The days in La Paz wound down quickly with great laughs. S. and I had some fun staying at the Loki La Paz where we shared a dorm with 4 English blokes and 1 San Franciscan dude. Let's just say that there was a lot of laughing going on.
During those couple of days it was also a parade of all the uni students performing dances from different regions of Bolivia; the streets were packed with dances, live music, drunken debauchery, and the inevitable street food.
On Sunday afternoon we tackled our bus ride back to the Peruvian coast that was due to be 24hrs long...
We left La Paz well prepared to tackle the upcoming day of travel. After a quick jaunt across the border in Desaguadero (and the funniest border agent that I have ever met!), S. and I continued along on our bus journey northwest.
Towards nightfall we started traversing the Andes towards Arequipa and somewhere between Juliaca (by Lake Titicaca) and Arequipa, our bus came to a dead stop.
It turned out that there was heaps of snow on the road and being Sunday, there was no one to clean the roads. We were informed that we were going to have to wait it out... all night long... We quickly started thinking about travel time and whether or not we were going to be able to make a day trip to the National Park of Paracas located just south of Lima. Time wore on and we were still parked on the road with many other cars, trucks and buses.
Morning broke and we awoke to the most beautiful sight. Hills and mountains all around us with a covering of snow on everything. Then the good news came: traffic is starting to move, us included!
We start inching our way up the hill and start passing a stationary truck when *CRUNCH!* We all try to see what has just happened and one of the other passengers calls out that we have just lost our door as it was left open when we started moving and it got ripped off as we passed the truck!!
Now S. and I are thinking a few different things:
1) we have no door
2) it is still lightly snowing outside
3) we are 3/4 hrs away from Arequipa, the closest place for us to change buses
4) the bathroom is right next to this door
5) what is going on?!
After some consulting with the bus driver, the whole bus agrees that we are okay with heading all the way to Arequipa without a door as long as we change buses there since it's another 16 hrs to Lima afterwards.
Off again we go with nightfall once again upon us when *CRASH*, we have just hit something! For those of us in the middle of the bus, we can't figure out if we have hit another vehicle or an animal or a rock. We really don't want to spend another night stopped on the road, especially since we were running 17hrs behind schedule. Turns out that it was a rock and that it didn't do much damage, so off we go once again.
38 hours after we left La Paz, S. and I arrive in Lima at 6am on Tuesday morning. We decide to skip Paracas as it would have been a tight timeline and we would have been dead tired from all of the traveling in the end.
The two days in Lima were well spent. We took our friend's advice and stayed at the EuroBackpackers Hostel in Miraflores that we definitely recommend to anyone heading to Lima, two thumbs up!
We had a bit of an eventful taxi ride to the airport where the driver had a bout of road rage, or maybe he thought that he was a derby driver, and we had to have some words with him in order to arrive at the airport in one piece.
Now here I am, sitting in the Toronto airport, waiting for my flight home. This is the final leg of this journey and after 19 hours of travel/transit time I am very excited to be coming home to the heat wave that is sweeping the city; hello Vancouver!
About Me
- Hopes Travels
- Why "Hopes Travels"? My middle name is Esperance which means "hope" in french (similarily, "harapan" means hope in Bahasa Melayu). Those who know me, know that I hope for a more tolerant and trusting world. One filled with genuine curiosity for things unknown and a joy to enrich our lives with new experiences. I live and attempt to share this hope and zest for life with all whom I meet.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Bolivian adventures... and misadventures...
So the time has come to update the old blogger...and where do I start?
I last left you from Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca where the fun and adventures were to start in Bolivia.
Well, we made our way to Copacabana (yes, just like the song that you are probably now humming to yourself) and a beautiful place called Isla del Sol. After an entertaining 3hr boat ride with a bunch of Brazilian boys to Isla del Sol, we started what was to be an incredibly hard hike uphill with our packs to our fantastic hostel (where we scored the best room in the whole place, overlooking Lake Titicaca). The next day was filled with a 6-hr hike around the island with another group of Bralizian boys. Now the tricky part of this hike was that one of us was still fighting altitude sickness and another one of us was experiencing the Bolivian equivalent of Delhi belly... not the most positive experiences for either but still an experience nonetheless.
After Copacabana, we took off on another bus ride to destination La Paz where we arrived late in the evening and got dropped off at a fantastic stop called ¨el cimentario¨, which does mean ¨the cemetary¨. Luckily we were quickly picked up by our friend´s cousin who was letting us stay with her for a couple of days.
After a couple of days in La Paz (and the purchase of amoxicilin to combat the onset of a sinus infection as well as the purchase of bronchial syrup to combat the onset of liquid in my lungs), S. and I hopped on an overnight bus last Sunday to Uyuni to start a 3-day tour of the salt flats and the surrounding desert. What they do not say in the guidebooks is that the journey by bus from La Paz to Uyuni is horrible! Not only is it 12hrs long with seriously bad toilets but also the road between Oruro and Uyuni is horribly bumpy for the entire 7hrs between the two cities!
After arriving at 6am, we decided to hop on a tour starting that day in order to save a stay in a hostel and to get us back to La Paz a day early; something that was soon to change.
Our first day went by well and was fun-filled.
Then came day 2...What started off as a beautiful day quickly turned to a horrendous sandstorm by 10am. After being turned away at a checkpoint, we took refuge in a little place called San Juan in one of the worst hostels that I have ever stayed in. The place resembled a bunker that I visited in grade 9 whilst in Normandy. Some windows had plastic coverings and sand kept blowing in (the wind was so strong that metal roofs were being ripped off). We were hoping that the wind would die down by mid-afternoon and that we could carry on our journey, boy were we hopeful. We ended up spending the night in one of the coldest places I have ever slept - we could see our breath when we exhaled.
The upside of this time bunkered down was the presence of other jeeps who had to stop because of the storm. We ended up buying most of the bottles of chilean red from the local (and maybe only) store and playing cards with yet another group of Brazilian guys. That coupled with copious amounts of chocolate kept the good vibes flowing.
The next morning was better and we continued on our tour with one day lost. If we thought that night 2 was bad, night 3 got the prize for worst sleep ever! It was colder than in the hostel/bunker and we were sleeping on concrete blocks, definitely made for stories to tell. But once again made better by meeting up with the same Brazilian guys from the bunker.
We made it back into Uyuni safe and sound a day later than expected.
Then it was another overnight bus for S. and I back to La Paz. This one was a lot more entertaining than the one down to Uyuni as the bus kept heaving like it was on its last legs. Once we arrived in Oruro at 4am we were advised that we would need to change buses as ours was broken. Off we go to the other bus only to discover that 1) the bus is quite full with locals and 2) there is no toilet on the bus and it´s a long way to La Paz. So after S. and I claimed a couple of seats at the back of the bus, I hop off to quickly run back to our broken bus that still has a functioning toilet on it only to hear a bus revving its engine like its ready to go. I run back to our ¨new¨ bus only to run into our Chilean friend A. who also needs to use the facilities before we head to La Paz. I wait for her outside of the bus thinking that if I am just outside the door then the bus will not leave without us... this is a VERY naive thought. Not one minute passes that A. is on the broken bus that the bus starts driving away with me still on the street and her in the broken bus. I start sprinting for the bus at the same time that A. emerges from the bus. We both bolt for the bus and barely make it on.
We got into La Paz yesterday morning and are heading out tomorrow afternoon on a 24hr bus ride from here to Pisco, Peru. Let´s just say that that iPods are charged and there will be some serious sleep time involved with fantastic earplugs.
Countdown until home: 5 days.
I last left you from Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca where the fun and adventures were to start in Bolivia.
Well, we made our way to Copacabana (yes, just like the song that you are probably now humming to yourself) and a beautiful place called Isla del Sol. After an entertaining 3hr boat ride with a bunch of Brazilian boys to Isla del Sol, we started what was to be an incredibly hard hike uphill with our packs to our fantastic hostel (where we scored the best room in the whole place, overlooking Lake Titicaca). The next day was filled with a 6-hr hike around the island with another group of Bralizian boys. Now the tricky part of this hike was that one of us was still fighting altitude sickness and another one of us was experiencing the Bolivian equivalent of Delhi belly... not the most positive experiences for either but still an experience nonetheless.
After Copacabana, we took off on another bus ride to destination La Paz where we arrived late in the evening and got dropped off at a fantastic stop called ¨el cimentario¨, which does mean ¨the cemetary¨. Luckily we were quickly picked up by our friend´s cousin who was letting us stay with her for a couple of days.
After a couple of days in La Paz (and the purchase of amoxicilin to combat the onset of a sinus infection as well as the purchase of bronchial syrup to combat the onset of liquid in my lungs), S. and I hopped on an overnight bus last Sunday to Uyuni to start a 3-day tour of the salt flats and the surrounding desert. What they do not say in the guidebooks is that the journey by bus from La Paz to Uyuni is horrible! Not only is it 12hrs long with seriously bad toilets but also the road between Oruro and Uyuni is horribly bumpy for the entire 7hrs between the two cities!
After arriving at 6am, we decided to hop on a tour starting that day in order to save a stay in a hostel and to get us back to La Paz a day early; something that was soon to change.
Our first day went by well and was fun-filled.
Then came day 2...What started off as a beautiful day quickly turned to a horrendous sandstorm by 10am. After being turned away at a checkpoint, we took refuge in a little place called San Juan in one of the worst hostels that I have ever stayed in. The place resembled a bunker that I visited in grade 9 whilst in Normandy. Some windows had plastic coverings and sand kept blowing in (the wind was so strong that metal roofs were being ripped off). We were hoping that the wind would die down by mid-afternoon and that we could carry on our journey, boy were we hopeful. We ended up spending the night in one of the coldest places I have ever slept - we could see our breath when we exhaled.
The upside of this time bunkered down was the presence of other jeeps who had to stop because of the storm. We ended up buying most of the bottles of chilean red from the local (and maybe only) store and playing cards with yet another group of Brazilian guys. That coupled with copious amounts of chocolate kept the good vibes flowing.
The next morning was better and we continued on our tour with one day lost. If we thought that night 2 was bad, night 3 got the prize for worst sleep ever! It was colder than in the hostel/bunker and we were sleeping on concrete blocks, definitely made for stories to tell. But once again made better by meeting up with the same Brazilian guys from the bunker.
We made it back into Uyuni safe and sound a day later than expected.
Then it was another overnight bus for S. and I back to La Paz. This one was a lot more entertaining than the one down to Uyuni as the bus kept heaving like it was on its last legs. Once we arrived in Oruro at 4am we were advised that we would need to change buses as ours was broken. Off we go to the other bus only to discover that 1) the bus is quite full with locals and 2) there is no toilet on the bus and it´s a long way to La Paz. So after S. and I claimed a couple of seats at the back of the bus, I hop off to quickly run back to our broken bus that still has a functioning toilet on it only to hear a bus revving its engine like its ready to go. I run back to our ¨new¨ bus only to run into our Chilean friend A. who also needs to use the facilities before we head to La Paz. I wait for her outside of the bus thinking that if I am just outside the door then the bus will not leave without us... this is a VERY naive thought. Not one minute passes that A. is on the broken bus that the bus starts driving away with me still on the street and her in the broken bus. I start sprinting for the bus at the same time that A. emerges from the bus. We both bolt for the bus and barely make it on.
We got into La Paz yesterday morning and are heading out tomorrow afternoon on a 24hr bus ride from here to Pisco, Peru. Let´s just say that that iPods are charged and there will be some serious sleep time involved with fantastic earplugs.
Countdown until home: 5 days.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Random things and a quick update...
Heya! So it´s been a little while and I am going to try to keep things as orderly as possible but there are no guarantees...
Some cool trips that we did whilst still in the north:
Hiked to a place called Revash where the Chachapoyans had mausoleums, then it was on to a town called Leymebamba where we visited the mummy museum (they had tons of mummies that they found at Laguna de los Condores).
The next weekend was an adventure to Gocta with a couple of American guys. Gocta is the third highest waterfall in the world, I believe. AMAZING! We had to dunk ourselves in the waters although they felt about only 10degrees if that.
On our way back we had a bit of a surprise. On the road there was a dead chicken and instead of continuing along on our journey, our driver pulled over the van and went back to what I thought was move the chicken to the side of the road... WRONG! He proceeded to open up the back of the van and put the chicken underneath the backseat where S. L. and M. were sitting! Needless to say, we did not order chicken that night or the next day. :)
We finished the project in Chachapoyas with success. We did more than was expected and the ladies of the community were happy with the progress. It was a hard last day with them and tears were shed.
We left Chacha on the 5th of July for a whirlwind tour through Tarapoto at the entrance to the Amazonian jungle.
Got into Lima on the 7th late at night, finished up presentations and debriefing on the 9th then 4 of us flew out to Cusco for the start of our traveling.
It was then onto Aguas Calientes to hit up the hot springs, explore Machu Picchu and hike up Wayna Picchu (note: it´s a steep hike and definitely be careful when going up or down. An American girl bailed coming down and ended up rolling head over heels for over 2 switchbacks!).
Once back in Cusco, we enjoyed a fantastic 15 soles (approx $6) one hour massage and a great dinner in San Blas.
After a day of travels through the Andean altipano, I am now in Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca which has been a dream for me since I was a child. Tomorrow we are Bolivia bound for some fun and adventure.
I will try to keep up to date a bit more.
Ciao!
Some cool trips that we did whilst still in the north:
Hiked to a place called Revash where the Chachapoyans had mausoleums, then it was on to a town called Leymebamba where we visited the mummy museum (they had tons of mummies that they found at Laguna de los Condores).
The next weekend was an adventure to Gocta with a couple of American guys. Gocta is the third highest waterfall in the world, I believe. AMAZING! We had to dunk ourselves in the waters although they felt about only 10degrees if that.
On our way back we had a bit of a surprise. On the road there was a dead chicken and instead of continuing along on our journey, our driver pulled over the van and went back to what I thought was move the chicken to the side of the road... WRONG! He proceeded to open up the back of the van and put the chicken underneath the backseat where S. L. and M. were sitting! Needless to say, we did not order chicken that night or the next day. :)
We finished the project in Chachapoyas with success. We did more than was expected and the ladies of the community were happy with the progress. It was a hard last day with them and tears were shed.
We left Chacha on the 5th of July for a whirlwind tour through Tarapoto at the entrance to the Amazonian jungle.
Got into Lima on the 7th late at night, finished up presentations and debriefing on the 9th then 4 of us flew out to Cusco for the start of our traveling.
It was then onto Aguas Calientes to hit up the hot springs, explore Machu Picchu and hike up Wayna Picchu (note: it´s a steep hike and definitely be careful when going up or down. An American girl bailed coming down and ended up rolling head over heels for over 2 switchbacks!).
Once back in Cusco, we enjoyed a fantastic 15 soles (approx $6) one hour massage and a great dinner in San Blas.
After a day of travels through the Andean altipano, I am now in Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca which has been a dream for me since I was a child. Tomorrow we are Bolivia bound for some fun and adventure.
I will try to keep up to date a bit more.
Ciao!
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