Leah and I are currently watching the Oscars right now. Mind you it started in BsAS at 11 30, so hopefully we will be able to stay awake. This is one of the clever, thought provoking conversations that occured during the best supporting actress presentation, where Goldie Hawn, Angelica Hueston, Whoopi Goldburg, Tilda Swinton and some other chick presented:
Leah: "Hey! There are two Goldies up there! What are the odds?!
Kelly: "Wait, who is the second Goldie?"
Leah: "Goldie Hawn!"
Kelly: "Umm...then who is the first Goldie?"
Leah: "Whoopi Goldburg!....oh wait."
We also would like to comment the cinematography on their racy decision to showi Angelina Jolie's face while Jennifer Aniston was screwing up her presentation. Clearly they were hoping for something scandelous.
And when James Franco announced the winner of best short film and clearly could not pronounce the winning name, absolutely priceless.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Tuesday morning, Leah and I catch a bus to Villazon, which is on the border of Bolivia and Argentina. Once we get there, we have to cross the border and change buses to get to Salta. We have been assured 6 different times by the crazy transvestite woman who works for the bus company that we have plenty of time to switch over, about 2 hours, and we should be fine.
Well. The bus left 20 minutes late. The lady forgot that Argentina is an hour ahead, so we really only had one hour to cross the border. And she failed to mention that Argentina is the most inefficient country on the entire planet and that it would take us 3 hours to get through a line of about 30 people. So our bus was supposed to leave at 2 30, by 5 30 we finally got through the line and entered Argentina. I think the most frusterating thing was that it only took Leah and I five minutes combined to get everything taken care of. So what was taking so long with the people in front of us? We had a sneaking suspicion that all the workers went on lunch for an hour or so, leaving us to bake in the sun.
So we are finally back in the great, grand, wonderful land of Argentina and head to the bus station. We were told we could turn in our ticket for a later time and we would be fine. We go to the same bus company that we went to in Tupiza. We explain our situation to the men working there. They proceed to tell us that their bus company does not exist in Bolivia, even though we saw two different offices in two different cities. When we told them that, they said we were wrong. I know that we were not wrong. The vision of the giant terrifying woman in Tupiza has been burned into my retinas forever. I even had to leave for a few minutes when talking to her, because she widened her bulging eyes at Leah over something and I thought I was going to burst out laughing, so I KNOW that office exists.
We decided to try a different company, who obviously honered our ticket right away. So with about 5 hours to kill, we began to explore the city. And by explore I mean look for a place to eat. Everything in the town was closed. EVERYTHING. After about wandering around famished for about 30 minutes, we finally found a place. The waitress there was kind of crazy. She pretended she couldn´t hear us or see us waving our arms when she didn´t want to serve us, but was very kind to the large group of argentines on the other side of the resteraunt. Oh well. We ate quickly and then killed 3 hours on the internet, searching for places to live.
We went to catch our bus at 11 pm. It´s supposed to be about 7 hours, so we will arrive in Salta at 6 am. This was quite early, but Leah and I truly believed that we would catch about 6 hours of well rested sleep and spend a morning in Salta before heading off to BsAs. We were such fools.
Now on the way to the bus, you basically get harassed by all sorts of people trying to sell you bus tickets. Leah kept getting harassed by this guy in a turtleneck and she finally just screamed at him WHERE IS THE BATHROOM! He backed off, made eye contact with me, and we both started laughing. He was like, "okay, sorry." We got ourselves all rearranged and went to load our stuff on the bus, when who should be loading our luggage? Turtleneck guy! He saw Leah and was like, "do you need to find another bathroom?" It was embarassingly hilarious. So we get on our very crowded bus and settle in.
About ten minutes after the bus started moving, all the guys who worked on the bus decided to go right by where we were trying to sleep and talk. They were laughing and just being really loud, but Leah and I decided it was still too early to complain and we would wait a little bit longer to ask them to be quiet. Well. They kept getting up and shoving my arm (aisle seat) and not to mention they all smelled terrible. So finally we asked them to be quiet. They just stared at us, then kept on talking. Finally, about 45 minutes later, the spread out and were quiet. But suddenly the bus stopped and someone came onboard and told us to get off the bus. I was very confused and woke up Leah. Neither of us knew what was going on, but we were the only ones on the bus, so we hurried off.
Turns out we had driven by an army base and our bus had randomly been chosen to be searched. This is about 2 30 am. We had to stand in a long line with all of our luggage and wait for it to be searched. We were getting kind of nervous, because these people were doing VERY thorough searches and well, we might have bought a few illegal dvds. Plus, my stuff was packed so tightly I had no idea how I would ever close my suitcase again if it was searched. We slowly made our way up, checking out the men in uniform, because some were cute, obviously being very awkward about it. We hoped the cute one wouldn´t open Leah´s suitcase and replay what happened at the border crossing, where the man searching her stuff picked up a bra and examined it for a little too long.
We get to the front of the line and I went first. I´m all ready to open my three bags when the man asks me for my passport. I give it to him, he looks at it for 2 seconds, and says,"okay, you can go." That was it. Apparently being from the United States makes you exempt from getting searched at 2 30 am in a weird army base. Same thing happened to Leah. So yeah, if you are from the United States and want to smuggle illegal things into Argentina, you have nothing to worry about. Go crazy.
So we are waiting to get back on the bus and unfortunately standing next to those assholes who wouldn´t stop talking. There was a dog (actually still kind of a puppy) that was wandering around. It was very cute, not bothering anyone, just playing with a stick. I went over and played with it for a while, it was a really nice dog, just sitting there. Out of nowhere, one of the guys who worked for the bus just went up and kicked the dog in the face. Now if you know me, you know I love dogs and that asshole doing that plus the way he acted earlier just set me off. The guy claimed the dog had bit him, which was a total lie since I had been watching the dog the whole time. I said some rude things, (the guy was really fat so it wasn´t hard to think up stuff), and the dog went and hid behind luggage. I´m still pissed off when I think about it, it was just such a mean thing to do.
So we get on the bus and the boys continue to talk. We and everyone else around them keep asking them to be quiet, but they keep laughing and talking until the bus pulled into Salta at 6 15. I think I might have gotten an hour sleep, maybe. But don´t worry. I filed a complaint. I´m sure nothing will be done about it, but it felt great to vent and go off on those jerks. So yeah, this was pretty much a terrible 24 hours, but the next ones were glorious, so everything is okay again.
Well. The bus left 20 minutes late. The lady forgot that Argentina is an hour ahead, so we really only had one hour to cross the border. And she failed to mention that Argentina is the most inefficient country on the entire planet and that it would take us 3 hours to get through a line of about 30 people. So our bus was supposed to leave at 2 30, by 5 30 we finally got through the line and entered Argentina. I think the most frusterating thing was that it only took Leah and I five minutes combined to get everything taken care of. So what was taking so long with the people in front of us? We had a sneaking suspicion that all the workers went on lunch for an hour or so, leaving us to bake in the sun.
So we are finally back in the great, grand, wonderful land of Argentina and head to the bus station. We were told we could turn in our ticket for a later time and we would be fine. We go to the same bus company that we went to in Tupiza. We explain our situation to the men working there. They proceed to tell us that their bus company does not exist in Bolivia, even though we saw two different offices in two different cities. When we told them that, they said we were wrong. I know that we were not wrong. The vision of the giant terrifying woman in Tupiza has been burned into my retinas forever. I even had to leave for a few minutes when talking to her, because she widened her bulging eyes at Leah over something and I thought I was going to burst out laughing, so I KNOW that office exists.
We decided to try a different company, who obviously honered our ticket right away. So with about 5 hours to kill, we began to explore the city. And by explore I mean look for a place to eat. Everything in the town was closed. EVERYTHING. After about wandering around famished for about 30 minutes, we finally found a place. The waitress there was kind of crazy. She pretended she couldn´t hear us or see us waving our arms when she didn´t want to serve us, but was very kind to the large group of argentines on the other side of the resteraunt. Oh well. We ate quickly and then killed 3 hours on the internet, searching for places to live.
We went to catch our bus at 11 pm. It´s supposed to be about 7 hours, so we will arrive in Salta at 6 am. This was quite early, but Leah and I truly believed that we would catch about 6 hours of well rested sleep and spend a morning in Salta before heading off to BsAs. We were such fools.
Now on the way to the bus, you basically get harassed by all sorts of people trying to sell you bus tickets. Leah kept getting harassed by this guy in a turtleneck and she finally just screamed at him WHERE IS THE BATHROOM! He backed off, made eye contact with me, and we both started laughing. He was like, "okay, sorry." We got ourselves all rearranged and went to load our stuff on the bus, when who should be loading our luggage? Turtleneck guy! He saw Leah and was like, "do you need to find another bathroom?" It was embarassingly hilarious. So we get on our very crowded bus and settle in.
About ten minutes after the bus started moving, all the guys who worked on the bus decided to go right by where we were trying to sleep and talk. They were laughing and just being really loud, but Leah and I decided it was still too early to complain and we would wait a little bit longer to ask them to be quiet. Well. They kept getting up and shoving my arm (aisle seat) and not to mention they all smelled terrible. So finally we asked them to be quiet. They just stared at us, then kept on talking. Finally, about 45 minutes later, the spread out and were quiet. But suddenly the bus stopped and someone came onboard and told us to get off the bus. I was very confused and woke up Leah. Neither of us knew what was going on, but we were the only ones on the bus, so we hurried off.
Turns out we had driven by an army base and our bus had randomly been chosen to be searched. This is about 2 30 am. We had to stand in a long line with all of our luggage and wait for it to be searched. We were getting kind of nervous, because these people were doing VERY thorough searches and well, we might have bought a few illegal dvds. Plus, my stuff was packed so tightly I had no idea how I would ever close my suitcase again if it was searched. We slowly made our way up, checking out the men in uniform, because some were cute, obviously being very awkward about it. We hoped the cute one wouldn´t open Leah´s suitcase and replay what happened at the border crossing, where the man searching her stuff picked up a bra and examined it for a little too long.
We get to the front of the line and I went first. I´m all ready to open my three bags when the man asks me for my passport. I give it to him, he looks at it for 2 seconds, and says,"okay, you can go." That was it. Apparently being from the United States makes you exempt from getting searched at 2 30 am in a weird army base. Same thing happened to Leah. So yeah, if you are from the United States and want to smuggle illegal things into Argentina, you have nothing to worry about. Go crazy.
So we are waiting to get back on the bus and unfortunately standing next to those assholes who wouldn´t stop talking. There was a dog (actually still kind of a puppy) that was wandering around. It was very cute, not bothering anyone, just playing with a stick. I went over and played with it for a while, it was a really nice dog, just sitting there. Out of nowhere, one of the guys who worked for the bus just went up and kicked the dog in the face. Now if you know me, you know I love dogs and that asshole doing that plus the way he acted earlier just set me off. The guy claimed the dog had bit him, which was a total lie since I had been watching the dog the whole time. I said some rude things, (the guy was really fat so it wasn´t hard to think up stuff), and the dog went and hid behind luggage. I´m still pissed off when I think about it, it was just such a mean thing to do.
So we get on the bus and the boys continue to talk. We and everyone else around them keep asking them to be quiet, but they keep laughing and talking until the bus pulled into Salta at 6 15. I think I might have gotten an hour sleep, maybe. But don´t worry. I filed a complaint. I´m sure nothing will be done about it, but it felt great to vent and go off on those jerks. So yeah, this was pretty much a terrible 24 hours, but the next ones were glorious, so everything is okay again.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Salt Flats: the remaining 3 days
So the second day I awoke with a stomach that seemed to be out to get me, which is nothing too atypical for Bolivia, but really sucks when you have 10 hours of offroading on your schedule for the day. The first day, we became acquainted with several traditional Andean musicians. And heard their CDs on repeat for the whole drive. Naïvely we hoped for a new selection the second day, but soon were disappointed to hear the same traditional Bolivian songs about 'La Patria' blaring. It was the same 15 songs over. And over. All. Day.
Our first stop was an amazing view, at almost 5000 meters. I wasn't really supposed to get out of the car because it was too cold and not good or something, but I hopped out long enough to take a picture. Then we visited a ghost town, which was very eerie, but again I pretty much slept through it. Apparently it used to be a mining town thought to be possessed by the devil, which was actually poisonous gases realized from the mines.
The desert was expansive, with towering mountains in the distance in assorted colors that made them look like sunsets. Llamas became more and more sparse as we got deeper into the arid landscape, but vicuñas still roamed and animals that be described no other way but as jackalopes. We came across another huge but shallow lake every few hours, always filled with clans of flamingoes and sandpipers hopping about. At one of these lakes there was a hot spring and we stopped for lunch, which I had to excuse myself from early to digest alone in the car after a single roll of bread.
After lunch I started feeling better, until we stopped at the geisers, which were more like giant muddy craters with soccer ball-sized bubbles bursting up...they looked like the awesome purple villain in the My Little Pony movie. The colors varied from crater to crater, depending on the chemicals, but they all smelled like rotten eggs and emitted thick, hot steam, which was painful in the cold, windy air. They made me absolutely nauseous, but by the time I realized I wanted to vomit, I was too far into the maze of walkable pathways through the geisers and I had to call Luis, the cook, to help me out.
Fortunately, I had time to recover in the unmoving car because just after leaving the site we got a flat tire. Kelly and I sat in the car while they changed it, while everyone else got out and looked around at the wind blown sand (and not much else). But our capable driver, hair as glossy as ever, handily fixed the damage and we were off, praying to not get another flat.
We drove through the Dalí desert, which looks just like his surrealistic paintings, minus the melting watches. Alien-like natural rock formations and rolling mountains against bright blue skies. It was beautiful.
That night we stayed in a similar-looking town, in that I wouldn't call it quite a town, in much more comfortable beds that were just as cold. The little girls in the town became attached to our group and sang us songs. Then they hammed it up for the camera with the adorable kittens roaming around town, the perfect photo op for our whole group. It's hard to imagine what it would be like living in such a remote area. We said goodbye to them in the morning and were off to the Laguna Colorada (red lake), one of the highlights of the trip.
The tour is known for passing by several colored lakes (from natural chemicals), the biggest being the red lake, where we started the third day of travel. Flamingoes were everywhere, clouds of pink and white over the red water. We also, during the middle two days, saw a green lake that looked like a giant opal, and a yellow lake that was the strangest color I've ever seen. We had lunch by the yellow lake, which was filled with 3 species of flamingo. Then we noticed that they were all pooping, little spurts that shot from their behinds whilst they continued digging with their beaks for food....it ruined the magic a bit.
At night we finally got to shower, though we had to pay for it. Our accomodations were made of salt - salt walls, floors, tables, chairs, everything. It was like living in a litter box, but slightly more pleasant. We played cards with another group after dinner, until they turned off the electricity at 10.
We decided to wake up for our last day at 5 so that we could see the sun rise over the salt flats. Our driver was less than pleased by our decision, but it was his fault for giving us the choice.
We drove out to the flats, where I imagined all the jeeps gathered for an amazing viewpoint of the interminable white nothingness that is the flats. I didn't quite realize how large the largest salt flats in the world would be, at 10,582 square kilometers. This is also the size of Los Angeles County.
The salt flats look like dry snow, if that makes any sense. The flats were formed 40,000 years ago with the explosion of a volcano and have the worlds largest lithium reserve and some 10 billion tons of salt (thank you, wikipedia). Water running underneath the flats forms small ridges crisscrossing the terrain and everything looks small and distant. Because it is. There are several 'islands' within the flats, basically big dead coral reefs covered with cactus. Several cacti had signs dating them: one was 900 years old, another died in December 2007 at 1208 years, may he rest in peace. We got to explore one island while our breakfast was prepared, and after breakfast we drove out to another desolate area (of which there are many to choose) to take the famed pictures as there is no perspective on the planar salt.
Conchita, Kelly and I took pictures for about half an hour playing with perspective, since you can make it look like one person is very small. Kelly was a tiny dancer in my hand, we walked on Conchita's back, etc. While we did this, the men all searched for ojos del agua (eyes of the water), which are salt crystals that you can dig out. After a half hour, Rene the driver told us that we were taking pictures in the wrong place. Awesome. So we moved to the better place, and Rene set up some excellent scenes, including Conchita driving a shoe with me flying off the back and me hatching out of a broken egg shell. Then he arranged us all in the ground in a circle to form a star. The shocking part was when he unexpectedly grabbed our ankles and spread our legs apart...I was so surprised that I said 'Oh!', which everyone was taken a bit back by. We all couldn't stop cracking up and making gynocologist jokes after that.
We made one last stop in Uyuni after the salt flats, and bought some souvenirs. We also happened to run into Kevin, our amazingly bearded friend who we met in La Paz and hopefully will see again when he comes to Buenos Aires.
For the car on the way back, Luis had bought new CDs, a godsend to us all. We had memorized by this point the words to such love-torn songs as 'Una Copa de Vino' and 'Ojos del Cielo' as sung in the traditional style with violins and panflutes. The first was an oldies CD, and we all gave our best for the Four Seasons and Diana Ross. Then was Michael Jackson, and then a mega-CD with 177 songs from the 80s. I think our best perfomance was of 'I Come from a Land Downunder,' making Luis officially regret his decision to cater to us with this purchase.
Our first stop was an amazing view, at almost 5000 meters. I wasn't really supposed to get out of the car because it was too cold and not good or something, but I hopped out long enough to take a picture. Then we visited a ghost town, which was very eerie, but again I pretty much slept through it. Apparently it used to be a mining town thought to be possessed by the devil, which was actually poisonous gases realized from the mines.
The desert was expansive, with towering mountains in the distance in assorted colors that made them look like sunsets. Llamas became more and more sparse as we got deeper into the arid landscape, but vicuñas still roamed and animals that be described no other way but as jackalopes. We came across another huge but shallow lake every few hours, always filled with clans of flamingoes and sandpipers hopping about. At one of these lakes there was a hot spring and we stopped for lunch, which I had to excuse myself from early to digest alone in the car after a single roll of bread.
After lunch I started feeling better, until we stopped at the geisers, which were more like giant muddy craters with soccer ball-sized bubbles bursting up...they looked like the awesome purple villain in the My Little Pony movie. The colors varied from crater to crater, depending on the chemicals, but they all smelled like rotten eggs and emitted thick, hot steam, which was painful in the cold, windy air. They made me absolutely nauseous, but by the time I realized I wanted to vomit, I was too far into the maze of walkable pathways through the geisers and I had to call Luis, the cook, to help me out.
Fortunately, I had time to recover in the unmoving car because just after leaving the site we got a flat tire. Kelly and I sat in the car while they changed it, while everyone else got out and looked around at the wind blown sand (and not much else). But our capable driver, hair as glossy as ever, handily fixed the damage and we were off, praying to not get another flat.
We drove through the Dalí desert, which looks just like his surrealistic paintings, minus the melting watches. Alien-like natural rock formations and rolling mountains against bright blue skies. It was beautiful.
That night we stayed in a similar-looking town, in that I wouldn't call it quite a town, in much more comfortable beds that were just as cold. The little girls in the town became attached to our group and sang us songs. Then they hammed it up for the camera with the adorable kittens roaming around town, the perfect photo op for our whole group. It's hard to imagine what it would be like living in such a remote area. We said goodbye to them in the morning and were off to the Laguna Colorada (red lake), one of the highlights of the trip.
The tour is known for passing by several colored lakes (from natural chemicals), the biggest being the red lake, where we started the third day of travel. Flamingoes were everywhere, clouds of pink and white over the red water. We also, during the middle two days, saw a green lake that looked like a giant opal, and a yellow lake that was the strangest color I've ever seen. We had lunch by the yellow lake, which was filled with 3 species of flamingo. Then we noticed that they were all pooping, little spurts that shot from their behinds whilst they continued digging with their beaks for food....it ruined the magic a bit.
At night we finally got to shower, though we had to pay for it. Our accomodations were made of salt - salt walls, floors, tables, chairs, everything. It was like living in a litter box, but slightly more pleasant. We played cards with another group after dinner, until they turned off the electricity at 10.
We decided to wake up for our last day at 5 so that we could see the sun rise over the salt flats. Our driver was less than pleased by our decision, but it was his fault for giving us the choice.
We drove out to the flats, where I imagined all the jeeps gathered for an amazing viewpoint of the interminable white nothingness that is the flats. I didn't quite realize how large the largest salt flats in the world would be, at 10,582 square kilometers. This is also the size of Los Angeles County.
The salt flats look like dry snow, if that makes any sense. The flats were formed 40,000 years ago with the explosion of a volcano and have the worlds largest lithium reserve and some 10 billion tons of salt (thank you, wikipedia). Water running underneath the flats forms small ridges crisscrossing the terrain and everything looks small and distant. Because it is. There are several 'islands' within the flats, basically big dead coral reefs covered with cactus. Several cacti had signs dating them: one was 900 years old, another died in December 2007 at 1208 years, may he rest in peace. We got to explore one island while our breakfast was prepared, and after breakfast we drove out to another desolate area (of which there are many to choose) to take the famed pictures as there is no perspective on the planar salt.
Conchita, Kelly and I took pictures for about half an hour playing with perspective, since you can make it look like one person is very small. Kelly was a tiny dancer in my hand, we walked on Conchita's back, etc. While we did this, the men all searched for ojos del agua (eyes of the water), which are salt crystals that you can dig out. After a half hour, Rene the driver told us that we were taking pictures in the wrong place. Awesome. So we moved to the better place, and Rene set up some excellent scenes, including Conchita driving a shoe with me flying off the back and me hatching out of a broken egg shell. Then he arranged us all in the ground in a circle to form a star. The shocking part was when he unexpectedly grabbed our ankles and spread our legs apart...I was so surprised that I said 'Oh!', which everyone was taken a bit back by. We all couldn't stop cracking up and making gynocologist jokes after that.
We made one last stop in Uyuni after the salt flats, and bought some souvenirs. We also happened to run into Kevin, our amazingly bearded friend who we met in La Paz and hopefully will see again when he comes to Buenos Aires.
For the car on the way back, Luis had bought new CDs, a godsend to us all. We had memorized by this point the words to such love-torn songs as 'Una Copa de Vino' and 'Ojos del Cielo' as sung in the traditional style with violins and panflutes. The first was an oldies CD, and we all gave our best for the Four Seasons and Diana Ross. Then was Michael Jackson, and then a mega-CD with 177 songs from the 80s. I think our best perfomance was of 'I Come from a Land Downunder,' making Luis officially regret his decision to cater to us with this purchase.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Salt Flat Tour: Day 1
The primary reason we came to Bolivia was to do the salt flat tour, a standardized 3 day trip that leaves from Uyuni in a jeep that inevitably breaks down in the desert during the journey and is led by a surly driver who doesn't speak English. But we were told that the trip, that is 10 hours a day of driving with minimal stops to get out and see rocks in the desert, was more than worth enduring all this. We were slightly confused as to why, but figured we should trust the general consensus and sign up.
Fortunately, we got the tip off that tours leave from Tupiza, and not just Uyuni (which is supposedly the worst town on earth with streets lined with nothing but tourist agencies competing to offer the worst salt flat tours possible). In Tupiza, there is one tour company, Tupiza Tours, and it has a good reputation for quality of food, drivers, jeeps, tour guides, etc. The only problem is, the tour is one more night. And more expensive. But we thought it worth it and we were (obviously) right.
We woke up the day of our tour and partook in the amazing free breakfast at Hotel Mitru. Then we were introduced to our tour group, first to Conchita, a Dutch girl traveling by herself. This was interesting because Conchita, in South American Spanish, is a rather strong euphamistic word (literally, it means 'little shell,' but it is understood to be a reference to female anatomy in the stongest term possible), and so her introductions to our driver and cook were fun to watch as they did double takes. Next we were introduced to Bob, who pronounced his name Boob but was really named Chuck (I still don't understand) and Daniel, American retiree friends traveling together. Our driver, Rene, was quickly commended by us for his stunning mane of hair, and then we met our cook, Luis, who was only 21. And then we were off for 4 days of unpaved desert roads.
We drove a few hours, then made our first stop for about 10 minutes to look out at some scenery. Red, candle-like structures as tall as mountains in canyons out into the distance. Then we got back in the car and drove for a few more hours...generally the theme of the trip.
We lunched by a vast pasture, surrounded by hundreds of llamas. Kelly and I entertained ourselves by chasing the llamas while the food was prepared. We then sat down to a fabulous picnic with lots of fruits and veggies and sandwiches. The main course were delicious tamales filled with, what else, but llama meat. They were fantastic, though the scene was a bit morbund.
After lunch, we passed lots of llamas in the fields. Who owns these llamas? That's what I want to know. But they all have brightly colored pompoms on their ears to mark them. We also saw a llama just giving birth, the baby not even able to stand yet. It was the cycle of life in action...and the cycle of my lunch. We also saw wild vicuñas, which are an animal similar to llamas and deer, with long necks, that are endangered and only found in the remote areas of the Andes.
The 'road' got even rockier and the constant bumping induced me to announce that my stomach was making a llama licuado (milkshake) which, hours later, turned into full on stomach sickness. But we can go more into that on day two.
At night, we stopped in a desolate group of houses (because I wouldn't quite say town) on cement beds. I have no proof but the pain in my body that they were actually cement. At night, temperatures dropped to about freezing, lower than those we experienced on the Inca trail. We had no sleeping bags, just some wool blankets, so we put on every article of clothing we owned and shivered through the night. Good times were had by all.
Fortunately, we got the tip off that tours leave from Tupiza, and not just Uyuni (which is supposedly the worst town on earth with streets lined with nothing but tourist agencies competing to offer the worst salt flat tours possible). In Tupiza, there is one tour company, Tupiza Tours, and it has a good reputation for quality of food, drivers, jeeps, tour guides, etc. The only problem is, the tour is one more night. And more expensive. But we thought it worth it and we were (obviously) right.
We woke up the day of our tour and partook in the amazing free breakfast at Hotel Mitru. Then we were introduced to our tour group, first to Conchita, a Dutch girl traveling by herself. This was interesting because Conchita, in South American Spanish, is a rather strong euphamistic word (literally, it means 'little shell,' but it is understood to be a reference to female anatomy in the stongest term possible), and so her introductions to our driver and cook were fun to watch as they did double takes. Next we were introduced to Bob, who pronounced his name Boob but was really named Chuck (I still don't understand) and Daniel, American retiree friends traveling together. Our driver, Rene, was quickly commended by us for his stunning mane of hair, and then we met our cook, Luis, who was only 21. And then we were off for 4 days of unpaved desert roads.
We drove a few hours, then made our first stop for about 10 minutes to look out at some scenery. Red, candle-like structures as tall as mountains in canyons out into the distance. Then we got back in the car and drove for a few more hours...generally the theme of the trip.
We lunched by a vast pasture, surrounded by hundreds of llamas. Kelly and I entertained ourselves by chasing the llamas while the food was prepared. We then sat down to a fabulous picnic with lots of fruits and veggies and sandwiches. The main course were delicious tamales filled with, what else, but llama meat. They were fantastic, though the scene was a bit morbund.
After lunch, we passed lots of llamas in the fields. Who owns these llamas? That's what I want to know. But they all have brightly colored pompoms on their ears to mark them. We also saw a llama just giving birth, the baby not even able to stand yet. It was the cycle of life in action...and the cycle of my lunch. We also saw wild vicuñas, which are an animal similar to llamas and deer, with long necks, that are endangered and only found in the remote areas of the Andes.
The 'road' got even rockier and the constant bumping induced me to announce that my stomach was making a llama licuado (milkshake) which, hours later, turned into full on stomach sickness. But we can go more into that on day two.
At night, we stopped in a desolate group of houses (because I wouldn't quite say town) on cement beds. I have no proof but the pain in my body that they were actually cement. At night, temperatures dropped to about freezing, lower than those we experienced on the Inca trail. We had no sleeping bags, just some wool blankets, so we put on every article of clothing we owned and shivered through the night. Good times were had by all.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Bolivia: smells like a llama fetus
So after Sucre, Leah and I headed to Tupiza, but before we could arrive we had a 10 hour bus ride ahead of us. After stopping at every bakery along the way to the bus station, we were fully prepared for this long ride. The bus was a typical South American bus, uncomfortable, and SMELLY. I have noticed that every bus we have ridden in Peru and Boliva has the same distinct, gross smell. When I asked Leah if she noticed, she said, "yes, its the people, and they smell like llama fetuses."
With that in mind, we tried to settle in for the long, probably uncomfortable ride ahead of us. As bad luck would have it, three asshole teenagers behind us proceeded to blast every current emo song from their cellphones for at least 2 hours, until the bus driver got sick of it and turned up the radio. Unfortunately, that music was no better and we had to listen to latin ballads that were so loud and painful that I couldnt hear my ipod over them. But enough of the complaining, we had plenty of baked goods from the bakery (think mini fruit tarts, SO GOOD) and were able to sleep for most of the ride.
Our bus arrived in Tupiza at 3 30 in the morning. We stumbled off into a bus station having no idea where to go, but knew our hostel was close. A women gave us confusing directions, and we were off. The streets were completely empty except for a few drunk people wandering around, due to carnival festivals. We were walking down the middle of the street when this dog on the sidewalk starts to growl at us and chase us. I was ready to swing my suitcase at it, but it backed off once we left its area. Then we realized there were no street signs, so we were pretty lost until a nice man, who kept telling us not to be afraid, took us to our hostel. We were pretty lucky, otherwise we could have been wandering around forever.
We walked into the hostel and realized it was more like a giant complex and it even had a pool. We were expecting to be showed to a normal hostel room, but were taken down a long hallway and shown into a ridiculous and quite frightening room. There were twin beds with scarily colorful bedspreads, weird wall patterns, and a terrifying and quite large picture of Jesus above the beds. The man was talking to Leah, but I was too horrified and fascinated by the room to pay attention. All I got was that we would be leaving the room the next day. When I asked her why, she was like, "Kelly, we are in the owners residence. This room, apparently, belongs to Grandma." What did that mean? Was Grandma sleeping on the floor in some other room? Was she dead? WHO KNEW?! Overall it was a very strange experience, especially when we were woken up the next day by 2 children running into our room, laughing, then running away.
After that we moved to a normal room and decided to explore the town of Tupiza, which to be honest, there was not a lot of. It seemed like every other store was a pizzaria, so we headed into a random one and ended up having a delicious lunch while watching the movie Pay It Forward in spanish. Believe me, its terrible no matter what language. Then we wandered the markets and went to the lookout point, which was obviously up ANOTHER mountain. If I never climb another mountain after this trip, I will be so happy. The lookout was quite beautiful, since the town is surrounded by giant red mountains.
After that we wandered around the square looking for internet. Then Leah got pegged with about 3 water balloons by local children. Its carnival time and in Bolivia, that means give your children water balloons. And for some reason, Leah is always a target. She got hit on the head in Sucre as well, so I blame her red hair. I take it as a compliment because clearly I am blending in with the locals.
For dinner we went to another pizza place and the food was TERRIBLE but the ambiance was amazing. It was all gringos and none of us were talking to each other, but we were all watching the awesome 80s music videos that were on TV. Then Lionel Richies "Hello" came on, and we all started laughing and hollering and some scottish guy knew all the words so of course we made fun of him. Then everyone began talking and we all continued to make fun of the videos. My favorite was when one with George Michael came on and he was kissing a woman. Someone shouted, "yeah right George, you arent fooling anyone!"
Then we decided to go to bed because we had a huge adventure ahead of us, the SALT FLATS, which we will have to tell you about later.
And as a special treat, some Lionel for you!
With that in mind, we tried to settle in for the long, probably uncomfortable ride ahead of us. As bad luck would have it, three asshole teenagers behind us proceeded to blast every current emo song from their cellphones for at least 2 hours, until the bus driver got sick of it and turned up the radio. Unfortunately, that music was no better and we had to listen to latin ballads that were so loud and painful that I couldnt hear my ipod over them. But enough of the complaining, we had plenty of baked goods from the bakery (think mini fruit tarts, SO GOOD) and were able to sleep for most of the ride.
Our bus arrived in Tupiza at 3 30 in the morning. We stumbled off into a bus station having no idea where to go, but knew our hostel was close. A women gave us confusing directions, and we were off. The streets were completely empty except for a few drunk people wandering around, due to carnival festivals. We were walking down the middle of the street when this dog on the sidewalk starts to growl at us and chase us. I was ready to swing my suitcase at it, but it backed off once we left its area. Then we realized there were no street signs, so we were pretty lost until a nice man, who kept telling us not to be afraid, took us to our hostel. We were pretty lucky, otherwise we could have been wandering around forever.
We walked into the hostel and realized it was more like a giant complex and it even had a pool. We were expecting to be showed to a normal hostel room, but were taken down a long hallway and shown into a ridiculous and quite frightening room. There were twin beds with scarily colorful bedspreads, weird wall patterns, and a terrifying and quite large picture of Jesus above the beds. The man was talking to Leah, but I was too horrified and fascinated by the room to pay attention. All I got was that we would be leaving the room the next day. When I asked her why, she was like, "Kelly, we are in the owners residence. This room, apparently, belongs to Grandma." What did that mean? Was Grandma sleeping on the floor in some other room? Was she dead? WHO KNEW?! Overall it was a very strange experience, especially when we were woken up the next day by 2 children running into our room, laughing, then running away.
After that we moved to a normal room and decided to explore the town of Tupiza, which to be honest, there was not a lot of. It seemed like every other store was a pizzaria, so we headed into a random one and ended up having a delicious lunch while watching the movie Pay It Forward in spanish. Believe me, its terrible no matter what language. Then we wandered the markets and went to the lookout point, which was obviously up ANOTHER mountain. If I never climb another mountain after this trip, I will be so happy. The lookout was quite beautiful, since the town is surrounded by giant red mountains.
After that we wandered around the square looking for internet. Then Leah got pegged with about 3 water balloons by local children. Its carnival time and in Bolivia, that means give your children water balloons. And for some reason, Leah is always a target. She got hit on the head in Sucre as well, so I blame her red hair. I take it as a compliment because clearly I am blending in with the locals.
For dinner we went to another pizza place and the food was TERRIBLE but the ambiance was amazing. It was all gringos and none of us were talking to each other, but we were all watching the awesome 80s music videos that were on TV. Then Lionel Richies "Hello" came on, and we all started laughing and hollering and some scottish guy knew all the words so of course we made fun of him. Then everyone began talking and we all continued to make fun of the videos. My favorite was when one with George Michael came on and he was kissing a woman. Someone shouted, "yeah right George, you arent fooling anyone!"
Then we decided to go to bed because we had a huge adventure ahead of us, the SALT FLATS, which we will have to tell you about later.
And as a special treat, some Lionel for you!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Travel buddies in Sucre
We have come upon a rather ironic travel situation in Bolivia, because the very same blokes whom we snidely criticized behind their backs for not being prepared when crossing the border happen to be our two new travel companions. We befriended them when they surprisingly showed up at our hostel in La Paz, and then we convinced them that traveling south to Sucre would be a good idea, and then we would continue on to the Salt Flats in southwest Bolivia.
We took the overnight bus to Sucre, on which they showed an amazing Wesley Snipes movie, Passenger 57, which entertained Kelly and me for a good portion of the ride. After the excitement of the movie, I found it impossible to sleep and therefore we spent a good portion of the day sleeping in the hostel once our room was ready. Since we got in so early (7 am), we had to entertain ourselves until check in at 11, which we handily did by watching House Bunny, a truly ridiculous movie that we bought during our binge purchase on our way out of La Paz (where DVDs are about 50 US cents).
Sucre has a classier feel to it than La Paz, with less women in traditional wear and more variety in stores and museums. We went to the history museum, which was a big disappointment as it didn't clear much up in terms of the revolution, and we climbed one of the hills to have a beautiful look of the city as its settled in the mountains. On our second night, we stumbled into a restaurant that turned out to be affiliated with the local university and our student cards got us a 50% discount on the whole bill. We ordered tons of food and fresh fruit juices and then went back for dessert and still didn't break $3 USD per person. This country is impossibly cheap.
After dinner we played ping pong and foosball at what I can only assume is a university sponsored locale and went to bed early. Today we planned to go see a dinasaur park, but it's raining too much so instead decided to move on to the next town and start our tour of the salt flats, the major destination in Bolivia. However, as our new traveling group couldn't agree on whether to start the tours in Uyuni or Tupiza (long story), we split up, and Kelly and I are heading tonight to Tupiza to do the tour, afterwhich its all back to Buenos Aires!
We took the overnight bus to Sucre, on which they showed an amazing Wesley Snipes movie, Passenger 57, which entertained Kelly and me for a good portion of the ride. After the excitement of the movie, I found it impossible to sleep and therefore we spent a good portion of the day sleeping in the hostel once our room was ready. Since we got in so early (7 am), we had to entertain ourselves until check in at 11, which we handily did by watching House Bunny, a truly ridiculous movie that we bought during our binge purchase on our way out of La Paz (where DVDs are about 50 US cents).
Sucre has a classier feel to it than La Paz, with less women in traditional wear and more variety in stores and museums. We went to the history museum, which was a big disappointment as it didn't clear much up in terms of the revolution, and we climbed one of the hills to have a beautiful look of the city as its settled in the mountains. On our second night, we stumbled into a restaurant that turned out to be affiliated with the local university and our student cards got us a 50% discount on the whole bill. We ordered tons of food and fresh fruit juices and then went back for dessert and still didn't break $3 USD per person. This country is impossibly cheap.
After dinner we played ping pong and foosball at what I can only assume is a university sponsored locale and went to bed early. Today we planned to go see a dinasaur park, but it's raining too much so instead decided to move on to the next town and start our tour of the salt flats, the major destination in Bolivia. However, as our new traveling group couldn't agree on whether to start the tours in Uyuni or Tupiza (long story), we split up, and Kelly and I are heading tonight to Tupiza to do the tour, afterwhich its all back to Buenos Aires!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
oh yeah
So Leah and I realized that we forgot to mention something that happened to us in Cusco and should probably be documented, because it was pretty funny. But definitely more funny to her than me. About 20 minutes after we returned from our horrific adventures in the jungle, I got trapped in the bathroom. That´s right, 24 year old Kelly locked herself in the bathroom.
What actually happened was that the doorknob broke, but we didn´t realize this until about 45 minutes later. Everyone just thought I was an idiot and couldn´t open the door. Leah went to the front desk, who called a maid, and apparently every maid in the 130 person hostel wanted to participate in getting that stupid american out of the bathroom. They used every key they had, but the door just wouldn´t budge. Time to call the head maintenance guy. Great.
Throughout all of this, I was just sitting in the shower listening to my ipod, feeling really stupid. I figured that the only way out was by using dynamite, so I tried to get as far away from the door as possible.
The guy came into the room and told me all I had to do was simply push a bobby pin into the side of the doorknob where there was a little hole, and the knob would unlock and set me free. Unfortunately, I saw no hole. About 15 minutes were spent with the guy telling me different ways to look for the hole, but I honestly saw nothing and felt like a moron.
Finally Leah had the brilliant idea to show me a brand new door knob, so she stuck her head through the opening above the door and showed me where the hole was. It turned out that the knob got jammed and the hole was covered and unreachable, so I was not as big of an idiot as we all had thought. The only thing left to do was to completely remove the doorknob. Even more great.
I had to stand as far away from the door as possible while the guy body slammed the door. Finally after about 15 minutes, the knob came off and the door opened. I was FINALLY free, after about an hour. I ran out of the bathroom and did a little dance and then headed straight for the bar. After 5 days in the jungle AND being locked in a bathroom for an hour, I definitely needed a beer.
What actually happened was that the doorknob broke, but we didn´t realize this until about 45 minutes later. Everyone just thought I was an idiot and couldn´t open the door. Leah went to the front desk, who called a maid, and apparently every maid in the 130 person hostel wanted to participate in getting that stupid american out of the bathroom. They used every key they had, but the door just wouldn´t budge. Time to call the head maintenance guy. Great.
Throughout all of this, I was just sitting in the shower listening to my ipod, feeling really stupid. I figured that the only way out was by using dynamite, so I tried to get as far away from the door as possible.
The guy came into the room and told me all I had to do was simply push a bobby pin into the side of the doorknob where there was a little hole, and the knob would unlock and set me free. Unfortunately, I saw no hole. About 15 minutes were spent with the guy telling me different ways to look for the hole, but I honestly saw nothing and felt like a moron.
Finally Leah had the brilliant idea to show me a brand new door knob, so she stuck her head through the opening above the door and showed me where the hole was. It turned out that the knob got jammed and the hole was covered and unreachable, so I was not as big of an idiot as we all had thought. The only thing left to do was to completely remove the doorknob. Even more great.
I had to stand as far away from the door as possible while the guy body slammed the door. Finally after about 15 minutes, the knob came off and the door opened. I was FINALLY free, after about an hour. I ran out of the bathroom and did a little dance and then headed straight for the bar. After 5 days in the jungle AND being locked in a bathroom for an hour, I definitely needed a beer.
La Paz times
We showed up in La Paz with 2 nights booked at LOKI, our favorite hostel chain, and planned on then doing 1 night of couchsurfing before continuing on in Bolivia. Somehow, 2 nights at LOKI turned into 6 nights, but we've bought our bus tickets so we're leaving tomorrow, theres no turning back.
Here's how it happened: we made friends! The hostel is huge, just as the LOKI in Cusco was...theres room for more than 100 guests and there's a very active bar and restaurant inside that trickily lets you charge to your room so you just don't know what you're spending. Of course, we started friendless in the new city, per usual. We walked into the bar on our first night and ordered 2 diet cokes, were accused of being too wild by the bartender, and then were too tired to make the effort to make friends in the overwhelmingly Aussie crowd. We walked into our 5 person dorm room and the other 3 people were already sleeping, at 1030 at night, so we thought it best to turn in and weather out the snores coming from the bunkbed in the corner.
Our luck changed when we heard Zara (our Australian friend who we met in BA and stayed with in Cusco) was coming to work at LOKI. So that friend was locked in. As we sat catching up with her in the bar, my attention was caught by a guy walking into the room, and would you believe it? It was one of the stupid American boys who were on our bus from Puno and had their passports confiscated at the border. I looked up at him and shouted, "You made it!", which he was taken aback by but then recognized us. We then proceeded to spend the entire afternoon with this guy who was not at all the asshole we expected, but really quite the conversationalist.
The 3 of us decided to go to the Oxygen Bar in the hostel, pretty much as a joke...but I mean, how many people can really say they've been to the world's highest oxygen bar? We were breaking records. This is where we met our next friend, Kevin, another American traveler finding himself on the southern continent. Kevin decides that Indian food sounds like a good idea, so we do somemore record-breaking by going to the world's highest Indian restaurant (there's a lot of this type of record-breaking in the world's highest city). It was way better than Argentine Indian food because it was actually spicy. I ordered llama tikka masala, because it seemed like a one-time opportunity (llama is not the most flavorful meat, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it). That night we hung out with some random guys, who turned out to be a bit too crazy for us. The final straw was when they couldn't understand how to play the card game BS, their minds were to feeble I think.
The next day we went with our new, large group of friends to the coca museum. Which is not that exciting, but mildly interesting. We walked around the street markets and saw the city, which is like San Fransisco in terms of its topography (but not so much in terms of architecture). Women here wander around in the traditional clothing, with odd hats that seem to be a combination of a top and a bowler hat and traditionally bright rainbow shawls. In the market, they sell llama fetuses and snake skins for potions and spells. I was just surprised by how big a llama fetus is (it's like a cat with a long neck).
In the following days we saw various museums and tourist sights. On one of the pedestrian streets, a boy of about 5 years came running at us with his penis hanging over the top of his pants. That was right by Plaza Murillo, which is a beautiful yellow colonial plaza with all too many pigeons. We went to one museum that started with a display of carnaval costumes, then went to rooms with miniature dolls portraying battle, market, and cantina scenes, then a room with military weapons, then came the under the sea room. What? You know, just sharks and deep sea fish models hanging in a net in a tiny room, then onto the ancient Incan gold and silver pieces. Their museum curation seems a bit out of whack. Another museum we went to had a really interesting exhibit on the traditional masks used during carnaval. I didn't realize how devoted Bolivia was to its traditional dances, but there are some that are only danced in very specific regions to this day. It was also fascinating to note how Asian they looked and to think of the influence of that culture from thousands of years ago. Thank you, Bearing Straight.
We've also been taking in the nightlife of La Paz. A typical night starts at LOKI, where we converse with a variety of people, then the crowd moves to a bar or club. The best was when we went to Mongo's, which was empty when we arrived but we quickly changed that thanks to requesting some Sexy Back and Maneater. We all danced for hours, despite not having nearly enough oxygen. Tonight we hope to repeat this feat and go out of La Paz with a bang.
Here's how it happened: we made friends! The hostel is huge, just as the LOKI in Cusco was...theres room for more than 100 guests and there's a very active bar and restaurant inside that trickily lets you charge to your room so you just don't know what you're spending. Of course, we started friendless in the new city, per usual. We walked into the bar on our first night and ordered 2 diet cokes, were accused of being too wild by the bartender, and then were too tired to make the effort to make friends in the overwhelmingly Aussie crowd. We walked into our 5 person dorm room and the other 3 people were already sleeping, at 1030 at night, so we thought it best to turn in and weather out the snores coming from the bunkbed in the corner.
Our luck changed when we heard Zara (our Australian friend who we met in BA and stayed with in Cusco) was coming to work at LOKI. So that friend was locked in. As we sat catching up with her in the bar, my attention was caught by a guy walking into the room, and would you believe it? It was one of the stupid American boys who were on our bus from Puno and had their passports confiscated at the border. I looked up at him and shouted, "You made it!", which he was taken aback by but then recognized us. We then proceeded to spend the entire afternoon with this guy who was not at all the asshole we expected, but really quite the conversationalist.
The 3 of us decided to go to the Oxygen Bar in the hostel, pretty much as a joke...but I mean, how many people can really say they've been to the world's highest oxygen bar? We were breaking records. This is where we met our next friend, Kevin, another American traveler finding himself on the southern continent. Kevin decides that Indian food sounds like a good idea, so we do somemore record-breaking by going to the world's highest Indian restaurant (there's a lot of this type of record-breaking in the world's highest city). It was way better than Argentine Indian food because it was actually spicy. I ordered llama tikka masala, because it seemed like a one-time opportunity (llama is not the most flavorful meat, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it). That night we hung out with some random guys, who turned out to be a bit too crazy for us. The final straw was when they couldn't understand how to play the card game BS, their minds were to feeble I think.
The next day we went with our new, large group of friends to the coca museum. Which is not that exciting, but mildly interesting. We walked around the street markets and saw the city, which is like San Fransisco in terms of its topography (but not so much in terms of architecture). Women here wander around in the traditional clothing, with odd hats that seem to be a combination of a top and a bowler hat and traditionally bright rainbow shawls. In the market, they sell llama fetuses and snake skins for potions and spells. I was just surprised by how big a llama fetus is (it's like a cat with a long neck).
In the following days we saw various museums and tourist sights. On one of the pedestrian streets, a boy of about 5 years came running at us with his penis hanging over the top of his pants. That was right by Plaza Murillo, which is a beautiful yellow colonial plaza with all too many pigeons. We went to one museum that started with a display of carnaval costumes, then went to rooms with miniature dolls portraying battle, market, and cantina scenes, then a room with military weapons, then came the under the sea room. What? You know, just sharks and deep sea fish models hanging in a net in a tiny room, then onto the ancient Incan gold and silver pieces. Their museum curation seems a bit out of whack. Another museum we went to had a really interesting exhibit on the traditional masks used during carnaval. I didn't realize how devoted Bolivia was to its traditional dances, but there are some that are only danced in very specific regions to this day. It was also fascinating to note how Asian they looked and to think of the influence of that culture from thousands of years ago. Thank you, Bearing Straight.
We've also been taking in the nightlife of La Paz. A typical night starts at LOKI, where we converse with a variety of people, then the crowd moves to a bar or club. The best was when we went to Mongo's, which was empty when we arrived but we quickly changed that thanks to requesting some Sexy Back and Maneater. We all danced for hours, despite not having nearly enough oxygen. Tonight we hope to repeat this feat and go out of La Paz with a bang.
Crossing the Border into Bolivia
We woke up bright and early on Groundhog`s day (and Grandpa Howard`s B-day) so that we could get all of our paperwork together to cross into Bolivia. We were going to the Bolivian Consulate to get our VISAs taken care of and hopefully make everything much easier. As we were leaving, someone who worked at our hostel told us that because we were from the US, we would need several vaccinations, including rubella and some other crazy ones. AND if we didn`t want to actually get the shots, we could pay him to make fake paperwork for us. This sounded way to sketchy to us, so we decided to ignore him and just go to the consulate.
Once we got there we talked to the main guy who told us that they were out of United States Visas for that week, so we would have to wait until we got to the border. He did helpfully inform us that only Koreans needed all those crazy vaccinations, and that our yellow fever shot was perfectly fine. We also needed copies of our passports, credit cards, proof we had somewhere to stay in the country and proof that we were planning on leaving the country. And for some reason a passport photo.
We gathered all of the stuff we needed and had about 3 hours until our bus to La Paz. We were out of Soles, but didn`t want to take out more because we were leaving, so we decided to take our leftover Chilean Pesos and exchange them for Soles. I had about 10,000 left, so I got 40 Soles, enough for lunch and some snacks on the bus. Leah had about 7,000 pesos, but half of them were in coins, which the exchange place would not accept. Now she is stuck with all these Chilean coins and can`t use them, much to her annoyance.
So we get to the bus station and the bus driver is all business, asking for our passports, our slips we got when we entered Peru, etc. He asks us if we have the 130 US dollars and copies, which of course we do, but the two American guys behind us had none of that stuff. We started talking to them and they told us that there was NO WAY they were paying 130 bucks and that they didn`t feel like making copies of all their stuff, and they were just going to bullshit their way over the crossing. We decided they were idiots and wanted to cross the border with them to see what happened.
So we get to the border. We have to get off the bus and get official exit stamps from Peru. Afterwords, we walked on a dirt road about 100 yards and suddenly we were in Bolivia. It was pretty strange. We looked for those guys, but didn`t see them anywhere. Whatever. We go into the Bolivian immigration office and suddenly the guys were behind us. They had tried to just walk past the immigration office, but were caught by an officer. We started to fill out forms and it turned out we were the only people from the US and the only ones who took longer than 5 minutes to get stamped. Our bus driver kept telling us to hurry up, but what were we supposed to do?
We were filling out forms, chatting with the nice Bolivian official, everything was going great for us. Not so great for the two guys behind us. When asked for the 130 dollars, they said the didn`t have it and basically shouldn`t have to pay it because it is a ridiculous amount of money for a visa. One of them even refused to go make a copy of his passport, which was really the last straw for the people working at the office. They proceeded to take the two guy`s passports and lock them in a drawer. Then they told them they couldn`t leave. We aren`t really sure what happened to them after that. All we know is, is that they had to get their stuff off of our bus and were still at the border when we left. So let this be a lesson to you if you are ever going to Bolivia, THEY DON`T MESS AROUND.
Then we got to Copacobana and had to switch buses. It was chaos. The same festival in Puno was going on there, so we had to dodge drunk, crazy, dancing people all over the place. When we got on our bus, there was this ridiculouly drunk and woman decked out in a fancy, flashy yellow costume sitting in the wrong seat and singing constantly. Did I mention she was extremely obese? When she was told to go to her own seat, 14, she said okay and then sat in 3. Then passed out for a while in 7. Then finally made it to her seat. After about 5 minutes of driving the bus had to pull over for her and she got off, where I assume she puked.
While I was watching the drunk woman in fascination, Leah was paying attention to what was going on at the front of the bus. Apparently we had no driver at the moment because all of them were insanely drunk from the festival. We sat there for about 45 minutes until a driver was finally found, a man who didn`t drink because he was extremely religious.
Once we got driving everything calmed down, except for an occasional wolf howl from the drunk woman. Then after about an hour, the bus stopped and the driver told us to make sure we had our coats and to get off the bus. We had absolutely no idea what was going on and were kind of freaked out. Fortunately, we asked some people who were on our previous bus what was going on. They informed us that we were going on a boat to cross a river. What?!? No one had mentioned this to us. So we get on this boat and of course, are sitting right by the drunk lady. She sang the entire ride, stood up, fell down, and almost fell off the boat while getting off. She was pretty entertaining.
We got back on the bus and rode two more hours to La Paz. Our luggage was on top of the bus, so when trying to get my heavy suitcase down, the drunk woman stumbled right in front of me, and the suitcase almost fell on her head. The bus driver told her to go home and hopefully she did, but who knows, that woman was crazy. We arrived safely at our hostel, had a drink, and then went to bed.
Once we got there we talked to the main guy who told us that they were out of United States Visas for that week, so we would have to wait until we got to the border. He did helpfully inform us that only Koreans needed all those crazy vaccinations, and that our yellow fever shot was perfectly fine. We also needed copies of our passports, credit cards, proof we had somewhere to stay in the country and proof that we were planning on leaving the country. And for some reason a passport photo.
We gathered all of the stuff we needed and had about 3 hours until our bus to La Paz. We were out of Soles, but didn`t want to take out more because we were leaving, so we decided to take our leftover Chilean Pesos and exchange them for Soles. I had about 10,000 left, so I got 40 Soles, enough for lunch and some snacks on the bus. Leah had about 7,000 pesos, but half of them were in coins, which the exchange place would not accept. Now she is stuck with all these Chilean coins and can`t use them, much to her annoyance.
So we get to the bus station and the bus driver is all business, asking for our passports, our slips we got when we entered Peru, etc. He asks us if we have the 130 US dollars and copies, which of course we do, but the two American guys behind us had none of that stuff. We started talking to them and they told us that there was NO WAY they were paying 130 bucks and that they didn`t feel like making copies of all their stuff, and they were just going to bullshit their way over the crossing. We decided they were idiots and wanted to cross the border with them to see what happened.
So we get to the border. We have to get off the bus and get official exit stamps from Peru. Afterwords, we walked on a dirt road about 100 yards and suddenly we were in Bolivia. It was pretty strange. We looked for those guys, but didn`t see them anywhere. Whatever. We go into the Bolivian immigration office and suddenly the guys were behind us. They had tried to just walk past the immigration office, but were caught by an officer. We started to fill out forms and it turned out we were the only people from the US and the only ones who took longer than 5 minutes to get stamped. Our bus driver kept telling us to hurry up, but what were we supposed to do?
We were filling out forms, chatting with the nice Bolivian official, everything was going great for us. Not so great for the two guys behind us. When asked for the 130 dollars, they said the didn`t have it and basically shouldn`t have to pay it because it is a ridiculous amount of money for a visa. One of them even refused to go make a copy of his passport, which was really the last straw for the people working at the office. They proceeded to take the two guy`s passports and lock them in a drawer. Then they told them they couldn`t leave. We aren`t really sure what happened to them after that. All we know is, is that they had to get their stuff off of our bus and were still at the border when we left. So let this be a lesson to you if you are ever going to Bolivia, THEY DON`T MESS AROUND.
Then we got to Copacobana and had to switch buses. It was chaos. The same festival in Puno was going on there, so we had to dodge drunk, crazy, dancing people all over the place. When we got on our bus, there was this ridiculouly drunk and woman decked out in a fancy, flashy yellow costume sitting in the wrong seat and singing constantly. Did I mention she was extremely obese? When she was told to go to her own seat, 14, she said okay and then sat in 3. Then passed out for a while in 7. Then finally made it to her seat. After about 5 minutes of driving the bus had to pull over for her and she got off, where I assume she puked.
While I was watching the drunk woman in fascination, Leah was paying attention to what was going on at the front of the bus. Apparently we had no driver at the moment because all of them were insanely drunk from the festival. We sat there for about 45 minutes until a driver was finally found, a man who didn`t drink because he was extremely religious.
Once we got driving everything calmed down, except for an occasional wolf howl from the drunk woman. Then after about an hour, the bus stopped and the driver told us to make sure we had our coats and to get off the bus. We had absolutely no idea what was going on and were kind of freaked out. Fortunately, we asked some people who were on our previous bus what was going on. They informed us that we were going on a boat to cross a river. What?!? No one had mentioned this to us. So we get on this boat and of course, are sitting right by the drunk lady. She sang the entire ride, stood up, fell down, and almost fell off the boat while getting off. She was pretty entertaining.
We got back on the bus and rode two more hours to La Paz. Our luggage was on top of the bus, so when trying to get my heavy suitcase down, the drunk woman stumbled right in front of me, and the suitcase almost fell on her head. The bus driver told her to go home and hopefully she did, but who knows, that woman was crazy. We arrived safely at our hostel, had a drink, and then went to bed.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
PUNO: better than we expected, Part 2
After we left Amantaní Island, we had a nauseating boat ride to the island of Taquile. It was horribly choppy and I definitely thought I was going to be sick for most of it. Thankfully, it was only an hour, so Leah and I hopped off as quickly as possible and slowly walked the 2km journey to the center of town while trying to regain our equilibrium. We are pleased to say that we were totally the strangely attractive tour guide`s favorites because we were the only ones who didn`t complain about the walking or altitude.
Once we got to town we had some coca tea and listened to the history of the island. The most interesting part had to do with the hats the men wore and the shawls the women wore. A man was known to be single or married depending on the color of his hat and the angle it was placed at, while the woman showed this by the size of the colorful balls on their shawls.
After this informative talk, we enjoyed lunch with some Israelies who talked politics with Phil and food and travel with us. They did not understand my desire for Dr. Pepper, but definitely enjoyed our stories of the jungle and Inca Trail. Afterwords, we walked across the island and headed back into Puno.
Luckily for us, Puno was celebrating some festival that went on for days and included a never ending parade of colorful dancers. As soon as we got back we went to the square and sat on the curb, watching the show. At one point we nearly got trampled by horses, but other then that, it was a great experience.
After we got sick of the parades, Phil and I went on a quest to find a place showing the superbowl and Leah went to do some internet stuff. Phil and I found this crazy chicken place that had cable, so we ordered some roasted chicken with fries and sat down to enjoy the game. Tragically, ESPN Latino froze after the first quarter, so 30 minutes later we left the chicken place defeated and returned to the hostel.
We played gin for a while until the man working at the hostel asked to join in. We started playing Gulpes, which is similar to Gin Rummy, which I am terrible at. He had his friend bring some beer and we played this game until Leah got back. I was losing by about 200 pts and the hostel guy harassed me the entire time, telling me to stay postive and that in Puno they believe in being optimistic. He was pretty obnoxious. After a while, I just gave up and went to bed, it was just way too embarassing to continue. Besides, we had to get up early the next day to get our stuff in order, because we were moving on to BOLIVIA!
Once we got to town we had some coca tea and listened to the history of the island. The most interesting part had to do with the hats the men wore and the shawls the women wore. A man was known to be single or married depending on the color of his hat and the angle it was placed at, while the woman showed this by the size of the colorful balls on their shawls.
After this informative talk, we enjoyed lunch with some Israelies who talked politics with Phil and food and travel with us. They did not understand my desire for Dr. Pepper, but definitely enjoyed our stories of the jungle and Inca Trail. Afterwords, we walked across the island and headed back into Puno.
Luckily for us, Puno was celebrating some festival that went on for days and included a never ending parade of colorful dancers. As soon as we got back we went to the square and sat on the curb, watching the show. At one point we nearly got trampled by horses, but other then that, it was a great experience.
After we got sick of the parades, Phil and I went on a quest to find a place showing the superbowl and Leah went to do some internet stuff. Phil and I found this crazy chicken place that had cable, so we ordered some roasted chicken with fries and sat down to enjoy the game. Tragically, ESPN Latino froze after the first quarter, so 30 minutes later we left the chicken place defeated and returned to the hostel.
We played gin for a while until the man working at the hostel asked to join in. We started playing Gulpes, which is similar to Gin Rummy, which I am terrible at. He had his friend bring some beer and we played this game until Leah got back. I was losing by about 200 pts and the hostel guy harassed me the entire time, telling me to stay postive and that in Puno they believe in being optimistic. He was pretty obnoxious. After a while, I just gave up and went to bed, it was just way too embarassing to continue. Besides, we had to get up early the next day to get our stuff in order, because we were moving on to BOLIVIA!
PUNO: better than we expected, Part 1
While Leah is busy typing up the rest of our exciting adventure in the jungle, I thought I would go ahead and discuss our last days in Peru. We decided to go to Puno, which is on Lake Titikaka (apparently pronounced titihaha) and very close to the Bolivian border. We wanted to get all of our stuff together for the crossing because we had heard it was a huge hassle for americans, so we were going to be as prepared as possible. Unfortunately for us, Bolivia had just decided to start enforcing their new rule about americans paying $130 US for a visa. They also decided that we needed to have copies of every single sort of documentation possible, but I will get to that later. First, our weekend in Puno!
We left Cusco on Friday morning and took a painfully long (due to lack of space and hangovers) bus ride to Puno. Basically everyone we talked to told us to avoid Puno, because it was a boring, hellish little town, but we decided to take our chances. We got there around 8 pm, checked into a nice little hostel, and went to dinner.
At the bus station we randomly ran into this man who worked for our hostel, so he arranged a tour of the floating islands and natural islands on Lake Titikaka for us. We basically would get on a boat, see some artificial islands, then go to another island and live with a Peruvian family for a night. Then the next morning we would head to one more island and go back to Puno.
We got up bright and early the next day and were picked up by a shuttle. On this shuttle there was an incredibly annoying group of Argentines, including one man who would not stop playing a pan flute he had just clearly bought two minutes before. He had a little piece of paper with a song on it, and kept trying and failing to play it. I wanted to kill him and desperately hoped he would not be on our tour. Unfortunately, this asshole was and continued to play his pipe the entire time, much to everyones annoyance. At least this is the only thing I can really complain about, otherwise we had a great time.
We climbed aboard a nice boat and were greeted by our tour guide, who Phil thought looked like a Peruvian Yul Brynner and who Leah and I found strangely attractive. Our first stop was the floating islands, which were artificial and made of reeds, which had to be replaced monthly. We got to meet the "president" of the island and got a tour of his hut and he offered to take a picture with Leah if she put on the traditional outfit of the island. Obviously she did. After that we visited some more artificial islands and tried not to step in the wrong place and fall through into the lake.
Next was a 3 hour boat ride (with plenty of flute playing) to the island of Amantaní, which is inhabited by about 5000 people, most of who have never left the island. We got there and were taken in by a family who had a spare bedroom with 3 beds for us. We were relaxing and waiting to be called to dinner when 5 year old Judith walked in and befriended us. She loved my silver bracelets and loved Leahs camera, so overall we were very popular with her. We enjoyed lunch with the family, then made the ridiculous decision to climb a mountain on the island to view the sunset. You would think we had climbed enough mountains for a lifetime, but no, we decided to do one more. We climbed Mt. Pachatata and chilled for about an hour, enjoying the view. Then we returned to our house for dinner.
After dinner we were told we were going to a dance at their community center. Not only were we going to the dance, but we were going to do so wearing the traditional outfits of the island. We put on big white shirts, colorful skirts, belts and shawls, and then realized we could barely breath due to the altitude and tightness of the belts. Despite this issue, we danced, took lots of pictures, and had a great time. Then we went to bed, because we were getting up at 6 am, obviously my favorite hour of the day, to continue on with our tour.
I think the most interesting thing about the island was that they had no cars and no dogs. We were looking at a school book with Judith and when there was a picture of a dog, she would point to it and say gato (cat) instead. I thought it was sad that she could not experience dogs, but Leah said she had no sympathy because the girl had about 15 pet lambs. I guess I can see her point.
We left Cusco on Friday morning and took a painfully long (due to lack of space and hangovers) bus ride to Puno. Basically everyone we talked to told us to avoid Puno, because it was a boring, hellish little town, but we decided to take our chances. We got there around 8 pm, checked into a nice little hostel, and went to dinner.
At the bus station we randomly ran into this man who worked for our hostel, so he arranged a tour of the floating islands and natural islands on Lake Titikaka for us. We basically would get on a boat, see some artificial islands, then go to another island and live with a Peruvian family for a night. Then the next morning we would head to one more island and go back to Puno.
We got up bright and early the next day and were picked up by a shuttle. On this shuttle there was an incredibly annoying group of Argentines, including one man who would not stop playing a pan flute he had just clearly bought two minutes before. He had a little piece of paper with a song on it, and kept trying and failing to play it. I wanted to kill him and desperately hoped he would not be on our tour. Unfortunately, this asshole was and continued to play his pipe the entire time, much to everyones annoyance. At least this is the only thing I can really complain about, otherwise we had a great time.
We climbed aboard a nice boat and were greeted by our tour guide, who Phil thought looked like a Peruvian Yul Brynner and who Leah and I found strangely attractive. Our first stop was the floating islands, which were artificial and made of reeds, which had to be replaced monthly. We got to meet the "president" of the island and got a tour of his hut and he offered to take a picture with Leah if she put on the traditional outfit of the island. Obviously she did. After that we visited some more artificial islands and tried not to step in the wrong place and fall through into the lake.
Next was a 3 hour boat ride (with plenty of flute playing) to the island of Amantaní, which is inhabited by about 5000 people, most of who have never left the island. We got there and were taken in by a family who had a spare bedroom with 3 beds for us. We were relaxing and waiting to be called to dinner when 5 year old Judith walked in and befriended us. She loved my silver bracelets and loved Leahs camera, so overall we were very popular with her. We enjoyed lunch with the family, then made the ridiculous decision to climb a mountain on the island to view the sunset. You would think we had climbed enough mountains for a lifetime, but no, we decided to do one more. We climbed Mt. Pachatata and chilled for about an hour, enjoying the view. Then we returned to our house for dinner.
After dinner we were told we were going to a dance at their community center. Not only were we going to the dance, but we were going to do so wearing the traditional outfits of the island. We put on big white shirts, colorful skirts, belts and shawls, and then realized we could barely breath due to the altitude and tightness of the belts. Despite this issue, we danced, took lots of pictures, and had a great time. Then we went to bed, because we were getting up at 6 am, obviously my favorite hour of the day, to continue on with our tour.
I think the most interesting thing about the island was that they had no cars and no dogs. We were looking at a school book with Judith and when there was a picture of a dog, she would point to it and say gato (cat) instead. I thought it was sad that she could not experience dogs, but Leah said she had no sympathy because the girl had about 15 pet lambs. I guess I can see her point.
Jungle Day 4 and 5
Last night was treacherous indeed. We dined on a log and fried the fish we had just caught. Then we used the 'natural' toilets, down a long jungle path, and hopped in our tents while admitting as few bugs as possible. Our tent was for 2 people, and it was literal: no room even for minibackpacks, twas a matirimonial bed in the wilderness. When we were both in and settled, a beetle appeared. Then ants of all sizes, from bags that had been left outside on the ground all afternoon. The retaining walls broke and Kelly let loose, holding nothing back of her ture jungle emotions. Having had the exact same breakdown on the log crossing the river earlier in the day, I commiserated and was actually impressed she had made it so long in this laugh-or-cry situation.
We made ourselves calm down from the hysteria because the tent was overheating and we couldn't breathe. Sleep overtook us until about 11 pm, when I found myself awake and Kelly whimpering... 'Leah? Are you awake?' We were trapped in the storm of the century, with wind tearing at all sides of the tent and rain blasting us. We started screaming, the worst of our thoughts getting the best of us. What if a branch fell onto us? We clung to the ground. We noticed water leaking in the sides and scurried to close all zippers. Then we lied there in sheer panic for a while until a David Sedaris audiobook put me to sleep.
In the morning we could not possibly have been more reluctant to make one last jungle trek, but we survived and hopped on the long boat for a pleasant 8 hour river ride...very Amazon Trail, my favorite childhood computer game.
We were staying at the same ecohostel we stayed at our first night, the one with the cockaroaches. We knew what to do this time: don't throw bananas in the trash. We though we were golden, until Kelly opened her backpack after dinner and a roach scurried over her fingernail. The Oreo wrapper from earlier in the day. She watched as it and a few friends scurried out of the pack and under my bed, as I yelled for her to kill them, as I was farther away and occuppied brushing my teeth.
What followed was chaotic screaming as Kelly took out her plastic bag used for laundry and could see roaches crawling inside. She ran outside, leaving me in with the roaches and her sneaker, trying to kill as many as I could get to. We called Marco in to help, and he picked up a roach with his hand, then threw it on the floor screaming, 'Kill it, kill it!', which did not make things easier for me. Then he threw one onto my legs, and that was it. I left the hut until Marco assured us they were all gone. Carcasses literred the floor as we fell asleep.
In the middle of the night, I woke up to pee. I ducked out of my net and turned on my flashlight, and saw massive hoards of ants scurrying around the roach bodies. The floor was clean in the morning, and we enjoyed our 8 hour ride back to Cusco. Jungle? Never. Again.
We made ourselves calm down from the hysteria because the tent was overheating and we couldn't breathe. Sleep overtook us until about 11 pm, when I found myself awake and Kelly whimpering... 'Leah? Are you awake?' We were trapped in the storm of the century, with wind tearing at all sides of the tent and rain blasting us. We started screaming, the worst of our thoughts getting the best of us. What if a branch fell onto us? We clung to the ground. We noticed water leaking in the sides and scurried to close all zippers. Then we lied there in sheer panic for a while until a David Sedaris audiobook put me to sleep.
In the morning we could not possibly have been more reluctant to make one last jungle trek, but we survived and hopped on the long boat for a pleasant 8 hour river ride...very Amazon Trail, my favorite childhood computer game.
We were staying at the same ecohostel we stayed at our first night, the one with the cockaroaches. We knew what to do this time: don't throw bananas in the trash. We though we were golden, until Kelly opened her backpack after dinner and a roach scurried over her fingernail. The Oreo wrapper from earlier in the day. She watched as it and a few friends scurried out of the pack and under my bed, as I yelled for her to kill them, as I was farther away and occuppied brushing my teeth.
What followed was chaotic screaming as Kelly took out her plastic bag used for laundry and could see roaches crawling inside. She ran outside, leaving me in with the roaches and her sneaker, trying to kill as many as I could get to. We called Marco in to help, and he picked up a roach with his hand, then threw it on the floor screaming, 'Kill it, kill it!', which did not make things easier for me. Then he threw one onto my legs, and that was it. I left the hut until Marco assured us they were all gone. Carcasses literred the floor as we fell asleep.
In the middle of the night, I woke up to pee. I ducked out of my net and turned on my flashlight, and saw massive hoards of ants scurrying around the roach bodies. The floor was clean in the morning, and we enjoyed our 8 hour ride back to Cusco. Jungle? Never. Again.
Jungle Day 3
In the middle of the night last night, I was awakened by torrential downpours, which is a cliche I have used before, but now I know that I have never meant it. The lightning and thunder were constant, for at least an hour we were in the most devastating part of the storm. It sounded just like Iguazú falls on the corrugated metal roofing. My mosquito bites were killing me, and I lied halfawake for a few hours going in and out of dreams that everything I owned was drowning.
At 630 am, Marco woke us up. There was a large group of squirrel monkeys in the tree on the camp's edge; the same place we spotted a pair of red macaws the night before. The squirrel monkeys were like squirrels with long, thin tails and flat faces, and they were hanging out with 2 capuchin monkeys for protection. They bounced around in the branches, circling the camp and eventually diving for the bananas we left out for them.
Our breakfast was a delicious cake with fresh mango, after which Kelly and I braved the shower stalls where bats hung from the rafters. Smelling wonderfully, we quickly covered ourselves in Fush!, our Argentine bug repellant. But Fush! was no match for the jungle, where clouds of mosquitos tirelessly trailed us.
Our first interaction with the animals came from a wild turkey, who rushed up behind me and pecked my leg. It was uncomfortable. Kelly thought this was laughable but she shortly got hers in a stealth turkey attack.
We spent the next 6 or 7 hours walking in the jungle, tracking footprints and drinking water from vines. It's amazing how well you could survive in the rainforest with just a machete. We saw many colorful birds, insects, and even more monkeys (including night monkeys). At lunch, we went to a salt lick and sat as quitly as possible as a herd of wild pigs came to feed. It was a small group - about 40 or 50 - and they were easily startled, making significant rucus when a branch snapped.
Unfortunately, sitting drew too many bugs, so we left and had a picnic. We trekked to our campsite where our boat was meeting us. To do so, we had to cross many streams, which was normally fine until we reached a deep one with logs suspended for crossing. I was fine until I put a foot on it and termites poured from every crevice. Phil and Kelly got across, with hesitation, but I froze. It was terrifying and I unfroze only enough for my knees to start uncontrollably shaking. Marco chopped down a really tall, thin tree to use as a pole and I made it, and we were off.
Now we're at our camp for the night which involves 2 tents, a boat, and a bench. And lots of bugs. We went fishing, but Phil did not participate because of the giant sores forming on his calves because he neglected to follow advice and wear pants. I caught 3 fish, mostly sardines, and Marco caught 2. Kelly caught nothing, and almost lost her sanity as we both got fed up with mosquito bites.
At 630 am, Marco woke us up. There was a large group of squirrel monkeys in the tree on the camp's edge; the same place we spotted a pair of red macaws the night before. The squirrel monkeys were like squirrels with long, thin tails and flat faces, and they were hanging out with 2 capuchin monkeys for protection. They bounced around in the branches, circling the camp and eventually diving for the bananas we left out for them.
Our breakfast was a delicious cake with fresh mango, after which Kelly and I braved the shower stalls where bats hung from the rafters. Smelling wonderfully, we quickly covered ourselves in Fush!, our Argentine bug repellant. But Fush! was no match for the jungle, where clouds of mosquitos tirelessly trailed us.
Our first interaction with the animals came from a wild turkey, who rushed up behind me and pecked my leg. It was uncomfortable. Kelly thought this was laughable but she shortly got hers in a stealth turkey attack.
We spent the next 6 or 7 hours walking in the jungle, tracking footprints and drinking water from vines. It's amazing how well you could survive in the rainforest with just a machete. We saw many colorful birds, insects, and even more monkeys (including night monkeys). At lunch, we went to a salt lick and sat as quitly as possible as a herd of wild pigs came to feed. It was a small group - about 40 or 50 - and they were easily startled, making significant rucus when a branch snapped.
Unfortunately, sitting drew too many bugs, so we left and had a picnic. We trekked to our campsite where our boat was meeting us. To do so, we had to cross many streams, which was normally fine until we reached a deep one with logs suspended for crossing. I was fine until I put a foot on it and termites poured from every crevice. Phil and Kelly got across, with hesitation, but I froze. It was terrifying and I unfroze only enough for my knees to start uncontrollably shaking. Marco chopped down a really tall, thin tree to use as a pole and I made it, and we were off.
Now we're at our camp for the night which involves 2 tents, a boat, and a bench. And lots of bugs. We went fishing, but Phil did not participate because of the giant sores forming on his calves because he neglected to follow advice and wear pants. I caught 3 fish, mostly sardines, and Marco caught 2. Kelly caught nothing, and almost lost her sanity as we both got fed up with mosquito bites.
Jungle Day 2
Fortunately, in the daylight, insects fled and our room was clear. We had breakfast and went for a walk to see the coca plantation, which is legal to grow in small quantities, plus pineapple and banana trees. We found a berry that makes a coral stain which Maro used to give Phil warrior facepaint and Kelly and me lipstick.
We had a 2 hour drive and then a 6 hour boat ride. The boat was extremely long, yet wide enough for only 2 people. The breezy ride felt amazing, and we passed great egrets and black cormorants and vultures feasting on dea tapirs and capayberras. We stopped for lunch at a natural hot spring, which was situated in the curve of a brook that fed into the river.
Now we have arrived at our ecolodge, where we lie weating in our netted beds to avoid the bugs and the sun. It is painful.
.....several hours pass.....
Tonight was a step closer to nature than I was ready to take (and I have a feeling tomorrow night might be one step too far). As dusk came, we took a walk in the jungle. We ate assorted wild fruit and waded through streams in our knee-high boots. Marco spotted a cayman from about 20 meters away in the pitch black. He saw the reflection of it's eyes and declared it to be medium-sized. Then he escaped up river, threw his clothes off on a sandbar, and waded down to the cayman to catch it. We waited, flashlights off, with his machete lying in the river bed by us. A lot of good it was going to do there. But Marco stepped on a branch and the snap scared away the cayman, so he promised us one for tomorrow night.
We saw some spiders, but no tarantulas, and mad our way back for a candlelit (and candlecooked, by lack of electricity) dinner. After Phil and Marco played chess and Kelly and I took shelter in our mosquito nets.
We had a 2 hour drive and then a 6 hour boat ride. The boat was extremely long, yet wide enough for only 2 people. The breezy ride felt amazing, and we passed great egrets and black cormorants and vultures feasting on dea tapirs and capayberras. We stopped for lunch at a natural hot spring, which was situated in the curve of a brook that fed into the river.
Now we have arrived at our ecolodge, where we lie weating in our netted beds to avoid the bugs and the sun. It is painful.
.....several hours pass.....
Tonight was a step closer to nature than I was ready to take (and I have a feeling tomorrow night might be one step too far). As dusk came, we took a walk in the jungle. We ate assorted wild fruit and waded through streams in our knee-high boots. Marco spotted a cayman from about 20 meters away in the pitch black. He saw the reflection of it's eyes and declared it to be medium-sized. Then he escaped up river, threw his clothes off on a sandbar, and waded down to the cayman to catch it. We waited, flashlights off, with his machete lying in the river bed by us. A lot of good it was going to do there. But Marco stepped on a branch and the snap scared away the cayman, so he promised us one for tomorrow night.
We saw some spiders, but no tarantulas, and mad our way back for a candlelit (and candlecooked, by lack of electricity) dinner. After Phil and Marco played chess and Kelly and I took shelter in our mosquito nets.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Jungle Day 1
Our 5 day too-long journey into Manu Park reserve will also be transcribed from the journal I kept. Here we go:
Jan 24
What one might label as a hostel is not what one would find in our eco'hostel' in Manu park. Already drenched with bug bites from our lunch break in the cloud forest, I'm sitting ensconced in white netting on my bed in the reed hut Kelly and I will share tonight. The netting hangs in a square, and we appear to be frozen in giant blocks of ice that will not melt despite the heat and humidity.
The day started off at 630 am when we met Marco, our guide. He pulled up a half hour late in a pickup truck with our driver and cook. The math did't work. Where would we all sit? After trying 4 in the back of the cab and discovering that 3 Americans made this a big snug, the 2 peruvians squeezed in the front.
We drove for about an hour on the highway, and then that was done. Nice while it lasted. What followed were many hours of gravel and pot-holed single-lane dirt roads edging along Andean cliffs. It was terrifying as we swerved through mud and backed up to avoid oncoming trucks. We passed farming women in colorful traditional woven clothes herding sheep, cos, and pigs out of our way. We stopped in the smallest town imagineable for breakfast, where we sat at a communal picnic table and were ladeled chicken soup. Not able to stomach the chicken so early, we left it and bought some orange cake...then squeezed back in the truck's cab for more bumpy hours of ascent.
Descent was also bumpy. Climate changed rapidly as we switched over to the eastern side of the mountain and entered the cloud forest. After several hous going down, we got out and walked to look for monkeys, which it turns out I am not skilled at spotting. I was looking in all the wrong places - turns out you're supposed to look across the river, way out in the distance. Marco spotted wooley monkeys there, which just looked like black specks to me. Sometimes they moved. I wasn't impressed.
Along the walk we saw plenty of hummingbirds and orchids. Also a cock-on-the-rock, which is a highly endangered bird that I think is only found in this region. So we felt pretty special.
Kelly spotted movement in a tree up ahead - Capuchin monkeys. We slowly approached but didn't get close until Marco ran to the truck and back to get bananas for bait. Capuchins are much less shy than wolly monkeys, so they were very close. There ended up being a whole treefull of them, about 15, some with babies on their backs and one very intimidating male. We fed them bananas on short sticks, getting withing a meter of them. They spread out a bit and I threw a piece of banana at one; it arcehd high and he held out his little monkey palms together, like a beggar, and awaited the fly ball. The other monkeys were jealous so this became a favorite game. That was pretty much as exciting as the drive got.
After dinner, when we looked up at the stars (which were amazingly brilliant), a bat almost took Kelly's head off. Fortunately, the bats were doing a good job, because mosquitos were uncommon. But it was all too noticable as we turned on the light that cockaroaches they were not hunting.
Kelly's eyes darted around the room, counting as many as possible, as mine moved toward the mosquito netting around my bed, which was being invaded inside and out by a colony of ants. Kelly screamed and I jumped, narrowly avoiding a cockaroach scurrying towards my foot.
We collected ourselves using reason: if everyone else can sleep in the presence of these insects, so can we. So I went to the bathroom to wash my face. At this point, I remember the banana peel sealed in a plastic bag I had deposited in the trash earlier. It was now being swarmed by ants, traversing the entire bathroom, even the toilet. Four to six cockaroaches clung to the plastic, and Kelly ran. We could barely sleep.
Jan 24
What one might label as a hostel is not what one would find in our eco'hostel' in Manu park. Already drenched with bug bites from our lunch break in the cloud forest, I'm sitting ensconced in white netting on my bed in the reed hut Kelly and I will share tonight. The netting hangs in a square, and we appear to be frozen in giant blocks of ice that will not melt despite the heat and humidity.
The day started off at 630 am when we met Marco, our guide. He pulled up a half hour late in a pickup truck with our driver and cook. The math did't work. Where would we all sit? After trying 4 in the back of the cab and discovering that 3 Americans made this a big snug, the 2 peruvians squeezed in the front.
We drove for about an hour on the highway, and then that was done. Nice while it lasted. What followed were many hours of gravel and pot-holed single-lane dirt roads edging along Andean cliffs. It was terrifying as we swerved through mud and backed up to avoid oncoming trucks. We passed farming women in colorful traditional woven clothes herding sheep, cos, and pigs out of our way. We stopped in the smallest town imagineable for breakfast, where we sat at a communal picnic table and were ladeled chicken soup. Not able to stomach the chicken so early, we left it and bought some orange cake...then squeezed back in the truck's cab for more bumpy hours of ascent.
Descent was also bumpy. Climate changed rapidly as we switched over to the eastern side of the mountain and entered the cloud forest. After several hous going down, we got out and walked to look for monkeys, which it turns out I am not skilled at spotting. I was looking in all the wrong places - turns out you're supposed to look across the river, way out in the distance. Marco spotted wooley monkeys there, which just looked like black specks to me. Sometimes they moved. I wasn't impressed.
Along the walk we saw plenty of hummingbirds and orchids. Also a cock-on-the-rock, which is a highly endangered bird that I think is only found in this region. So we felt pretty special.
Kelly spotted movement in a tree up ahead - Capuchin monkeys. We slowly approached but didn't get close until Marco ran to the truck and back to get bananas for bait. Capuchins are much less shy than wolly monkeys, so they were very close. There ended up being a whole treefull of them, about 15, some with babies on their backs and one very intimidating male. We fed them bananas on short sticks, getting withing a meter of them. They spread out a bit and I threw a piece of banana at one; it arcehd high and he held out his little monkey palms together, like a beggar, and awaited the fly ball. The other monkeys were jealous so this became a favorite game. That was pretty much as exciting as the drive got.
After dinner, when we looked up at the stars (which were amazingly brilliant), a bat almost took Kelly's head off. Fortunately, the bats were doing a good job, because mosquitos were uncommon. But it was all too noticable as we turned on the light that cockaroaches they were not hunting.
Kelly's eyes darted around the room, counting as many as possible, as mine moved toward the mosquito netting around my bed, which was being invaded inside and out by a colony of ants. Kelly screamed and I jumped, narrowly avoiding a cockaroach scurrying towards my foot.
We collected ourselves using reason: if everyone else can sleep in the presence of these insects, so can we. So I went to the bathroom to wash my face. At this point, I remember the banana peel sealed in a plastic bag I had deposited in the trash earlier. It was now being swarmed by ants, traversing the entire bathroom, even the toilet. Four to six cockaroaches clung to the plastic, and Kelly ran. We could barely sleep.
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