In some ways, the last two weeks of the trip were the most exotic of all. We had to figure out a way to get back to Nicaragua and we didn't want to fly. Machu Picchu ended up being the last official "place" we visited. From there we wanted to go to Iquitos in Northern Peru, but were told we would have to take a bus to Lima first to get there. Well, I looked on a map and saw that there was a road from Cusco to Yurimaguas, and then there was a boat that went from Yurimaguas to Iquitos. Iquitos is the largest city in the world that you cannot reach by road! So, even though we were told that we couldn't do it, I was determined to find a way.
In order to get to Yurimaguas, we had to take a bus from small city to small city. Each time we reached a city, we were told that there were no buses to the next one. But, we always searched around and we would find a bus! We went from Cusco to Ayacucho, to Huancayo, to Huanuco, to Tingo Maria to Tarapoto to Yurimaguas!!! It took a week, but we did the impossible! We went directly from Cusco by bus to Yurimaguas without going to Lima!
When we arrived in Yurimaguas at 11 am, we went to the pier and discovered that there was a cargo ship leaving for Iquitos in one hour! I had read that we needed to have our own hammocks, bowls and spoons. So we quickly ran around with a moto taxi driver to get what we needed and we got right on the cargo ship! It is an interesting ride. We went to the top level of the boat (there are 3 levels, the bottom for cargo, the next level for people and the top level for people). We were now in the Amazon and it was VERY hot, so we decided to go to the top level where we thought it would be a little cooler. Each person brings a hammock and hangs them up across the deck. If there are a lot of people like on this boat, the hammocks are practically on top of each other! This boat also had a room with a big table where you could eat or play cards with other tourists, which is what we did. But most of the people on the boat were from Peru, Bolivia or Brazil. The food was terrible. One night we had white rice and pasta. No sauce of any kind. Just white rice and pasta. We hadn't brought any food with us because we were told that food was provided, but we didn't realize just how bad the food would be. We met tourists from Israel, Australia, Belgium and Holland and we had a lot of great conversations and we spent the evenings teaching each other new card games.
We arrived in Iquitos, which is a large city and expensive because everything has to be brought in by ship or plane. We ended up finding a pretty reasonable hotel, but it looked like Dracula's castle! Our plan was to go from this city to Ecuador by cargo boat, then take a bus through Colombia to its border with Panama, cross over by foot and then get a bus or a plane to Panama City. However, when we went to the Colombian Embassy the next day, we were told by the Embassy that under NO circumstances should a person with an American passport attempt to cross that border! WAY TOO DANGEROUS! I figured if the Embassy was telling us that about their own border, it must be true. But I was bummed, because I wanted to do that and write about it afterwards since it seemed that no Americans had ever done it! The Embassy said that the border there is not really officially open (because of the danger of guerillas, drug traffickers, and crazies) and that you actually have to contract with a Panamanian "Coyote" to take you across! And they said the Panama side was just as dangerous! So now we had no choice but to go from Iquitos to Leticia, Colombia and then FLY to Panama City! Iquitos was an interesting place and had fruits and vegetables in their market that neither Josue or I had ever seen! We were looking for two things to try. Bat soup and the famous white worms that you've all seen on the Discovery Channel. We didn't find the soup, but we DID find the worms! They weren't really worms..more like big white maggots with their eyes still attached! You could eat them live, baked, or grilled. We chose grilled just because those looked better than the others. And forget eating them live! I ate three, Josue had two. They tasted OK (and not like chicken). We were proud of ourselves. Then...about 15 minutes later, our minds started working and waged a big battle with our stomachs. "What? You ate worms?" our minds said. "Yeah, they were OK, stop bothering me" said stomachs. "Ewww...worms....think about it" our minds continued. And it wasn't too long before we were both feeling kind of sick. Mind over matter they say.
To get from Iquitos to Leticia, we took another cargo ship, this time right down the AMAZON! It was amazing.....the Amazon is so wide and surprisingly, the water was brown, as it was in most of South America! Funny, I had a different picture of it in my mind. This time the ship was smaller than the other one, but they packed just as many people on! We spent our days and nights sitting in our hammocks, reading,Josue played the guitar, etc. The only tourists we met on this ship was a young couple from New York and Boston. Katlyn and Reed spent the next couple of days with us once we got to Leticia. Leticia is in the middle of the Amazon rainforest and the temperature was 115 degrees and 100% humidity! Almost too hot for me! Katlyn had a hard time the next morning when she fainted at breakfast! She hadn't been feeling too well for the two previous days and was severely dehydrated. Without an appetite and the hot weather draining her even further, she ended up spending the day in the hospital where several IV drips put her back in great shape! We went to a lake that they said had very cold water. Couldn't believe that anything would be cold there, but it was true!!!! It was actually part of the river but at this particular point, the water was very cold and a welcome relief to the hot, hot weather! We never found out how the shallow water could be so cold! We had a great piranha dinner one night and I won $45 USD at the casino and just spent $2 USD! Since we were in such an exotic place, I thought it interesting that they sold poison dart blow guns, so I got one as a souvenir. The natives here (we didn't see any) put needles through their cheeks as adornments.
The flight from Leticia to Panama City was interesting. It consisted of three flights. The first one went to Bogota, where we had to spend the night. The second flew to Caragena, where we had to spend the entire day. Not too bad, because we went to the old section of town, where we had fun eating sushi (yep! every now and then I get a craving for sushi!) and walked around. We were supposed to meet Katlyn and Reed here, but it didn't work out. Also, I wish I had had Tia Monica's number, but that was stolen along with all my other phone numbers and we couldn't call her. That night we flew to Panama City.
The next day we went to the Costa Rican Embassy to get a visa for Josue so he could take the bus back through Panama to Costa Rica to Nicaragua. Unfortunately, the nasty immigration people of Costa Rica would not give him a visa for the 5 hours it would take for him to pass through Costa Rica by bus! So he had to fly back to Managua and I took the two-day bus trip alone. But it was fine.
And now I'm back in San Juan del Sur, happy to be here. My house is rented right now, so I am renting a room in town in someone's house for the time being. I arrived on Sunday, which was mother's day in Nicaragua, and ran into Loli and Yader and Loli's family and we spent some time together with Donna and then went to Crazy Crab dancing! Finally I'm back in a country where they play the music I like and there are always people to dance with. After my fabulous GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN TRIP, I still like my Nicaragua, Nicaraguita best! Hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did!!!! To view photos of this section, click HERE.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Machu Picchu
Hello
This blog is different. I will let the photos speak for themselves. Every one of us has a special place we want to visit in our lifetimes. Well, Machu Picchu was mine, the number one place I wanted to see. It was overwhelming after I walked up the 2000 steps at 4 am in the dark by myself and crossed through the entrance and saw this magnificent city there before me. There really aren´t words. So...I hope you enjoy the photos and can get even the tiniest sense of how I felt to be here. Click HERE to see the photos.
Bonnie
This blog is different. I will let the photos speak for themselves. Every one of us has a special place we want to visit in our lifetimes. Well, Machu Picchu was mine, the number one place I wanted to see. It was overwhelming after I walked up the 2000 steps at 4 am in the dark by myself and crossed through the entrance and saw this magnificent city there before me. There really aren´t words. So...I hope you enjoy the photos and can get even the tiniest sense of how I felt to be here. Click HERE to see the photos.
Bonnie
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Bolivia Part 2: The Demonstration, the Death Road, La Paz again and Lake Titicaca
Last blog I left you off in Rurrenabaque, Bolivia. We were about to head to Coroico to enjoy that beautiful Andes city AND ride down the most DANGEROUS ROAD IN THE WORLD, also known as Bolivia´s famous Death Road. But, unbeknownst to us at the time...we were set to be on a real adventure..before ever reaching the Death Road. We got on a bus that was going to Coroico. At 7 pm, the bus suddenly stopped. The driver told us there was some kind of demonstration and we would have to stop there and sleep in the bus that night. Other buses and trucks were coming up to this point and also had to stop. After all, some people had cut down trees and they were now laying across the road! In the morning we learned that this demonstration could last three to five days!!!! We were parked in the road where there was one (not so nice) outhouse and a couple little shops that sold soda, crackers, cookies, etc. I certainly did not want to stay there! Josué and I were the only tourists on the bus. We decided to walk to the next town, about 5 miles away. It was raining lightly, the dirt road was now muddy and slippery, and we were carrying heavy packs and the guitar. We passed the groups of people in the road where they congregated at the places where trees had been dropped to stop traffic. But at this point, we didn´t know what the demonstration was about. When we reached the town of Caranavi, a taxi driver told us that he couldn´t take us the rest of the way to Coroico...he could just take us as far as the next blockade (about 3 miles). As the taxi crossed the bridge and approached the blockade where many people were milling around, we were shocked to see a bunch of them running toward us. Suddenly, eight men were attacking our taxi...rocking it back and forth. They hauled the driver out of the car and started beating him with sticks and whips and rocks! Well, I was scared! We jumped out of the taxi, not knowing quite what to do. A well-dressed Bolivian man told us to come with him. We ran....and I unfortunately left my beautiful guitar in the taxi, along with the walking stick Mario had made me on our jungle tour! But the guitar is not worth my getting hurt! The Bolivian man took us under his wing and told us to walk fast past the blockade, without looking or speaking to anyone. He found a truck full of indigenous people in the back..the kind of truck made of wooden slats so you can´t see into it very well. He told the people to let us get up in the truck with them. Some said no. He said we were in danger and we were tourists so please let us up and they did. Within a minute, four Israelis also jumped up on the truck and we were off. A little way down the road, the truck was stopped and someone yelled, Are there any people from the United States on that truck? The people told me to duck down so they couldn´t see my red hair and said no. And they let the truck go. When we got to the next blockade, we found out that there were no more taxis going between the blockades because people were starting to get violent..obviously they were angry that the taxi drivers were helping people travel down the road. So we had to walk VERY FAST with our packs about 20 miles to get to a town in another province that was not involved in the strike. And we found out what the strike was about. The government had announced that they were going to build a large citrus factory in one city. Another city was angry because the wanted the citrus factory! So they blocked the road (there´s only one) between the two cities, exactly where we were headed! We finally made it to Coroico, dead tired and hurting. We were rewarded by staying at a hotel another tourist had suggested...it was on the top of a smaller mountain, but this mountain was nestled within the Andes...with mountains surrounding the town that were 6,000 meters high! The views, the smell of jasmine, the colonial town of Coroico...it was all so beautiful. Again, a room was just $11 USD. Private cabins at the very top of the property were about $35 USD!
The next day we chose to go back to La Paz via the Death Road. There is no longer public transportation on that road as the government has fixed most of it and there is now a super highway from Coroico to La Paz (about 2 hours). So we had to get a taxi driver to take us. I think that the road will be closed to all traffic very soon, so we were glad to get a 50 mile glimpse of it. It´s hard to explain, but some parts of the road are only 6 feet wide. So in the past, when two vehicles met that had to pass, one of the vehicles had to back up to a wider spot so they could do it. Again, no railings and when it rained chunks of the road would just disintegrate and fall. Though I remember riding in a bus near Banos, Ecuador on a road just as bad years ago (Ecuador has also upgraded all of its old roads), Wikipedia and all other sources said this road in Bolivia is the worst. Unfortunately, two-dimensional photographs don´t quite show you what we were seeing from the car. There is now the extreme sport of bicycling down the road which many tourists are foolish enough to do. With the roads twists and turns and slippery mud, you can go off the edge in a heartbeat...and many have! Riding in a taxi was scary enough for me! Our taxi almost hit one poor biker. Her riding tour group had been told to always ride on the right, so when they were going down fast, they would be on the mountain side. Unfortunately, the traffic on that road drives on the left side by law. So..imagine, she was coming down on the right and we were going up on the left and we got to the same 90· curve at the same time. Well she saw us, panicked, lost control of her bike and fell off, bringing the bike with her. Luckily for her, she slid toward the mountain instead of away from it. A 4-foot slide toward the edge would have been the END of her! So we did the Death Road. But wait ´till you read the next blog, about the Andes roads in Peru! I think Wikipedia and the rest need to designate a new road the Death Road. More about that later.
We got back to La Paz and our same hotel in the Witch´s Market (the hotel was holding all of our stuff while we went to the jungle) and we felt the altitude slightly. We were both fine with the altitude during the entire trip although we noted it when we walked fast. I had decided to look for musical instruments and I wanted to replace the guitar I had lost in the taxi at the demonstration. We found a wonderful music store and I got a great deal on a guitar, a zampoña (pan flutes), and a quena (another type of flute). They also had a new percussion instrument I had not seen before, and since I hope to continue playing percussion with the bands in San Juan del Sur, I got that too. Josué also bought a guitar...they are so cheap here! We ran into some tourists that Josué had met (Cedric from Germany and Alisa from Chicago) while he was in Uyuni and I was on the salt flats tour and enjoyed llama curry that night with them in an Indian restaurant they found. We were fortunate to be able to enjoy some Afro-Bolivian music at another restaurant they knew about, and finally after midnight, we went to a disco that played LATIN MUSIC!! Hooray! We have been going out to the peñas too, these are like restaurant-coffee houses where they have folkloric dancing and singing shows. They are wonderful...colorful and happy with Andes music and extravagant costumes. The next night Josué and I went dancing to another disco that was fun too! Hooray...good dancing two nights in a row!
We spent a couple more days in La Paz doing this and that. I want to report that I used Bolivia´s socialized medicine system to have a minor eye operation and was very pleased! Apparently a month earlier I had had an eye infection that I didn´t know about or ignored and suddenly an abscess grew on my eye! As it was getting bigger and it was pretty painful, I went to the EYE hospital. That´s right...they have a public hospital that is only for eyes. To make a long story short, the doctor (a woman about 25 years old) told me they had to rem ove it and I went and had a 30-minute operation. I won´t go into details about the operation and how anesthetics like novacaine and the like don´t work very well on redheads and make a big difference if they are not working during an operation), but let´s just say she did the operation and it seems that I´m fine now! Tourists and Bolivians are treated and charged alike. I paid $1.50 USD for the doctor consultation and a whopping $5.50 USD for the operation!!! Except for the waiting, which was about two and a half hours (I´ve waited just as long for a doctor in the U.S. when I had an appointment!), everything went OK. As soon as the Doc gave me the OK (I had to go back for a follow-up), we headed for Lake Titicaca.
We took the bus from La Paz to a town called Copacabana, which is a lovely little pueblo nestled in the mountains overlooking the lake. We immediately signed up for the ferry to Lake Titicaca early the next morning. (Josué only had a 30-day visa in Bolivia, and we had already been there for 28 days, so we had to leave the country. I was given a 5-year visa, but I had to pay $135.00 USD for it- Josué´s was FREE.) We went to Isla del Sol, where the Inca civilization began. I even got to touch the SACRED ROCK of the Inca´s, where the sun god first appeared. We had a good group on the ferry and became acquainted with a couple from Buenos Aires, a woman from China, and another woman from France named Corine (you´ll hear more about her later). We walked from one end of the island to the other (8 kilometers) in the heat of the day, at about 3800 meters in the hot, hot sun. Even though we were approximately 12,467 feet high, it was HOT! It was a lovely walk, where we got to see the famous Lake Titicaca (highest navigable lake in the world) from all sorts of vistas. A vivid blue, the lake provies a sharp contrast to the mountains, especially the ones that are snow-capped. We spent the whole day hiking, looking at the Inca ruins, talking with our new friends, sharing maté tea, and having a wonderful time.
We got back to Copacabana in the early evening and were out of cash. Unfortunately for us, there were no ATMs in the city and the banks were closed. But we had to eat dinner!!! Was there a restaurant in town that took credit cards? Only one, one of the better ones in town. That´s OK! We already had our bus tickets for that night, so we just needed to eat. We walked in and said YES, they DID take credit cards, but their chef never showed up and right now they only had drinks. When would the chef be coming, we asked. In about an hour….it´s happy hour. Why don´t you wait and have drinks? No problem we said. After about 3 capirinhas each (Brazilian drink….rum, lime juice, sugar and soda)and 3 hours later, and still no chef, we noticed that they were making ice cream crepes for people. We´ll take two of those ice cream crepes, thanks, we said. Just after eating those, the chef showed up and we ordered chicken soup for dinner. What a strange last dinner in Bolivia! It was all good though.
That night we hopped onto an overnight bus to go to Cusco and then Machu Picchu, which had recently re-opened after the horrible flooding in February at the beginning of our trip. Peru….here we come….AGAIN!!!!! To see photos for this section, click HERE.
The next day we chose to go back to La Paz via the Death Road. There is no longer public transportation on that road as the government has fixed most of it and there is now a super highway from Coroico to La Paz (about 2 hours). So we had to get a taxi driver to take us. I think that the road will be closed to all traffic very soon, so we were glad to get a 50 mile glimpse of it. It´s hard to explain, but some parts of the road are only 6 feet wide. So in the past, when two vehicles met that had to pass, one of the vehicles had to back up to a wider spot so they could do it. Again, no railings and when it rained chunks of the road would just disintegrate and fall. Though I remember riding in a bus near Banos, Ecuador on a road just as bad years ago (Ecuador has also upgraded all of its old roads), Wikipedia and all other sources said this road in Bolivia is the worst. Unfortunately, two-dimensional photographs don´t quite show you what we were seeing from the car. There is now the extreme sport of bicycling down the road which many tourists are foolish enough to do. With the roads twists and turns and slippery mud, you can go off the edge in a heartbeat...and many have! Riding in a taxi was scary enough for me! Our taxi almost hit one poor biker. Her riding tour group had been told to always ride on the right, so when they were going down fast, they would be on the mountain side. Unfortunately, the traffic on that road drives on the left side by law. So..imagine, she was coming down on the right and we were going up on the left and we got to the same 90· curve at the same time. Well she saw us, panicked, lost control of her bike and fell off, bringing the bike with her. Luckily for her, she slid toward the mountain instead of away from it. A 4-foot slide toward the edge would have been the END of her! So we did the Death Road. But wait ´till you read the next blog, about the Andes roads in Peru! I think Wikipedia and the rest need to designate a new road the Death Road. More about that later.
We got back to La Paz and our same hotel in the Witch´s Market (the hotel was holding all of our stuff while we went to the jungle) and we felt the altitude slightly. We were both fine with the altitude during the entire trip although we noted it when we walked fast. I had decided to look for musical instruments and I wanted to replace the guitar I had lost in the taxi at the demonstration. We found a wonderful music store and I got a great deal on a guitar, a zampoña (pan flutes), and a quena (another type of flute). They also had a new percussion instrument I had not seen before, and since I hope to continue playing percussion with the bands in San Juan del Sur, I got that too. Josué also bought a guitar...they are so cheap here! We ran into some tourists that Josué had met (Cedric from Germany and Alisa from Chicago) while he was in Uyuni and I was on the salt flats tour and enjoyed llama curry that night with them in an Indian restaurant they found. We were fortunate to be able to enjoy some Afro-Bolivian music at another restaurant they knew about, and finally after midnight, we went to a disco that played LATIN MUSIC!! Hooray! We have been going out to the peñas too, these are like restaurant-coffee houses where they have folkloric dancing and singing shows. They are wonderful...colorful and happy with Andes music and extravagant costumes. The next night Josué and I went dancing to another disco that was fun too! Hooray...good dancing two nights in a row!
We spent a couple more days in La Paz doing this and that. I want to report that I used Bolivia´s socialized medicine system to have a minor eye operation and was very pleased! Apparently a month earlier I had had an eye infection that I didn´t know about or ignored and suddenly an abscess grew on my eye! As it was getting bigger and it was pretty painful, I went to the EYE hospital. That´s right...they have a public hospital that is only for eyes. To make a long story short, the doctor (a woman about 25 years old) told me they had to rem ove it and I went and had a 30-minute operation. I won´t go into details about the operation and how anesthetics like novacaine and the like don´t work very well on redheads and make a big difference if they are not working during an operation), but let´s just say she did the operation and it seems that I´m fine now! Tourists and Bolivians are treated and charged alike. I paid $1.50 USD for the doctor consultation and a whopping $5.50 USD for the operation!!! Except for the waiting, which was about two and a half hours (I´ve waited just as long for a doctor in the U.S. when I had an appointment!), everything went OK. As soon as the Doc gave me the OK (I had to go back for a follow-up), we headed for Lake Titicaca.
We took the bus from La Paz to a town called Copacabana, which is a lovely little pueblo nestled in the mountains overlooking the lake. We immediately signed up for the ferry to Lake Titicaca early the next morning. (Josué only had a 30-day visa in Bolivia, and we had already been there for 28 days, so we had to leave the country. I was given a 5-year visa, but I had to pay $135.00 USD for it- Josué´s was FREE.) We went to Isla del Sol, where the Inca civilization began. I even got to touch the SACRED ROCK of the Inca´s, where the sun god first appeared. We had a good group on the ferry and became acquainted with a couple from Buenos Aires, a woman from China, and another woman from France named Corine (you´ll hear more about her later). We walked from one end of the island to the other (8 kilometers) in the heat of the day, at about 3800 meters in the hot, hot sun. Even though we were approximately 12,467 feet high, it was HOT! It was a lovely walk, where we got to see the famous Lake Titicaca (highest navigable lake in the world) from all sorts of vistas. A vivid blue, the lake provies a sharp contrast to the mountains, especially the ones that are snow-capped. We spent the whole day hiking, looking at the Inca ruins, talking with our new friends, sharing maté tea, and having a wonderful time.
We got back to Copacabana in the early evening and were out of cash. Unfortunately for us, there were no ATMs in the city and the banks were closed. But we had to eat dinner!!! Was there a restaurant in town that took credit cards? Only one, one of the better ones in town. That´s OK! We already had our bus tickets for that night, so we just needed to eat. We walked in and said YES, they DID take credit cards, but their chef never showed up and right now they only had drinks. When would the chef be coming, we asked. In about an hour….it´s happy hour. Why don´t you wait and have drinks? No problem we said. After about 3 capirinhas each (Brazilian drink….rum, lime juice, sugar and soda)and 3 hours later, and still no chef, we noticed that they were making ice cream crepes for people. We´ll take two of those ice cream crepes, thanks, we said. Just after eating those, the chef showed up and we ordered chicken soup for dinner. What a strange last dinner in Bolivia! It was all good though.
That night we hopped onto an overnight bus to go to Cusco and then Machu Picchu, which had recently re-opened after the horrible flooding in February at the beginning of our trip. Peru….here we come….AGAIN!!!!! To see photos for this section, click HERE.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Bolivia Part 1: Salt Flats, Jungle and La Paz
Bolivia ROCKS!!!! It is by far the most exotic and adventurous country on my trip so far. It has everything I like...fascinating sites, a strong indigenous culture, folkloric music, singing and dancing, Latin music at the discos; the hot, steamy Amazon jungle; the incredible Andes mountains; and the people are wonderful!!! I could live here for sure, except that Bolivia is landlocked...no beautiful beaches like there are in San Juan del Sur.
The border crossing from Argentina to Bolivia was a breeze...we got our visas back in Buenos Aires (Josue´s was free, I had to pay $135 USD!) and just walked across. Suddenly everything was about a tenth of the price in comparison to Argentina. There was a great market at the border, but we were taking the train to Uyuni, so we didn´t do much there. Uyuni is the town that lies on the edge of the largest salt flats in the world, and certainly they were something to see! Josue stayed back in Uyuni while I signed up for a tour. I don´t like tours, but in this case there was no choice because if you drive onto the flats yourself, you would probably end up lost, stuck on the flats and dead (it has happened.) The driver told us of a story about a friend of his who was driving across the flats and his car broke down. He had to walk 10 hours in the sun and by the time he reached his destination, he was completely blind. That is how white the salt is....with the sun reflecting off that, you can imagine the intensity. You MUST use sun block and have good sunglasses with you. It is hard to describe what it looks like to see nothing but white for as far as the eye can see. You´ll have to look at the photos. But it was incredible! In the middle of the flats there is an island, like an oasis, only it is very dry and has bunches of saguaro cacti and other desert scrub growing. Of course you walk up to the top and the view is just white, white, white. There are no roads on the flat, so you have to know where you are going. The experienced drivers determine their route according to the distant mountains. During this tour, I did several neat things. I stayed in a hotel that was completely made of salt. The outside was salt blocks, the inside had a salt floor, salt furniture and salt chandeliers. The salt flats are very high, around 4000 meters (13,123 feet) so you can´t move too quickly. We visited several lakes with flocks of flamingos, and one lake had red water!!!! That certainly was something to see. But I think the highlight was the sunrise I watched at 5:30 am at 5000 meters (16,500 feet!) in natural thermal waters while the temperature outside was 0 degrees! No one in my tour group would go in...but I´m glad I did. The sun rose over the mountains while I was sitting in a Bolivian natural bath tub. Fabulous! It was a little disconcerting when I got out and found out there was nowhere to change clothes and about 50 people milling around the baths!!!! You´d be surprised how creative you can be with a towel!
After Uyuni, Josue and I went to Potosí, the highest city in the world (according to Lonely Planet and in dispute in Wikipedia) at 4,067 meters (13,343 feet)! Potosi is a great place to buy indigenous musical instruments. One of my goals on this trip was to buy different Andes instruments. Many of my friends in Nicaragua are musicians and it´s always fun to have them over to my house and listen to them play. Not only do I want to have the instruments for these wonderful jam sessions, I also want to learn how to play the pan flute, or zampoña, as it is called in Spanish. Unfortunately, I did not buy instruments in Potosi, because I thought they would be cheaper in La Paz. But we did some fun things in the highest city in the world....we sang Karaoke and went out dancing. Bolivia plays Latin music (the kind I like) in its discos. For those of you who know Nicaragua and its famous, great, smooth rum Flor de Caña, Bolivia sells it! What a treat!
Next we went to Sucre where all the buildings downtown are white, the city itself was quite pretty. We just spent the day there, looking at the markets, eating an interesting lunch in the market that cost $1.00 USD. Just to let you know, we´ve been eating food in the local markets and off the streets, and we´ve been just fine. Sometimes that is the most interesting food. We´re back to eating llama, but I still prefer alpaca. Bolivia also serves a lot of vegetables and salads. If you go to a tourist type restaurant, of course you will spend more, maybe $10 USD each, including wine. There were also lots of musical instruments in Sucre, but I was dismayed to see that they were 2-3 times the price of the instruments in Potosí! I was worried that I had made a big mistake not buying them there. After our quick tour of Sucre, we hopped on the bus at night to La Paz.
Many tourists told us they didn´t like La Paz. Yes, it´s dirty and the traffic is terrible. But it is lively, colorful, musical, and an IN YOUR FACE city, kind of like Bangkok. It has a wonderful indigenous market, actually streets full of weavings, sweaters and other clothing made of alpaca, and all sorts of things. Our hotel was centrally located right between that artists´market and the Witch´s Market where you can buy llama fetuses (to put under your house for good luck), all types of potions to attract love, get rich, have good luck, or maybe other potions that you can use for the not-so-nice type of witchcraft! It was fascinating asking questions and looking over all the goods. Witchcraft is a big thing in Bolivia! The people are very superstitious.
All about Coca: Coca leaves are legal (not cocaine or marijuana!) in Bolivia and Peru. They are illegal in the other countries, though people sell the leaves openly in the streets of northern Argentina! There is a very interesting small museum dedicated to coca in La Paz. They go through its history, even telling how the original coca cola in the United States used coca leaves in its recipe. And how Sigmund Freud was the first important person to use the new chemically made cocaine, which he used until he developed nose cancer! The museum gives you all sorts of little interesting tidbits about the use of coca leaves and how the cocaine industry developed. You will be very interested to know that it is Bolivia, not Colombia, that is the biggest producer of coca in the world. I find it fascinating that the U.S. is concentrating so hard on eradicating the coca fields in Colombia, but has absolutely nothing to do with it here. In fact, years ago the U.S. asked Bolivia to join the world organization against coca production and the Bolivian president said no. So that´s where they left it. It is Bolivia´s biggest export. So why the drug war with Colombia and not Bolivia? Something to think about. On top of the museum they have a restaurant with items made from coca. Like green coca beer, coca cheescake (fabulous!), cookies, alcholic beverages, coca liquor, coca chocolate cake, etc. It is all so interesting. We bought a bag of coca leaves and learned from natives how to ¨masticate¨(not chew) the leaves on the side of your mouth. Contrary to what you may think, coca leaves do not give you a high. It is more of an anesthetic and it numbs the areas where you are masticating (usually the side of your tongue and the inside of your cheek). It also gives you energy, so if you do it at night you are probably not going to sleep very well, kind of like the effect of strong caffeine. We only tried this because it is legal here and a new experience. But the flavor is not so great, so they have other things you can add to enhance the flavor. They gave me banana ashes, which are moistened and rather sweet. You just put that in your mouth with the rest of the leaves and it tastes better. This is not something we are doing all the time, it was just interesting to see what all the hubbub is about coca leaves. Really nothing as far as I´m concerned.
Anyway, after 3 fun days in La Paz, we decided to head to the Amazon basin. Since La Paz is the highest capital in the world (at 3,600 meters or 11,811 feet) there was going to be a big temperature change when we took the bus down to 0 meters! The bus ride was a mere 16 hours and we got the thrill (terror?) of our lives when a pretty long stretch of the road was about 10 feet wide, no railings, and about a 2000 foot drop down into the canyon! And this was not even the Death Road (more about that later)! At times the bus tires were literally 6 inches from the edge.... Of course we saw this around dusk and then it got dark and we kept going! Crazy! We decided to go to sleep and forget about where we were driving. We arrived safe and sound at the charming jungle town of Rurrenabaque at around 7 am.
A Bolivian man came up to us immediately and asked if we wanted to go on a tour to the Pampas (another place you can´t really go yourself unless you buy a boat). Usually we NEVER go with someone who does that, but we were tired, he was promising extra perks like a discounted hotel, free drinks at a local bar, so at 9 am we were off on a tour with 6 other people. Benjamin from France, Georgette and Reynaldo also from France, and a family....Valerie from England, her husband Alfonso from Spain and their 31 year old son Martin. The people were all great! The tour was for three days and two nights and included all meals, sleeping accommodations, several trips in the motorized canoe to go animal sighting by day and night, fishing for piranhas, swimming with wild river dolphins, etc. All for $55 a person! Pretty cheap! Yes, you needed tons of sun block and DEET. Although the mosquitoes weren´t as bad as I thought they´d be in the Amazon! And we DID see tons of animals, birds and reptiles! The place where we stayed had its own alligator and giant black caiman swimming around freely, so we decided not to swim right there. But that didn´t stop me the next day from swimming in the river downstream, home to those very same alligators, caimans and crocodiles, not to mention those man-eating piranhas! One of the highlights was swimming with the wild river dolphins....they came up to me in the water and I would put my arms around their middle or hold onto their tails and they´d give me a ride! Then they would flip their tails and I´d let go and they´d come back to do it again. Most of the people chose NOT to go swimming in a potentially dangerous tributary of the Amazon. They weren´t just worried about the creatures in the water, but also the illnesses in the water that I won´t go into here, but which are pretty gross. Anyway, we saw all sorts of monkeys..howlers, spider monkeys, the cute tiny yellow ones with the big eyes, capuchins, etc. We also saw many alligators and crocodiles, big turtles, two anacondas (not too big), bright red and blue macaws, toucans, the famous (and tallest flying bird in the world, often 5 feet high) Jabiru stork in its huge 6 foot nest, and many Capybaras (the largest rodent in the world). It was a successful animal and bird-watching tour!
Back in Rurrenabaque we enjoyed the hot weather, had a great hotel for $11 USD with private bath, TV, all other amenities as well. Bolivia certainly is cheap! I had a hankering to go into the jungle, so we hired a private guide for two days and a night. Mario, our guide, was from the Tacana tribe and gave us a very interesting tour through the jungle, pointing out different plants, flowers and trees and giving an explanation of the medicinal properties of each. Unfortunately, this information will be lost when he is gone as he explained that the kids today aren´t interested in these things and now when they get sick they go to the pharmacy and get a pill. So Mario is the last generation of people who know which red and white flower to use and how to use it to stop alcoholism! (Yes, he claims that it works!!!!) At night we slept in hammocks with attached mosquito nets. In the middle of the night something put its front paws on my hammock because the hammock moved and I woke up suddenly, frightening whatever it was away. When I asked Mario the next day he said it was probably a jaguar or one of the other large cats!!!! Mario made our meals which were simple, but delicious. We ate them along side a bubbling creek. It was a great trip. And now time to say good-bye to the jungle, because we were headed to the Death Road. Couldn´t leave Bolivia without going on the MOST DANGEROUS ROAD IN THE WORLD!!!!! To see photos of this section, click here.
The border crossing from Argentina to Bolivia was a breeze...we got our visas back in Buenos Aires (Josue´s was free, I had to pay $135 USD!) and just walked across. Suddenly everything was about a tenth of the price in comparison to Argentina. There was a great market at the border, but we were taking the train to Uyuni, so we didn´t do much there. Uyuni is the town that lies on the edge of the largest salt flats in the world, and certainly they were something to see! Josue stayed back in Uyuni while I signed up for a tour. I don´t like tours, but in this case there was no choice because if you drive onto the flats yourself, you would probably end up lost, stuck on the flats and dead (it has happened.) The driver told us of a story about a friend of his who was driving across the flats and his car broke down. He had to walk 10 hours in the sun and by the time he reached his destination, he was completely blind. That is how white the salt is....with the sun reflecting off that, you can imagine the intensity. You MUST use sun block and have good sunglasses with you. It is hard to describe what it looks like to see nothing but white for as far as the eye can see. You´ll have to look at the photos. But it was incredible! In the middle of the flats there is an island, like an oasis, only it is very dry and has bunches of saguaro cacti and other desert scrub growing. Of course you walk up to the top and the view is just white, white, white. There are no roads on the flat, so you have to know where you are going. The experienced drivers determine their route according to the distant mountains. During this tour, I did several neat things. I stayed in a hotel that was completely made of salt. The outside was salt blocks, the inside had a salt floor, salt furniture and salt chandeliers. The salt flats are very high, around 4000 meters (13,123 feet) so you can´t move too quickly. We visited several lakes with flocks of flamingos, and one lake had red water!!!! That certainly was something to see. But I think the highlight was the sunrise I watched at 5:30 am at 5000 meters (16,500 feet!) in natural thermal waters while the temperature outside was 0 degrees! No one in my tour group would go in...but I´m glad I did. The sun rose over the mountains while I was sitting in a Bolivian natural bath tub. Fabulous! It was a little disconcerting when I got out and found out there was nowhere to change clothes and about 50 people milling around the baths!!!! You´d be surprised how creative you can be with a towel!
After Uyuni, Josue and I went to Potosí, the highest city in the world (according to Lonely Planet and in dispute in Wikipedia) at 4,067 meters (13,343 feet)! Potosi is a great place to buy indigenous musical instruments. One of my goals on this trip was to buy different Andes instruments. Many of my friends in Nicaragua are musicians and it´s always fun to have them over to my house and listen to them play. Not only do I want to have the instruments for these wonderful jam sessions, I also want to learn how to play the pan flute, or zampoña, as it is called in Spanish. Unfortunately, I did not buy instruments in Potosi, because I thought they would be cheaper in La Paz. But we did some fun things in the highest city in the world....we sang Karaoke and went out dancing. Bolivia plays Latin music (the kind I like) in its discos. For those of you who know Nicaragua and its famous, great, smooth rum Flor de Caña, Bolivia sells it! What a treat!
Next we went to Sucre where all the buildings downtown are white, the city itself was quite pretty. We just spent the day there, looking at the markets, eating an interesting lunch in the market that cost $1.00 USD. Just to let you know, we´ve been eating food in the local markets and off the streets, and we´ve been just fine. Sometimes that is the most interesting food. We´re back to eating llama, but I still prefer alpaca. Bolivia also serves a lot of vegetables and salads. If you go to a tourist type restaurant, of course you will spend more, maybe $10 USD each, including wine. There were also lots of musical instruments in Sucre, but I was dismayed to see that they were 2-3 times the price of the instruments in Potosí! I was worried that I had made a big mistake not buying them there. After our quick tour of Sucre, we hopped on the bus at night to La Paz.
Many tourists told us they didn´t like La Paz. Yes, it´s dirty and the traffic is terrible. But it is lively, colorful, musical, and an IN YOUR FACE city, kind of like Bangkok. It has a wonderful indigenous market, actually streets full of weavings, sweaters and other clothing made of alpaca, and all sorts of things. Our hotel was centrally located right between that artists´market and the Witch´s Market where you can buy llama fetuses (to put under your house for good luck), all types of potions to attract love, get rich, have good luck, or maybe other potions that you can use for the not-so-nice type of witchcraft! It was fascinating asking questions and looking over all the goods. Witchcraft is a big thing in Bolivia! The people are very superstitious.
All about Coca: Coca leaves are legal (not cocaine or marijuana!) in Bolivia and Peru. They are illegal in the other countries, though people sell the leaves openly in the streets of northern Argentina! There is a very interesting small museum dedicated to coca in La Paz. They go through its history, even telling how the original coca cola in the United States used coca leaves in its recipe. And how Sigmund Freud was the first important person to use the new chemically made cocaine, which he used until he developed nose cancer! The museum gives you all sorts of little interesting tidbits about the use of coca leaves and how the cocaine industry developed. You will be very interested to know that it is Bolivia, not Colombia, that is the biggest producer of coca in the world. I find it fascinating that the U.S. is concentrating so hard on eradicating the coca fields in Colombia, but has absolutely nothing to do with it here. In fact, years ago the U.S. asked Bolivia to join the world organization against coca production and the Bolivian president said no. So that´s where they left it. It is Bolivia´s biggest export. So why the drug war with Colombia and not Bolivia? Something to think about. On top of the museum they have a restaurant with items made from coca. Like green coca beer, coca cheescake (fabulous!), cookies, alcholic beverages, coca liquor, coca chocolate cake, etc. It is all so interesting. We bought a bag of coca leaves and learned from natives how to ¨masticate¨(not chew) the leaves on the side of your mouth. Contrary to what you may think, coca leaves do not give you a high. It is more of an anesthetic and it numbs the areas where you are masticating (usually the side of your tongue and the inside of your cheek). It also gives you energy, so if you do it at night you are probably not going to sleep very well, kind of like the effect of strong caffeine. We only tried this because it is legal here and a new experience. But the flavor is not so great, so they have other things you can add to enhance the flavor. They gave me banana ashes, which are moistened and rather sweet. You just put that in your mouth with the rest of the leaves and it tastes better. This is not something we are doing all the time, it was just interesting to see what all the hubbub is about coca leaves. Really nothing as far as I´m concerned.
Anyway, after 3 fun days in La Paz, we decided to head to the Amazon basin. Since La Paz is the highest capital in the world (at 3,600 meters or 11,811 feet) there was going to be a big temperature change when we took the bus down to 0 meters! The bus ride was a mere 16 hours and we got the thrill (terror?) of our lives when a pretty long stretch of the road was about 10 feet wide, no railings, and about a 2000 foot drop down into the canyon! And this was not even the Death Road (more about that later)! At times the bus tires were literally 6 inches from the edge.... Of course we saw this around dusk and then it got dark and we kept going! Crazy! We decided to go to sleep and forget about where we were driving. We arrived safe and sound at the charming jungle town of Rurrenabaque at around 7 am.
A Bolivian man came up to us immediately and asked if we wanted to go on a tour to the Pampas (another place you can´t really go yourself unless you buy a boat). Usually we NEVER go with someone who does that, but we were tired, he was promising extra perks like a discounted hotel, free drinks at a local bar, so at 9 am we were off on a tour with 6 other people. Benjamin from France, Georgette and Reynaldo also from France, and a family....Valerie from England, her husband Alfonso from Spain and their 31 year old son Martin. The people were all great! The tour was for three days and two nights and included all meals, sleeping accommodations, several trips in the motorized canoe to go animal sighting by day and night, fishing for piranhas, swimming with wild river dolphins, etc. All for $55 a person! Pretty cheap! Yes, you needed tons of sun block and DEET. Although the mosquitoes weren´t as bad as I thought they´d be in the Amazon! And we DID see tons of animals, birds and reptiles! The place where we stayed had its own alligator and giant black caiman swimming around freely, so we decided not to swim right there. But that didn´t stop me the next day from swimming in the river downstream, home to those very same alligators, caimans and crocodiles, not to mention those man-eating piranhas! One of the highlights was swimming with the wild river dolphins....they came up to me in the water and I would put my arms around their middle or hold onto their tails and they´d give me a ride! Then they would flip their tails and I´d let go and they´d come back to do it again. Most of the people chose NOT to go swimming in a potentially dangerous tributary of the Amazon. They weren´t just worried about the creatures in the water, but also the illnesses in the water that I won´t go into here, but which are pretty gross. Anyway, we saw all sorts of monkeys..howlers, spider monkeys, the cute tiny yellow ones with the big eyes, capuchins, etc. We also saw many alligators and crocodiles, big turtles, two anacondas (not too big), bright red and blue macaws, toucans, the famous (and tallest flying bird in the world, often 5 feet high) Jabiru stork in its huge 6 foot nest, and many Capybaras (the largest rodent in the world). It was a successful animal and bird-watching tour!
Back in Rurrenabaque we enjoyed the hot weather, had a great hotel for $11 USD with private bath, TV, all other amenities as well. Bolivia certainly is cheap! I had a hankering to go into the jungle, so we hired a private guide for two days and a night. Mario, our guide, was from the Tacana tribe and gave us a very interesting tour through the jungle, pointing out different plants, flowers and trees and giving an explanation of the medicinal properties of each. Unfortunately, this information will be lost when he is gone as he explained that the kids today aren´t interested in these things and now when they get sick they go to the pharmacy and get a pill. So Mario is the last generation of people who know which red and white flower to use and how to use it to stop alcoholism! (Yes, he claims that it works!!!!) At night we slept in hammocks with attached mosquito nets. In the middle of the night something put its front paws on my hammock because the hammock moved and I woke up suddenly, frightening whatever it was away. When I asked Mario the next day he said it was probably a jaguar or one of the other large cats!!!! Mario made our meals which were simple, but delicious. We ate them along side a bubbling creek. It was a great trip. And now time to say good-bye to the jungle, because we were headed to the Death Road. Couldn´t leave Bolivia without going on the MOST DANGEROUS ROAD IN THE WORLD!!!!! To see photos of this section, click here.
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