Week 8 and 9: Bolivia and Traveling Woes
Trip Start
Mar 05, 2006
1
7
12
Trip End
Jul 27, 2006
Salta,
Argentina
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
Peru- After our last entry, right after, James came down with food poisoning. Hmmm...trucha (trout). No fun at all. A long night later, we went to the floating islands called Uros, accessible by boat from Puno. These islands are made entirely of reeds and the people have lived here since Incan times, to avoid invasion. However, now they do it mostly for the hoards of tourists that invade every day with money in hand. Nice pictures at least. Later we took a bus for the Peru/Bolivia border. So long Peru.
Boliva- Copacabana, it ainīt hot, or north of Havana
01 - The cheapest way to travel...rickshaw
. However it is pretty cool. I consider it the twin sister of San Pedro, Guatemala. The similiarities are so striking: big lake, gorgeous view, indigenous people, and tons of hippies...you can order chili con carne! A nice respite. And man, Bolivia is cheap! The next day, I convinced Audrey to take a death march towards the Island of the Sun, legendary birthplace of the Inca. A bit longer hike than I expected, but the scenery was stunning. Lake Titicaca has no equal in lake-bueaty. We made it to the shore and took a rowboat to the islands. Interesting. By that time we were freaking exhausted. However, a bottle of wine later, all was well. Did you know bolivian wines are quite drinkable? Next day, we hiked the length of the island. Pretty hard at nearly 14,000ft and negative shade. We even managed to make a video for you guys. more on this later. Back to Copacabana for the night on a slloooooow ferry, followed by nachos and curry!!! And a hilarious fat-old-man-indoor-soccer-match-on-a-court-the-size-of-a-kids-basketball-court game.Off to La Paz. What a cool city, our favorite big city yet. Surrounded by peaks, set in a deep valley. Safe and fun to explore. We saw a movie, we went to real grocery store, we had good burger! James was talked into buying an instrument - foul temptress. A charango is an andean instrument like a mandolin. Good fun. And the instrument museum rocked
02 - Our new enemy
. After a few days of liviing it city style, we pushed off to Oruro to wait for the train.Oruro, kinda a let down. Actually a big one. Never mind that there was little to do, not good food, or the train we wanted to take was cancelled. Audrey had her bookbag stolen on the bus. Two very important things were lost, our camara and her sketchbook for the past 8 months. Very sad day. No hope of getting it back. One positive, Audrey had by chance put the flashdrive with our pictures in her pocket, we only lost pics from Copacabana to Oruro, and not all of them. The whole incident has been a real headache. Police in bolivia are not exactly useful.
So we took the bus from hell to Uyuni....donīt ever do it. ever. .ever. Uyuni was not bad, great pizza for sure. We made some fast friends, Morgan from California and Avi and Sheilah from Israel. The five of us decided to do the Salar tour together, which is the only reason any tourist goes to Uyuni. Stunning, the southwest of Bolivia is some of the most remote desert in the world. May akin to western china JD? Some stretchs had no life, no plants, nada. Some stretches had amazing colored lakes. And the geyers blew the socks off yellowstone. Talk about getting close. Flamingos too, in 0 degree weather. Really, really cold. I mean we were at one of the highest deserts in the world. The capstone of the tour-by-landcruiser was the Salar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flat. Eat your heart out Blackrock and Bonnieville. The salt flat is bigger than several states and is the remains of a gigantic lake. Part of it had water from the rainy season. This creates a perfect mirror image, great for sunrises and sunsets. Best Iīve ever seen. The rest is blindingly white...bring sunscreen and a freaking hat It works well for optical illusions because judging distance is very diffucult
03 - Typical house on the Uros Floating Islands
. Donīt sit on it too long thogh, saltīs bad for the butt believe it or not. We finished the tour with a visit to the old rusty Uyuni train graveyard. David Nicolay, we missed you dearly. Oh yeah, shout out to Freddie the driver.Then it was back to Uyuni to wait a day and a half for the train to the border. This time no strikes and the train came. We rewarded ourselves with first class. 9 hours for only $12. We had to do it. The scenery between Uyuni and Villazon (the border) is great, think the American West. At Villazon we crossed to Argentina and after 19 hours of straight travel we made it to Salta. Ugh. Oh Europe, I mean Argentina, how weīve missed you. Potable water! free toilet paper! good beer! fast internet! We feel like kings here. Salta is good, though we spent all yesterday running errands. Dont ever try and buy a camara in Argentina, they cost twice as much!. This afternoon we take an 18 hour bus ride (yep 18 hours) to Menodoza, wine country. Hmm. wine. Should be a good ride; they serve whiskey!
Apologies for such a long, fact-based entry. Had a lot to say. Just so you know, weīre okay. Audrey is in a period of mourning for her sketchbook. Every day is better. Weīre survivors. JD was right- donīt bring anything that will make you cry if you lose it. But wait, that means I canīt bring Audrey. Oh well.
Much love. Hope Merlefest was a blast!
salud
-James
Comments
Wow!
Audrey and James,
Those pictures were sooo creative! I'm still so sorry about your sketch book! Like I said before, it might make its way back to the owner; you never know! I think it might make believers outta both of you, huh? I'll feel a lot better when you get to a more 'civilized' place. Looks like you are having a good time.
Hugs, kisses, and love, MOM