complete with massive cathedral, and lovely little shops and restaurants.

Claire and I spent much of the day exploring this massive nunnery in town. We learned about some of their first works, saw their private quarters, and had a lovely time just exploring some of the gorgeous architecture. Made me really glad at my sad attempt to rally!

That night was another sad attempt at Chinese food and an early evening to bed for me!

Escaping Cusco

First day after Inca Trail was a little rough. I was a little sore, but felt like I needed to get some good walks in…you know, not lose the little momentum I had at fitness!

It was a bit of a fail, really all it entailed was attempting to get my legs waxed for the first time(only $15). You would have thought I would have learned my lesson from the terrible massage, but oh no! My lazy self knew we were heading into warmer weather and wanted to try it out. Well, not sure what it’s like back in the US, but it was truly another unique experience. I went to this place recommended to me by a fellow traveler. Upstairs in this courtyard, in this slightly dirty room, with one bed partitioned off by curtains. The woman heated up the wax in a saucepan and would then bring it over to me and start doing my legs in person, occasionally blowing on the wax if I would cry out in too much pain.

Lesson learned: don’t go for a $15 leg waxing. Shortly after, I met up with Lotte, Sarah, and Claire in the town center for a walking tour, little did we know that tour also wasn’t on(sensing a theme here from my La Paz experience?). After waiting around about 20 minutes, we decided to grab one of those double decking site-seeing buses. As some of the first passengers, we learned their trick for luring people in. About every 5 minutes it would ride around to the opposite side of the square, wait 5 minutes(have some people board), and then go back to the original side. We went around the square about 3 times waiting for it to officially start(but got some excellent views of that plaza!). The tour itself was just ok, turns out we couldn’t hear anything about what we were seeing from the roof, whomp whaa. But we did get an up close view of the Jesus statue on the hill, and some nice panoramic of the city!

That day, Claire and I also decided we really needed to plan what was going to happen after we left the truck in Lima. That’s right, I had decided to extend my trip. Claire had until April 24 to putz around, before having to fly back to the UK, and I decided to join, vaguely know we would head to Ecuador and Colombia. Took us quite a long time of researching, but eventually decided cost and time meant we would just fly to Quito for a couple of days before flying onto Colombia. Felt good to get some of those logistics sorted, as we knew time was running out!

The next day March 23, we were supposed to head on towards Arequipa, but there were some strikes scheduled around the city, and we were told we would be blockaded in. In truth, we ran into some guys that had gotten in that day, they had to walk and take multiple cabs over 8 miles over the course of 4 hours trying to get into town. REALLY glad we hadn’t tried to get out…plus it meant we got a bonus day, where I got a different massage(still only $20) to make up for the terrible one a few days prior. Excellent!

March 24–we set out at 4:30 AM to try and beat the blockades/strikes to get out of town. Despite the early morning wake up call, it was a SUCCESS! We managed to get out of town, safely and soundly(though really, felt incredibly sketch/like we were sneaking out/escaping, rather than leaving a really lovely little town).

Machu Picchu, Huayna Picchu, and the Worst Massage Ever

After posing for our slightly foggy photos at Machu Picchu, we wound back down the hill for about 5 minutes, so we could get officially signed into the park. Apparently lots of the extra security is because of the large increase in naked photos taken at Macchu Picchu. They had just had some folks two days prior, and security was still incredibly tight.

Shortly after, the group had a nice guided tour around the historical site, learning more about it’s history. Build in around 1450, only used for around 100 years, not visible from down below. It’s truly an awe inspiring site.

After our tour, some of us sadists went to do the Huayna Pichu hike to get a gorgeous view of the site. It’s one of those things that I had to book on when I booked the entire overlanding tour(since only 400 tourists are allowed in a day, they had to get our extra permits for that way in advance). I figure, you’re only there once, right? Little did I know how those knees would be feeling. 🙂 Only 4 of us had booked on in advance, some folks gave some of their gear to everyone else, and then we hiked up!

It trully was amazing views of Machu Picchu, and we were quite fortunate that the fog had started to burn off. It took me about 45 minutes to get to the top, and seemed steeper and harder than any of the previous bits of Inca Trail, though that could have jusst been residual soreness. In retrospect, it really wasn’t that bad. Close to the top there was a cave bit to crawl through, and then just some amazing boulders at the top to have 360 views of the ruins and surrounding site.

Sarah and I waited at the top for Gemma and Lotte, and then we all started to head down. For some reason, I felt no need to go slow on the steep stairs and took off. By the time I reached the bottom, I felt like I really should climb back up to our first viewpoint to get some other unobstructed views of the city. And am I glad I did! More gorgeous views of the site!

After that, I took a quick sink bath and then hopped a bus to Aguas Calientes(the closest town) to meet up with the rest of the folks from our trip The restaurant we ate at even carved us some fruit for us to celebrate the end of the hike.

After a quickish/overpriced meal(not nearly as good as our Inca Trail feasts), some of us headed off in search of cheap massages to help pass the time before our train. Seriously, nearly everywhere in town advertised massages. Ryan, Claire, Emily and I would up picking one that looked semi-legitimate. Little did we know, our beds would only be separated by sheets, and we would have to wait about 10 minutes for enough women to come from surrounding sites.

It was an incredibly bizarre experience. Kids would come in and out. Halfway through some of our masseuses switched. I think we all agree the people doing our legs did a fabulous job, but whoever did our backs was horrific(seriously, how hard is it to get the back portion right?). It was the best/worst $20 massage I’ve ever experienced.

I was glad to hop the train another hour later, then grab a bus and boom, back in Cusco! What an amazing few days. Inca Trail was one of those places I’d been looking forward to the most, and it did not disappoint!

Inca Trail–Luxury Hiking

Warning: very longwinded tail of our Inca Trail hike ahead…feel free to skim.

Morning of March 19, we were off! And by we were off, I mean it was incredibly early in the morning(5?), and we had to wait a bit since our guide/ride was late. And then we were off! We picked up the other person joining the nine of us from the truck, then went and picked up some gas tanks and other supplies from HQ, and drove about an hour until we stopped for breakfast, and to buy ponchos.

About another 30 minutes drive, and we met our porters. And by met our porters, I mean for the 10 of us, we saw the 20+ people packing all of of gear not in our day bags, and making us feel instantly bad about ourselves for not carrying very much. Well, to be honest, I probably would have felt worse, but was feeling a little bit nauseous on whether or not I could actually do it. Or rather, whether or not I could actually get out of my head enough to just power through. Technically, I know it’s not the most difficult hike, but you add in altitude, and the fact that really the most consecutive walking I had done was the breast cancer 3 day(60 miles total, 20 miles a day for 3 days), and the third day of that took me a bit to get going. Anyway, I can logic myself into thinking of a million horrors, I was just a wee bit nervous on what was to come.

After the first checkpoint(and first stamp in my passport!), we were off. It was shockingly easy…though that is largely because there was very little incline to start. In fact, Claire and I(who can only really walk together at the same pace during flat bits–she’s excellent at uphill;I’m good at downhill), were asked to slow down around hour 2 so we would expend all of our energy on the first day. Fair enough point, but slightly disappointing. We’d stop periodically for everyone to catchup, and after a couple of hours walked into our first lunch campsite. AMAZING. It was just starting to rain, and we see all these tents up. We had our very own dining tent complete with cloth, full silverware, etc. Way more luxurious than anything we had on Bob(sorry Bob/Danny/Dave). We started the meal with garlic bread, and moved on a couple of course. AMAZING. We had to hang around the campsite for a couple of hours to give them a chance to pack up,and get a head start to setup for dinner(since it was just a short day).

That afternoon, we did see a set of ruins along our walk, and had some absolutely gorgeous views! Little did we know, we wouldn’t see a lot of sunlight again until our last day walking around. 🙂 When we arrived at the campsite in a massive clump, our porter team was there to greet us with a loud round of applause(slightly embarrassing given the short distance and how much they carried), and fresh water to wash ourselves. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing card games, and getting ready for another excellent multi-course meal at dinner. Seriously never ate so good when we did the camping/cooking ourselves before this. Sleeping was fine, they were different tents than what we were used to, but aside from a different sleeping pad and tent, everything went relatively the same as other camping experiences.

Day 2 was Rachael’s birthday. We surprised her in the morning with a few trinkets at the breakfast table before setting out for what’s supposed to be the most difficult hike portion. Mostly because the majority of the day is focused on gaining 1,400 meters to a whopping height of 4215 meters above sea level. Let me tell you, the air gets thin….the first portion of the day lulls you into a false sense of security, as it was still possible for us to carry a conversation walking. The original plan was to meet up at varying stops with the whole group and our guides, which we did for the first two spots(some of the breaks longer than others depending on walking speeds). However, by the time our guides caught up with the group at the second stop, it had started to rain quite a bit. He called it quit on the group meet-ups, told us our campsite number and we were off.

And by we were off, I mean Wiz and Claire zoomed ahead. Ryan, Emily, Lotte, and Sarah weren’t far behind, and I took my sweet time ascending to the top. And by sweet time, I mean I probably made it to the top 10 minutes after the second group. Really, I had been doing a lot better than I thought or dreamed I would with the up-hills. Using some mind of matter tricks/tips Claire had given me in a pep talk. Along with the good ole’ “just until that tree” trick, where if I could keep going at that tree, I’d set a new target. I know I know, for the more experienced hikers/walkers reading this, it wouldn’t be a big deal, and my little mind tricks are probably laughable. But here’s the thing. Up until about a year ago, I would call hiking by the “h” word. It was a curse word in my mind, sounds so cruel and pointy. Long nature walk(even if it was 10-14 miles) would have been preferable to me. So doing some more proper hiking like this was a big deal to me, even if it’s the luxury hiking with multiple course meals and other people carrying most of the gear.

Anyway, by the time I reached the top of dead woman’s pass, the fog had rolled in, and i unfortunately couldn’t see any of what’s meant to be gorgeous lookouts, only fog and rain. Instead of resting for a while. I got someone to take my picture and was off!

The last 45 minutes or so of the day was going back down in elevation…not exactly what I wanted to do if it meant more uphill the following day. Though I am pretty good at downhill(mostly because my knees are going to hurt anyway despite the braces or ibuprofen, so why not just go for it?). Anyway, Ryan and I darted ahead a bit. Him because he’s good at stepping on wet rocks, me because I’m not afraid of falling, and had some sweet hike poles to help me catch myself. I think after the third or fourth I’m fine that he heard from me, he wouldn’t even turn around on hearing my slips…that is, until we were almost there, and the slip was followed by a thunk. Ooops? Not hurt, and bouncing back up, we were soon at a fork in the road trying to figure out where our campsite was, since there was no guy with a flag as promised. A couple of minutes later, we strolled into our campsite much to the surprise of the porters. Wiz and Claire had beat us in by 5 minutes, but apparently they hadn’t been expecting us for at least another hour and a half. So instead of the embarrassing applause we had received the day before, it was what I can only assume was cursing in Quetchua followed by a guy running out with the flag for the remaining 6 of our group who wandered in following hour and forty-five minutes.

It was a relatively easy afternoon, we had tea as we waited for lunch, played card games, and chatted with one another about how it really wasn’t as bad as any of us were expecting. If day 2 was the hardest, the next two days should be a cinch, right? That night, after dinner, our awesome chef brought out a delicious orange chocolate cake he had made on the fires to celebrate Rachael’s birthday. Pretty amazing the things they can do carrying all their own equipment!

Next day, we started out in a big clump again with some uphill bits. We stopped about 20 minutes in for some medical issues. Gemma was having a hard time breathing and was able to get some oxygen from the tanks our guides were carrying and Daisy had some massive blisters that Ryan doctored up.

The rest of the morning was another plethora of ups and downs, and stairs…lots of stairs. Well, stairs and ruins. The first hour or so after lunch was probably my favorite portion. It was both ups, and downs, but because of the heavy fog/drizzles, it looked like we were walking along this magical fog swamp. Really cool. Not to mention the hiking bits were easier. 🙂

That afternoon my knees started to fail me a bit more. It was like any endorphins that had been masking the pain failed me all at once, and I was a bit slower going downhill than previously. Whomp whaa, but on the bright side did add to the challenge!

Just before reaching the campsite, there’s a split. Go straight for 30 minutes straight downhill to the camp, or go left for an hour long journey that brings you through ruins and then to the camp. The pains weren’t quite bad enough to make me choose the shorter one, so Sarah and I separated from Wiz and Claire to do the longer route. First set of ruins we camp upon were basically nothing, and Sarah and I both decided to take lots of pictures to make it seem worth it….then five minutes later, the real ruins camp upon us. GORGEOUS! We had seen little peaks of them through the rainclouds at varying portions, but it’s like the sky decided to clear just when we got there. Pretty cool.

That night was also relatively easy, did some stretches, had tea time, quickly followed by another glorious dinner. After dinner, all the porters went around introducing themselves to us, with ages, what they carried, duties, etc. It was a pretty large array of folks ranging from 19 to over 60(my memory is failing at an exact age here), but it was nice to have some small information about these people who were doing so much for us on our hike!

Next morning, we woke up pretty early(3:30), had our tea in bed, and then had to set off for the last check point of the day, and by had to set off for the checkpoint, I mean, we had to wait there until it opened at 5:30. Yay? Nope. While we were among the first to get to the checkpoint, it took us abut an hour and a half to get through sungate and to the actual ruins of Machu Picchu. It was once again foggy, and my knees were in an incredibly amount of pain. I was pretty grateful for my walking poles to lean on, and was slightly disappointed we had no real view from sungate. By the time we got to the ruins, it was already crowded with the tourists that had just arrived via train. That’s right…by 7 AM, it was crowded with people that didn’t even do the hike. 😦 While I was slightly bitter by that pill, it was pretty cool to have RIchard and Shi-pali greeting us as we ended.

We posed for some foggy pictures before getting kicked out since we didn’t have the right entrance ticket. Yup, that’s right, despite doing the hike, the security folks kicked us out and down to the main entrance so we could provided proper documentation…though to be honest, by that point I was so psyched to be at the ruins, and to see a proper toilet at the entrance that it really didn’t matter.

Since this post has already been ridiculous long, I’ll end for now. To be continued….

Prepping for the Hike

We left Puno on March 17–that’s right, St. Patricks Day! Being neither Irish, nor a big fan of people telling me what to do(ie wear green), it took me a long time to come to appreciate the holiday. I still remember getting green glitter in my eye at preschool from when “leprechauns” visited us during nap-time…so seriously, we’re talking about it taking me 18 years to appreciate the holiday–once I learned how to appreciate whiskey.

The original plan was to have some drinks in the truck during the afternoon, similar to our Valentine’s Day celebration. But who was I to refuse when Ryan, my fellow American, offered me a beer at 8 AM. You can’t let someone drink alone, can you? That’s just not cool. So we spent much of the day slowly drinking until arriving in Cusco, when we went out to an Irish bar with Richard to celebrate. Other folks from our group went out for the evening, but I was safely tucked away in bed by midnight(Cinderella style).

Next day, people were looking rough at breakfast. By the time we had a mid-day orientation for what to expect on Inca trail the following day, a couple of folks(Shi-pali) opted out of the whole excursion. After this prep session, a few of us went to a local bagel restaurant for brunch. Can we talk for a minute about what a bagel is? At a bare minimum it’s a circle of bread…meaning some doughy product with a hole in the middle. Now I know I was setting myself up for failure picturing some delicious New York style bagels with plenty of cream cheese(or for my Philly friends–a bagel factory bagel)…but I wasn’t expected a glorified bun, with liquid cheese. WHAT? How can a place that specializes in bagels not even have some dough product with a hole in it? It just doesn’t make sense.

After my extreme disappointment, I spent most of the day running some errands(buying snacks, new pencil case, etc), and getting my mind mentally prepped for Inca Trail, before once again hitting up a Chinese restaurant for some last minute carb loading. 🙂

First impressions of Cusco was that I was really going to like it there.

El Lago Titicaca

March 12 we said goodbye to La Paz and headed out towards Lake Titicaca and the Peruvian boarder. We left La Paz with two newbies, Lotte and Sarah, bringing our grand total of passengers up to 12–the most people we’ve had in the back of the truck to date. It’s bazarre that in a truck that is meant to seat 24, that 12 could seem overcrowded, but I guess we had just gotten used to having an absurd amount of space in back.

Anyhoo, we spent most of the morning journeying towards the boarder, and it was probably our most bizarre crossing to date. First, we had to drive through a very crowded town on market day. At points/turns, police had to get involved so we could make some tight corners, and not have any oncoming traffic. We slowly moved through the town–at times yelling out the window for people to stop trying to get into Bob’s storage down below. In terms of the trip, it really was one of the more bizarre experiences going through a massive market with Bob. Border was relatively uneventful after that, it was located at the end of the market(yup, still in the market), and had one of the longer lines, but got through unscathed.

We lunched that day on the gorgeous shores of Lake Titicaca, and introduced Lotte and Sarah to the joys of relieving oneself in the open air. It’s funny how much our barriers/personal space have gone down since the beginning of the trip, until you view it freshly through the eyes of someone just starting. Go figure.

Spent that night in Puno, busying ourselves finding presents for our host families the following night, and grabbing another round of excellent Chinese food. Yes, I know I mentioned Chinese food in the last post as well. But considering I had gone about two months without what used to be a 2-3 times a week food, I felt like I needed it. 🙂

Anyway, next morning we set off for the docks, racing there in our friendly tuktuks. Wiz and I won…though i think it helped we had the main guy who kept yelling at everyone else to follow-not pass us.

After that we boarded what might have been the slowest boat in history to get a tour of the reed islands. They’re these islands made entirely of reeds, probably only about 2 feet deep, they float on the water. When we jumped as a group of 25ish, you could seriously feel the entire island move. Slightly disconcerting. But if people have lived on similar for hundreds of years, who am I get to get frightened off? Relatively cool island where we learned how they make them, how they have to add fresh layers either weekly or monthly depending on the season. How only 10ish families can live on one, but then you can hop between. We personally took an even slower Reed boat to get between a couple of the reed islands. And…what I really liked most about these homes is that they now use solar power for some of their cooking and for varying electronic equipment. Not quite how they’ve been doing it for hundreds of years, but interesting to see how they incorporate the modern with the traditional. Pretty cool.

We then moved onto a more typical island–Isla Montana, where we met up with host families for the night. Gemma, Wiz, Claire and I all stayed with one host family. It was a lovely house, much bigger/grander than the place I stayed with my Mayan host family in Guatemala. There was proper running water, multiple bedrooms, lights, etc. We had a delicious lunch there full of some slight translation issues. Family we were staying with were Quechua(I don’t think this is even close to how it’s actually spelled), but spoke Spanish relatively well. Unfortunately, our group didn’t necessarily, which led to Claire adding some peppermint to her soup–commenting that it really did make it taste better, when really it was meant for tea after lunch. Oops(in all fairness none of us recognized it as peppermint, and didn’t follow what the herbs were mean for).

After lunch, we met back up with the group to climb up one of the two massive hills with shrines on top. Pachumama(Mother Earth) or Pachutata(Father Earth). I believe we climbed to the top of Pachutata. And by climbed, I really mean slowed walked up. We were still at elevation(around 4000 meters), where every breath takes in maybe 30 percent of Oxygen to a breath at normal sea level. I know I was struggling a bit to get to the top–which led some other folks from the tour to laugh a little at all of us. They had just done the Machu Pichu hike, and had some serious reservations on whether or not we would make it. In all honesty, after the hike, I was having some serious reservations as well.

That night, we were dressed up in traditional dress, and taken to the local town hall for a dance celebration. And by dance, what I really mean is run around in crazy circles dance. It was surprisingly good food(and a lot more energetic than I was expecting), but also crazy hot thanks to the thick layers and yards of cotton adorning my body. Shockingly, I was almost disappointed when it ended at the late hour of 10 PM, and we had to head back to our host families to sleep.

</

It was a nice nights rest, and we set back off the following day with the group to hit up another island on the lake. It was another cool place to walk around, but I was slightly discouraged that it seemed the main attraction was overpaying for a lunch at the restaurant our tour guide kidnapped us to visit. I was grateful to have an excuse to cop out of it when all they were serving was fish and Claire(being severely allergic) wanted to step away. We wound up in the random local restaurant serving soup(complete with Chicken feet. It was delicious, and probably the most authentic experience we had the entire night.

Journey to La Paz

March 8, we were all going to leave Uyuni and head to Potosi for a couple of days…while waiting for Bob to pick us up midday, turned out there were a couple of other folks that were interested in skipping Potosi in favor of another couple of nights in La Paz. So on a whim, Ryan and I headed to the area where they were supposed to sell bus tickets, and sure enough, for around $14, we would be on a 12 hour overnight bus to La Paz, SORTED!

Got back to the hostel and convinced Rachael to join us, huzzah! We emailed our hostel, waved off the group and spent the rest of the day phaffing about(British people—any idea how to spelling this? faffing? spellcheck doesn’t like either), grabbing food, trying Quinoa beer(don’t do it, it’s a trick, you have to chew the last couple of sips), watching Ryan get his haircut for a few bucks, and then stocking up on supplies for our journey(meaning cookies, crisps and almond snickers bars).

Bus was sort of uneventful? Nothing exciting, the seats themselves made zero sense(there was this thing that sort of folded down for you to put your legs over so they’d be supported at an angle, but it cut into the upper thigh even when reclined). We drove most of the night, not sure any of us got much sleep. I think if it had been daylight, we might have been slightly terrified by the driving, but as it was I was only terrified of the most disgusting bathroom in the world that we stopped at. It was upstairs from a snack stand, but they had two by fours on the ground so you wouldn’t step what I could only assume was sewer water, then up some stairs, and there were the toilets. Three for guys and three for girls…but instead of the doors you might expect, there were clear shower curtains as doors…well not completely clear. It was clear with sucks every couple of feet, so you could only mostly see in. Yay? Really wish I had the guts to have just gone by the side of the road.

We arrived in La Paz slightly late(more of a 13 hour journey), said goodbye to our awesome bus, and hit the road looking for our hostel.

It was an easy 10 minute walk away, and they thankfully had room for us. We spent most of the morning/afternoon showering, and hanging around catching up on sleep and internet. Rachael and I wandered around a little in the afternoon looking for snacks/quick food and finding a plethora of fried chicken stores…also noting that we were still at 3600 meters above sea level and each step up the steep hills felt way harder than it should have.

That night was relatively uneventful, we were still pretty knackered, but had some great hummos/fallafel for dinner, and found an English station on the TV to watch movies. Sad how enjoyable English speaking stations on the TV could be after so long…

Next day, Ryan gave Rachael and I an awesome walking tour of the highlights of La Paz, we enjoyed walking around the various streets and having a no stress kind of day, expecting the rest of our crew to join us in the evening.

Some things of note, all of the landscapes/little gardens in the roads seemed incredibly well maintained, San Francisco Cathedral is gorgeous, San Pedro prison sits on a block in the middle of the city, there were Chinese restaurants!!, and a cool witches market that includes lots of llama fetuses for sale.

That night we met the rest of the crew for dinner/drinks at an English pub, and made plans for the following day–March 10 was just another walking around day, checking out the markets, and getting a tattoo. Yup, finally bit the bullet and got myself a tattoo. Many of you may know I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo for almost 10 years. At first thinking I wanted the word hope written in Thai(since my summer abroad in Thailand at 15 was probably one of the most life-altering events until University). Then realizing that was more of a teenage fad idea, and not something I was positive I wanted to commit to(because really, I barely was able to learn any Thai, and how could I be sure they were writing hope, and not apple, or something else equally meaningless?). Instead, I opted for an elephant–what I like to consider my spirit animal. Another thing I connect to that awesome summer(as they would wander down the street I lived on), the animal I identify with to bring me strength, and a gorgeous majestic creature. So we found one online I liked, and with the help/input from Gemma, Claire, and Rachael, redesigned one I found online.

So March 10, Rachel, Claire, Daisy and I set off for the tattoo place. I could only have one person with me as i actually got it done, so Rachael(experienced in being tattooed) joined me to hold my hand and make sure nothing fishy was going on. It was relatively easy…I say now. Seriously, the tattoo isn’t that big, but it is on my ribs, and what can I say, I was being a wimp? Anyway, incredibly glad I did it, and since then it’s healed quite nicely. 🙂

Rest of our time in La Paz was doing some price comparing shopping, grabbing Chinese food, getting slaughtered in Trivia night at the pub(but we started so strong!), heading with Claire to the doctor to get a fresh wound cleaned, visiting Rach at that same tattoo place as she got hers redone and hanging about attempting to do the free walking tour that apparently no longer existed, oh well! Most of the group did the most dangerous road bike trip…but given my massive fear of bikes, in combination with my slight fear of heights, decided it was worth another lazy day instead. Overall, turned Bolivia around in my mind a little bit after the salt flat let down.

Uyuni-eed to get ready to be a little disappointed

March 4 brought us to Bolivia…for the first time in about a month and a half we were heading to a country we hadn’t been to, we had gotten really used to crossing the border between Argentina and Chile, that it came as a slight shock when I had to pay for the $160 border visa. Ah, the joys of being an America in South America where we have reciprocity fees and visas that are only for us, since thats what our country puts other citizens through.

Really, I’ve grown increasingly aware I have no right to complain about border crossing and visa situations. But it was still very bizarre to me that we(Ryan, Dave and I) had to fill out these arbitrary forms with multiple ways for them to contact us, the driving route we were taking, and other personal details. We could also only pay this fee in cash, and only with bills that passed inspection(no tiny rips or markings allowed). I was grateful to be able to borrow some money off Dave, as one of my bills was rejected(and I hadn’t a lot of American money left on me after Argentina). Again, I guess I had gotten used to the easy-ish crossings of Chile and South America, that hour we held up the group seemed like it really was a personal grudge. Probably all in my head, but still equally irritating.

Anyhoo, the moment we crossed the border, things were different. You could see a lot more indigenous people in traditional dress, more animals, buildings more spread out, etc. It reminded my a lot more of Central America than any of our previous destinations. It was a nice culture change.

That first day also saw us winding up quite a bit in elevation(we’re talking thousands of meters–like maybe 2500, 3000? can’t remember). But it was noticeable. We had been told to drink tons of water to help ward off any potential altitude sickness. It was probably the only day that we actually buzzed multiple times during the day for breaks to use the bathroom(and by bathroom, I mean out out into the bush with a shovel). Considering we had probably only buzzed 3 or 4 times in the previous two months, it was a big deal.

First night in Bolivia was a gorgeous bush camp in the middle of nowhere, and next day we had an earlyish start heading through Potosi(highest elevation city in the world at 4100 meters above sea level), and then ultimately onto Uyuni, where we had some of the best pizza, and where we finally found maple syrup on the menu. This was thanks to the ex-Pat owner who understood how pancakes are meant to be served.

Next day we headed out to the famed salt flats…to be fair, I think the main(okay, only) reason I was super looking forward to them is because of all the pictures I saw of them on Pinterest(darn you Pinterest!). When they’re wet, it’s meant to be an exact mirror reflection of the sky…unfortunately the only wet bits we saw were a little dirty from all the jeeps driving through giving people tours. Whomp wha….really, it just turned into a photo shoot day. Laying down on the salt flats, staring into the bright light, trying to get the perfect perspective picture of someone in a water bottle, fighting a dinosaur, etc. Still cool, but maybe not what I was completely expecting. Ah well. Rest of the tour consisted of seeing a man scraping the salt into bags to sell, lunch at cactus island, view of a hotel made completely of salt, and a stop at a train graveyard.

It probably sounds more exciting to just leave no explanation of those last ones than to continue with an explanation. 🙂 All in all, not the best first impression of Bolivia.