Lake Titicaca Has a Funny Name!

Hello, and welcome to the 2nd to last installment of the South American Odyssey. We spent last week on the peaceful banks of the famous Lago Titicaca. The lake is at about 4000 m above sea level, and has been considered the highest navigable body of water, although there are rivers that are at a higher altitude that are also considered "navigable." Anyway the lake is 4 kilometers in the air and it´s pretty massive!

Copacabana

After leaving La Paz we rode on a bus for about 3 hours to the peaceful beachtown. Bolivianos don´t have any ocean access so the lakes are a favourite destination for vacationing nationals. Copacabana was a nice place to relax and do a little mingling with travellers from all over the planet. We wined and dined. We watched the sunset. We met friends Sergio, Liz, and Janine. We only spent 2 nights there. The town was nice, but we had come to the lake to visit the Isla del Sol (Island of the sun)

Isla del Sol

Isla del Sol kicked my ass.
Melissa is alluding to the altitude and lack of level pathways to walk on.
Most visitors to the island take a boat from Copacabana but we decided to walk for 15km through the countryside and then hire a private boat from another location.
The walk was beautiful and I´m glad we did it. The private boat was owned by a guy who approached us on the side of the road and told us he had a boat. (8 foot dinghy with a 10 horse motor)

The island is said to be the birth place of the Inca Empire. The legend goes that there were 4 couples that were forced to survive in the wild and fight one another. The last couple standing then gave birth to the first Inca.

The island of the sun (appropriately named) has about 5000 residents today, 5 soccer teams, 800 pigs, and has a counterpart nearby called the Island of the moon. (Isla de la Luna) We spent 3 nights there and hiked around the island to various Inca ruins which were about half as impressive as the view of the lake and surrounding mountains. I guess we´re holding our breath for Machu Picchu. We were even offered a llama by one of the local indigenous women. (2 Israeli guys bought one for just over 100 US to carry their bags!) While we were over on the island there was a full moon (rises directly over the Isla de la Luna) which apparently causes the natives to get a bit restless! Parties and fiestas broke out, which were only dwarfed by the Easter celebration.

Thousands of Bolivians pilgramage from La Paz and beyond to Copacabana and the island for the Easter long weekend. Most arrive with nothing more then a simple back-pack, walking stick, and wad of coca leaves in their cheeks. A few townies arrive in their SUVs and look even more ridiculous wandering around then the gringo tourists. We arrived back in Copacabana after our 3 nights on the island to find it a completely new place. Prices had soared, and you could barely walk throught the once sleepy town without having to fight your way through a crowd! Quite the experience...

So now we have left Copacabana and the lake, (and Bolivia) and are currently hanging out in the Puma shaped city of Cusco, Peru. (the city architects of old actually designed it into the shape of a crouching puma!) Tomorrow we head off to probably the most famous archeological site in the Americas, Machu Picchu.

We´ll talk to you next time from back above the 49th parallel (well not really we´ll be in Southern Ontario...)

C + M

ps. sorry no pictures this time due to technical problems

How Could Anyone Eat A Monkey?

Rurrenebaque

Ok so after surviving the death road we ended up in the quaint tourist "trap" of Rurrenebaque. I say trap because there was literally no way out. Like we mentioned before, there was no way we were going to risk the death road again, so we decided to fly, but the airstrip was not paved and the amount of rain we were getting each day was making it impossible to fly. Where there is normally 4 flights a day to La Paz there was none, and the town was swelling with Gringos from all over the world who had, had their flights bumped back day after day. Well we decided to go on with our excursion that we had planned into the wetlands known as the Pampas. There are 2 tour options available from Rurre. One is to the jungle where the focus is on plant life. The second option (Pampas) had a focus on viewing the wildlife. The group we were supposed to go with was stuck on the death road somewhere so our tour got shifted back a day which was alright. The next day we headed off in a jeep with 2 Swedes, a Yank, and a couple from Switzerland.

In particular order... this is what we got to do and see. Over the 3 days we spent in the Pampas we saw 2 species of monkeys, (Howler and Chichilo) pink freshwater dolphins, pirhanas, aligators, a boa constrictor, an incredible swath of birds, a few large-ish turtles, and mosquitos. The small Chichilo monkeys were adorable and could even be coaxed to eat some small fruit out of my hand. The Howlers were a little more elusive but they´re low pitched calls could be heard in the mornings around sunrise. We swam with the dolphins twice. I wasn´t able to get a picture of one, but I can describe them as pink full sized bottle nose dolphins. Actually pink! They were extremely playful and would usually introduce themselves to us by nipping at our feet as we tred water (They drew blood from me!). Once they were comfortable they would swim directly below you and slowly float upwards. The end result was that I actually stood on its back completely upheld by it.

Our guide took us for a walk in the wetlands which was more like a wade. We had hoped to spot aligators and anacondas. What we found were frogs and mosquitos. The anacondas were a bust although we did find a dead one. Later that night we went out to see if we could spot an aligator and we had some success! He/she was only about 1.5 feet long but it was an aligator all the same. We saw many others in the bushes around but they would either take off or be to hard to get to. (the next day one of our party members spotted a 2 meter long one about 10 meters from us)

Melissa also proved herself quite the fisherwoman when it came to Pirahna fishing. Our bait was little chunks of Vaca. (Cow) I caught the first one for the group, which turned out to be my only one, but Melissa caught 4 which was even more then our guide. There were 2 species in the area we fished in. They ranged in size from about 4 inches long to about 8 inches and probably a third of a Kilo. Nasty little suckers. One of the smallest ones got loose in our boat, and drew blood from our guide when he tried to gather it up again. Those things are all teeth!

The grey looking picture is of a Howler Monkey.

PICTURES OF THE PAMPAS

ps. We later learned that the week before we arrived in Rurre. a jeep load of tourists (5) went over the side along the death road and all were killed. We met a girl from Virginia who informed us that she witnessed the bus in front of hers roll over the side killing 5 or 6 as well.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

We´re a little late in writing this next entry, and that is partly because we´ve been on buses for the past couple of days trying to get to where we are now, but we´ll get to that later... We´ve got a lot of ground to cover.

Tupiza

We went to Tupiza because our guide book described it as the ¨Wild West¨. I pictured us riding horses into the sunset and eating cans of beans around a roaring campfire. It didn´t exactly go as planned.

1. Our guide didn´t show up at our arranged time which meant we had to leave an hour late for our 3 hour ride.

2. The horses were a little skinny, and probably about 50 years old. They weren`t able to move very fast and our guide proded them with sticks to keep them moving "fast enough"

3. After explaining 3 of the 100 sites we saw along the way, our guide returned to town 45 minutes early.

4. Melissa and I went to our tour agency to complain about the lateness and lack of ride and it took about 20 minutes of arguing to get some of our money back.

5. ¨Wilson¨ our guide had the audacity to tell the agency guy that we were the ones that had wanted to move along so quickly when clearly, everytime my horse would begin to trot or gallop I would get a look of terror on my face and slow him back down. (the thinness of the horses made them uncomfortable to ride any faster then a walk.)

So Tupiza was kind of a bust but it was ok because our Hostal was overpriced.

And they wouldn´t let me exchange my book at the book exchange because they were not the same size! Despite the fact that I was paying money for the service!

Boo Tupiza I guess.

PICTURES OF TUPIZA

Potosi

After leaving Tupiza we made our way north to what is considered to be the highest city in theworld at 4060 meters above sea level. (Bolivia is known for having pretty much the highest everything) Potosi was formally the wealthiest town in Latin America due to a healthy amount of silver in the surrounding mountains and a healthy number of slave labourers to extract it. It is estimated that 8 million slaves (African and Indigenous) toiled and died in the mines under medieval working conditions. The big draw for the town is of course... MINE TOURS!!!

So we descended into (walked into) the mines with our trusty guide Jose who himself is an ex miner. Thats right the mines are still active and employ approx. 15 000 miners to this day! Before going to the mines its necessary to stop at the market to pick up gifts for the miners (Pop, cigarettes and Coca leaves) You use the gifts to pay them for photo ops. We spent 3 hours walking and scrambling up/down ladders, looking at silver veins, and of course taking pictures of the miners. The working conditions are still ridiculous with most work being done by hand. The only useful piece of technology they used was a pneumatic drill. (we stood right beside them while it was operated by 2 men)

It was my first time in a mine and it was really intense and a little shocking that we were allowed to just wander around aimlessly. At one point we were walking under a shaft and Chris had rocks and debris fall on him.

Oh yeah... I was a little shocked too. I found the mine hard to breathe in at some points due to our undergroundness and the altitude which made the job pretty thirsty work. I tried to chew coca leaves like the miners but was horrible at it. Its supposed to be a nice ball in your cheek, but mine was more like a slurry that didn´t allow me to talk without spitting the green mess out everywhere. (Although I did get some of the desired effect which were a numb face and more energy)

Potosi itself was gorgeous because it was constructed during the silver hayday in the colonial period. Ornately carved wooden balconies and white washed buildings everywhere.

PICTURES OF THE MINES

Sucre

The big draw here was dinosaurs. Apparently somewhere in the surrounding area are tracks and such. I say apparently because we didn´t actually get to see them. We kept putting it off and the day we were supposed to go it poured rain and they cancelled the trip.

It was a bummer, but Sucre was also a beautiful city. It was actually Bolivia´s 1st capital. Its the constitutional capital which means nothing to me other then it is the capital according to the constitution. Apparently that means something to the residents of Sucre because while we were there, there was a peaceful/noisy protest to have the capital moved back to Sucre. People were circulating fliers with everything from the afore mentioned capital move to splitting Bolivia in half to civil war... But it was peaceful.

PICTURES OF SUCRE

Samaipata

This little town is really close to Che Guevara´s last stand and offered 2 day tours to walk in the foot steps of the revolutionary, during his last days. We arrived expecting to go on the tour but found that the price was a little higher than we wanted, but we had no fear because there was plenty to do tour wise in the area.

Not only was it out of our price range but most companies weren´t offering the tour due to poor road conditions. Being the wet season, there have been a lot of landslides and roads being completly washed over. We found that out on our bus ride in which should´ve taken 10-11 hours but instead took 19!

At one point passengers helped clear rocks from the road, and later on we had to wait for 4 hours to have a few boulders removed from the road. The ride was hampered by mud and rocks.

We opted for a tour of a little known pre-Incan ruin called El Fuerte. (The Fortress or The Strong) It was a settlment of between 3-6 thousand inhabitants, but the interesting part was that there was an alter, or series of temples carved completely into 1 giant rock more then 200 meteres long and about 50 meters wide. The entire surface of the rock was carved and there are a number of explanations as to what the rock may have been. Interesting.

PICTURE OF EL FUERTE

Bus Ride

After leaving Samaipata we had planned to travel into the north to a remote town called Rurrenebaque. (Where we are now) We were told the roads were underwater and rubble. We estimated over 30 hours of bussing if the road conditions were good, but we knew they would be lousy so it was a tricky decision. We decided to go at it from a different side and at the lastmoment decided to head back to La Paz. (15 hours by bus we even had to walk across a land slide area because there weren't any vehicles able to transverse it) Our luck was pretty good and we got there in time to catch a 16 hour bus to Rurrenebaque. We were even told the road was good because it was a ¨new road¨by the woman in the information office in La Paz.

The road we took turned out to be the "safe half" of THIS ROAD which bi-passes the most dangerous parts. We had no idea when we bought our tickets beacause we were told that the death road was only open to mountain bikers now.
Needless to say the road was terrifying in parts and we, along with many others have opted to purchase plane tickets at 10 times the price to return to La Paz.
The rear set of wheels on the bus were double wide and at times the outside wheel wasn't on the ground at all, and we were also forced to back up to allow others to pass. Check out the link above and on the side bar.
So safe and sound we are in Rurrenebaque preparing ourselves for a 3 day treck into the Amazon basin known as the "Pampas" to see all sorts of wildlife including pirhanas, monkeys, pink fresh water dolphins, all types of birds, and possibly the largest snake species in the world known as the anaconda.

PICTURES OF THE BUS RIDE

until next time
C + M

Rain, Salt, and Oddly Coloured Water

La Paz

Alright, we were in La Paz a little while ago. La Paz is the political capital of Bolivia. It is situated in a bowl like valley almost 4 km in the air. Altitude sickness is a real factor. Both Melissa and I were feeling a little headachy the first day there. The city dosn't have 1 flat piece of land in it. Whenever you are walking you are either walking up or downhill. The weather is almost as un-predictable as the Canucks, with the day starting out colder than Edmonton, warming up to Miami, followed by a downpour all before lunch. La Paz like any other capital is full of all the cultural museums and information you need before embarquing on any excursions into the wild. The city iteself is beautiful though, and it's name literally means "the peace" because it was founded as a result of a treaty between 2 Spanish factions trying to claim rule over the country.

Bolivia as a whole is the poorest country in South America, and it's easy to see in the countryside. 1 Canadian dollar is about 7.5 of theres and a beer is 6 for a liter. The country has also suffered chronic territory loss in a miriade of wars with pretty much all the neighbouring countries. The hardest of these defeats being the loss of their ocean access to Chile. (Note: while Canadian soldiers were fighting in Europe in the 2nd World War pretty much all of South America were duking it out as well... Really a World War)

Bolivia is also a country of chronic political unrest. In the roughly 180 years it has existed it has suffered through nearly 220 changes of government!

Anyway while we were in La Paz we visited a good deal of cultural museums, gold and precious metal museums, a musical instruments museum, (amazing) and a coca museum, where we learned the importance of the coca leaf to the Indigenous culture, and the importance of Cocaine to the American culture (Coca Cola, Cocaine, and every single pain killer you can think of made between the 40´s and 70´s). 60% of Bolivians are Indigenous, and close to 85% chew coca regularily.

PICTURES OF LA PAZ

Uyuni and the Southwest

Where to begin? Uyuni is a smallish town in the Southwest of Bolivia. Its claim to fame is the worlds largest salt desert. The Salar de Uyuni. Sounds interesting I know, but the truth is that it is probably one of the most incredible sights I have ever seen. Vast and white! Between 25 and 40 thousand years ago the salt flats were an inland (salty) sea, and today there are reminders of this sea not only in the ridiculous amounts of salt but the fact that there is an island and visible waterline in the rocks surrounding the desert. That was only the beginning though.

For $85 each, Melissa and I signed up for a 3 day jeep excursion into the flats and more of Bolivias Andean sights. Day one was a brief stop at a cemetery for South America's first trains, and the afore mentioned salt flats which ended with spending a night in a building constructed entitrely of salt. (bricks and mortar???!!!) Day 2 was a drive above 4km in altitude through the Andean highlands. "No hay nada". This means "there is nothing" except a bunch of oddly coloured lagoons, Volcanos, Geisers, and about 76756225 flamingos, llamas, and other animals of interesting descriptions. Some of the scenery was completely out of this world. One of the lagoons (laguna verde) is surrounded by mountains and hills made up of rocks and minerals most similar to the ones found on Mars! It was really red... Day 3 was a 7 hour drive home to Uyuni after a brief stop at the Chilean border. Along the way we saw llamas and.... wild Ostriches? A little odd to see the giant birds grazing next to llamas but what the heck.

After our return to Uyuni we tried yet again to catch a train (Riobamba style) but it was cancelled so we bused through what can best be described as a river bed/road to Tupiza, but we'll get to that next time!

PICTURES OF THE SOUTHWEST

I`m sorry everyone. I know you usually look forward to my witty and insightful banter but I`m just not feeling it today...

So cheers from Chris and the spell checker!

The Hardest Part Was The Walking!

Arequipa

Alright! Arequipa, the 2nd largest city in Peru. About the size of Edmonton... Not much to say about it other than its a great place to start a trek into Earth's 2 deepest canyons. We only spent 1 night there and we saw a movie.

Cañon del Colca

Our trip to the canyon got off on the wrong foot. As we were leaving our hostel in Arequipa, 2 people arriving told us that the buses were on strike! This was at 6am and we were pretty choked. We thought it might be another Riobamba where the reason we came ended up not working out. We decided to try our luck though and managed to get on an 830 bus. No signs of a strike.
I thought that maybe the provincial buses might be ok, but maybe our company was being manned by scabs... who knows. So the bus ride was 5.5 hours pretty much off road, but we soon found out that it was well worth a sore bottom. Our stop was called Cabanaconde at the end of the line, but on the way we saw what is described as some of the best pre-Incan terrace farming in existance. The people of this region (having no flat land) were forced to terrace entire mountain sides and river valleys to create enough flat ground to grow sufficient crops for their population. That was only in the shallow part of the canyon though. Colca Canyon decends to a outrageous depth of 3191 meters at its deepest! 3.2 kms making it only the 2nd deepest in the world next to the neighbouring Cañon del Cotahuasi which is 163 meters deeper. Cabanaconde is the "basecamp" for the route we took down. Our trek was only 2600 meters though so it wasn't too bad. We were told to expect a walk of about 2-2.5 hours down, and 3-4.5 coming up. Our plan was to climb down one day, spend another day at the bottom hiking around, and the next we would return to Cabanaconde. It only took us 1.75 hours to get down which we were proud of especially since it started to rain about 20 minutes into the hike. Our digs at the bottom were...rustic. 4 half walls made of mud bricks, topped with bamboo, and roofed with bamboo and leaves encompassing about 40 square feet (5x8 feet) of dirt floor, but it was cheap. (about $2.50 a night each) The day we spent down below was great. There are 4 or so villages lining the walls of the canyon. We hiked to 2 of them and got to see rural Peru at its finest. Adobe huts and lots of donkeys.
And drunk, kinda smelly men to talk your ear off...
Once that guy got going on any subject (trout, bushes, alfalfa juice, ladies) he was impossible to stop. We were in bed by about 6:45, due to exhaustion, and lack of electricity which was beneficial to our 6:30 start to the journey back up the canyon wall. We left early expecting to take up to 4 hours in order to catch our bus back to Arequipa, and avoid the sun which could probably kill you without proper water supplies. It only took us 2.5 hours though and we even managed to pass some locals who tend to move pretty quickly (sometimes running) up the steep inclines.
Apparently we're superstars. When we reached level ground at the top, the path we were following turned into a stream so we were forced to choose our own adventure through some of the aforementioned terracing. We had been told that the bus left at 1pm and it was only 9am but within 5 minutes of walking down the street we flagged a bus down and spent the next 2 hours shivering on the bus.
All that sweat we worked up wasn't all that great for sitting still at the back of the bus while bundled up locals prefered to travel with their windows open.... there was snow in some places, and we were wearing shorts! We've left Peru behind for now, and travelled to La Paz, one of 2 Bolivian capitals at a dizzying altitude of 3700 meters.

We'll be talking about Bolivia next time though.
Cheers
Chris + Melissa

PICTURES OF CAÑON DEL COLCA

Pictures!!

So we´ve found a non-junk computer to upload some pictures. We have added pictures to our last 2 posts so check em out!

happy hunting

c+m

Peru´s Flag Looks Kinda Like Ours!

Lima

Welcome to the 2nd half of the trip! This is going to be a short entry because both of us are feeling a little run down. We have been in Peru for the last week or so, which has been pretty amazing really. From the border of Ecuador we jumped on an overnight bus to Lima. The drive into the city wasn´t all that impressive, and for the most part nothern Peru smelled and looked like garbage. In all fairness though we were only there for a few hours.
I have to disagree. The bus we took was a double decker and we were served supper and breakfast by a hostess! I awoke in the morning to the sun rising over the sand dunes of the desert on the right, and the Pacific on the left. Gorgeous.
Lima is halfway ¨down¨ the country on the coast. We stayed in an area called Miraflores, which is kinda like the Beverly Hills of Lima. Tons of money, surfing, and it was spotless. Probably the cleanest city I´ve ever been in. We were there to meet up with some friends from the Great White North before they returned home. Lima was a lot of eating, relaxing, drinking, and paragliding.
We basically tossed our budget out the window and indulged in some of the comforts of home...ie Starbucks.
Yeah Lima was full of the stuff that makes North America great! Starbucks, Tony Romas, Pizza Hut, and even a Hooters which was located in a beautiful open air mall, perched on some cliffs overlooking the Pacific. I must say, it was also nice to use bathrooms that had been cleaned that week! Other Lima highlights included a visit to a monastery, and the cities first catacombs where you are allowed the pleasure of viewing pieces of 25 000 skeletons. The truth is that we needed a bit of a break after Ecuador had been so demoralizing.

PICTURES OF LIMA

Pisco

Our next stop was the quaint town of Pisco. Famous for a national park in the area, a group of islands sometimes refered to as the poor man´s Galapagos, and a massive earthquake that destroyed most of the buildings, and killed 500 of 58 000 7 months ago. Our Lonely Planet travel guide was written a year ago, and most of the attractions described in it were destroyed so we only spent 2 nights and visited the off shore delights of the ¨Galapagos.¨ We of course didn´t hear about the earthquake in Canada because Britney was having a custody battle with K-fed. Theres only so much time in the news day I guess.
Pisco is also known for the alcoholic drink which shares its name and is a type of white grape brandy. We were invited to try it one night by 3 local brothers and it was pretty good. Very strong on its own but quite nice when mixed into a cocktail called pisco sour. That night we were also fortunate enough to sample some random cow parts. Heart and intestine were heavily featured. Yum...
Pisco was fun, and a little shocking. The people were really friendly, and were desperate for us to spread the word to other tourists that they were still in business and wanted our tourist dollars. We managed to get some good photos of the damage and the governmental housing projects...... that reminds me of a ridiculous predicament..... So the goverment of Peru pledged to support the earthquake survivors by donating 6000 Soles (2000 bucks) to each family that had their house destroyed. Unfortunately they needed to print more money to do so, and asked the families to pay for the money to be printed. Most families couldn´t even afford to have the money printed, and got nothing at all! I thought those kind of things only happened in Canadian type beauracracies....
For anyone that is interested in doing some volunteer work, or just interetsted in Pisco´s reconstruction, the organization Burners Without Borders is in Pisco helping rebuild the city. Check out the link below or on the sidebar.

I´M THE LINK MENTIONED ABOVE!

PICTURES OF PISCO

Huacachina

Huacachina is literally a desert oasis. Its surrounded by a vast desert, and the pastime is dune-buggying and sand boarding. Our hostel offered a deal that allowed us to do both at the same time. We buggied out into the dunes (some of them massive) with our fearless driver. We must have hit speeds upwards of 60km/h and the sand blowing in our faces felt like someone was just rubbing them with sandpaper. I also didn`t have any goggles of any type. Oh and it rained on us which is amazing being in the middle of a desert and all. The sandboarding was very similar to snowboarding. By the end of the day we were all pretty decent, but we were fortunate enough to see some pros on a huge dune, and they were carving it up the exact same way you would expect a snowboarder to do. Awesome. Bring sunscreen!
The second night we were there we climbed to the top of one of the dunes to watch the sunset. Going up I wasn´t sure it would be worth it because it was sooo hard. Every step you took, you would slide back down. Very slow going but as Chris and I tell each other every time we`re climbing, its training for Machu Picchu. It was really nice and we got some good pictures. And of course coming down was a lot easier.

PICTURES OF HUACACHINA

Nazca

Today we trekked to Nazca to see the mystifying Nazca lines. We hired a small plane (1 pilot, 5 gringos) to tour us over the lines which are too massive to be seen from ground level. We spent about 30 minutes in the air for 50 bucks each, which I was pretty bitter about, but now am very happy we did it. We all got air sick, but I´m the only one that emptied their stomach into a small bag. Waste of good Jugo de Piña (fresh pineapple juice) I would explain the Nazca lines but instead heres a nifty link to click on.

CLICK ME!

PICTURES OF NAZCA

Tonight we are heading to Arequipa, the home of Earth`s 2 deepest canyons, where we plan to do some hiking!

Until next time
c and m

Happy Birthday Luc Robitaille!