Not really or I would blog more often. But I am waiting for Ro to do whatever it is she does so I am here in a net café and suppose I should update this.
Weeeeellllllll! We are in Cusco, our most touristy destination so far. Actually I really like it! It is a beautiful city and although there is a McDonalds around the main plaza, it is so discreet that I didn't even realise what kind of establishment it was until someone told me. The Plaza de Armas is an absolute cracker - Peru seems to do plazas quite well. The only problem is that you are constantly attacked by people offering massages, meals and cheap paintings. There are so many people selling so many paintings and they are so cheap that Ro suspects they are paint-by-numbers jobs executed by slave children and I suppose there is no reason why she might be wrong.
FACT ABOUT PERU! They looove Aerosmith.
We went to the Nazca lines and despite my initial reservations (not so much about the lines but about spending money; four months of travel have not cooled off my inherent stinginess) they were grrrrreat. Really they were. The plane made both of us feel a little sick though; I was quite pleased it was only a half hour flight. But apart from the surprising clutch of nausea it was grand. The spaceman! So creepy! The hummingbird! So elaborate! The tree! Less interesting but aesthetically pleasing. In fact I bought a little wire-cut necklace of it from an old hippie who told me that he was a true artisan and all the other guys running jewellery stalls were hacks. He showed me how he cut the necklaces which was genuinely quite impressive.
I also bought a Nazca Lines tourist shirt which Ro has since been mocking me for(my thriftiness apparently does not extend to vile tourist parephernalia). Personally I think it is very cool. It has pictures of the Inca astrological calendar on it, which is a bit silly because it has since been debunked that the Nazca lines were supposed to represent the calendar, but I rather think this adds to its charm.
That afternoon... we went swimming! There was a pool at our hostel. It was such a great hostel, in fact, that we are now staying at their sister hostel in Cusco. Also very nice (probably not as nice but the people are good.) And we made friends with a wacky Englishman called Rob who works as an English teacher in Saudi Arabia and played Connect 4 with him. I was amazing at it to be honest. Ro also managed to make the boy who worked at the hostel fall in love with her so nice one, Ro.
Oh but the bus to Cusco was a NIGHTMARE. Probably the worst bus trip yet. It was supposed to leave Nazca at 8 but we were informed it wouldn't leave until 9. This was actually good news because we had just realised that we left our bathers and towels back at the hostel, so we ran back to get them. We didn't eat dinner because they usually give that to you on the bus, but they screwed up and didn't get me a vegetarian meal (even though it said on my ticket, 'VEGETARIAN'. So dinner was a miniscule packet of plain potato chips until morning, when I recieved a chemical-tasting sliver of orange cake and half a foam cup of lukewarm black instant coffee. "Breakfast," apparently.
I couldn't eat dessert either because it was a cup full of gelatinous crap (possibly jelly). Ro wasn't very tempted by hers either and left it on her tray. Later it fell off the tray and much much later, twelve hours later in fact, I found it for her! In the lining of the lovely felt hat I had bought for Mark in La Paz.
There was a poor dear little thing sitting behind us, about four years old, who had been on the bus since Lima. She didn't cry and hardly whimpered but periodically vomited while her mum held up a plastic bag and sprinted off to the toilet with it. It was a really nauseating journey, actually. Ro and I were both quite motion sick and people seemed to be rushing to the loo left right and centre. We were on the top (most overnight buses are double deckers, and the plebs like us go on the top) but when we got out of the bus for a wee break there was a monumental pile of vomit sitting outside the toilet. One must train oneself not to require said facility on these journeys.
We took some Phenergan which helped with the motion sicky and got me four hours of sleep. Shame the trip was thirteen hours long, really. We were meant to arrive at 10 - in fact I've heard of people doing the trip in 9 hours - but we didn't get to the station until 12.30. Then we got absolutely flooded by taxi touts, who are a bit dodgy in Peru, so you have to check their lanyard thingy. We were with two other Aussies and a legitimate yet sneaky taxidriver tried to charge us 20 soles ($8?) to go to the station. But soon enough he seemed willing enough to take us there for 8 soles.
THEN our room at the hostel wasn't ready! Was a bit annoying but didn't matter too much since I was so hungry I couldn't speak by this stage. So we went to a café that served all-day breakfast and I ate scrambled eggs and drank coffee and felt magnificent (comparatively). Anyway, I guess that was the end of the tearful journey and things were much happier from then on in.
We haven't done much in Cusco yet! We'll go to Macchu Picchu soon OBVS. It's a good place just to wander though, and there are an obscene amount of markets. There is some really great international food, too. We went to a brilliant Israeli restaurant the other day. 10 soles ($4) for a semi-set menu - I got hummus and pita, falafel with fries and salad, a drink and a pancake with dulce de leche all of which was brilliantly tasty. Oh and they gave us a starter of bread and dip too as if all that other stuff wasn't enough. And there is a pretty famous place called Jack's that you have to queue up to get into, but the food is great, the milkshakes excellent and the servings obscenely generous (I couldn't finish my meal, which typically is not a common scenario in my life).
There are many humourous tourists here, up to their eyeballs in khaki for no apparent reason (disguising themnselves from the llamas I suppose) with enormous SLRS just waiting to be liberated from their ostentatiously knifeable shoulder straps. In fact I've never been in such a touristy place in my life. There are lots of little alleyways full of gringo hangouts and the occasional person offering to sell you marijuana. Apparently they offer cocaine too, but it hasn't happened to me yet. In fact the only times anyone's offered drugs have been when I'm hanging out with someone of the male persuasion. Perhaps in Peruvian culture it is considered unladylike to snort stimulants from a toilet seat. Anyway, I find the sells slightly amusing as they tend to come from people whose main line of work is touting. "Dinner amigos! Very good, very cheap! Happy hour! I give you free Pisco Sour!" And then sotto voce, "I sell you weed, good weed for you amigo."
I have so much crap in my pack and I don't want to get rid of ANY of it. Travelling is traumatic. I have two pairs of silly trousers now. And the top section of my back is overflowing with ludicrous gifts. Oh well. When I get back to BA I can get rid of my cold weather gear. I guess.
Man. Who needs a drink?
Love love love
Lion
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
from Arequipa to Nazca to see a few lines
sometimes overnight buses are a blissful and cheap way to time-travel between cities: get on a bus in Mendoza, go to sleep, blank out the next 12 hours and wake up in Córdoba. awesome!
then there are those times when they are a sleepless 10 hours spent listening to the man behind you snoring, periodically bumping against the freezing window, feeling motion-sick as the bus winds through the mountains in the dark, eating crap food (that you´re vaguely worried will make you sick; how long ago was this beef cooked?!) and then being unceremoniously deposited on the streets of a strange new town in pre-dawn darkness and trying to sort through the mobs of hassling taxi drivers and folk selling rooms in their hostels. ¨amiga, amiga!¨
luckily, we booked a brilliant hostel for Nazca: they said (in spanish that i half-understood in my bleary state), ¨the beds you have booked are still occupied, but here, in the meanwhile you can have this room (worth twice the one you booked): feel free to sleep in the beds, use the soap (soap! we got hotel soap!) and generally mess it up until your actual room is ready at midday.¨
so we slept til midday. ahhhhhh. thanks guys.
so why are we in Nazca? well firstly because I wanted to see the Nazca lines and Lion agreed to come to see them with me, and secondly because we are then going to Cuzco for Macchu Picchu and the road from Arequipa to Cuzco is blocked by ¨manifestaciónes¨ (protests) and there are no bus companies running that route except really dodgy ones that might apparently dump you miles outside Cuzco and force you to hitchhike whilst protesters are throwing rocks at you (one story we heard from another traveller). alternately, they might take backstreets around the protests and construct makeshift bridges of wood for the buses to cross (our friend Martin´s experience). so while that does sound like a fun adventure (except for the rock part), we figured the Nazca route might be a bit easier.
it´s quite odd to be finally going to Macchu Picchu, one of the supposed ¨must see¨, ¨this will be the highlight of your trip¨ destinations. not to be ¨one of those people¨, but I have a feeling my highlights are going to be things like the time we went into a step-back-in-time diner in the middle of nowhere in Chile, truly resembling a scene in a Western, where all the customers were drunk old men enjoying their siesta a little too much. but I am sure that Macchu Picchu will be great, and I will have to admit to being a pretentious jerk and eat my words within days.
by the way: I did get a bit sick in Chivay, which was boring, but I got better real quick and because we had to stay an extra night we ended up seeing a pretty big street party: the folks of Chivay were having the 184th anniversary of their town. other than donkeys and llamas and dancers galore, we saw a giant sculpture of bamboo being constructed during the day, which we took to be some kind of street art until Lion realised the entire thing was covered in live fireworks. (there were also a few extra firewords on the ground, which small children were playing with.)
we heard it set off at midnight and rushed out onto the street (look, I´d like to say we partied with the locals all night and all that, but guys, there was still ice in the gutters at midday the next day: it was TOO COLD). anyway, picture spinning wheels of fire, spraying sparks all over the streets, and cheering crowds. it was WACKY. so something good came of the lettuce-incident!
we have 45 days left now!! ...oh my goodness, that´s not very long at all!!
then there are those times when they are a sleepless 10 hours spent listening to the man behind you snoring, periodically bumping against the freezing window, feeling motion-sick as the bus winds through the mountains in the dark, eating crap food (that you´re vaguely worried will make you sick; how long ago was this beef cooked?!) and then being unceremoniously deposited on the streets of a strange new town in pre-dawn darkness and trying to sort through the mobs of hassling taxi drivers and folk selling rooms in their hostels. ¨amiga, amiga!¨
luckily, we booked a brilliant hostel for Nazca: they said (in spanish that i half-understood in my bleary state), ¨the beds you have booked are still occupied, but here, in the meanwhile you can have this room (worth twice the one you booked): feel free to sleep in the beds, use the soap (soap! we got hotel soap!) and generally mess it up until your actual room is ready at midday.¨
so we slept til midday. ahhhhhh. thanks guys.
so why are we in Nazca? well firstly because I wanted to see the Nazca lines and Lion agreed to come to see them with me, and secondly because we are then going to Cuzco for Macchu Picchu and the road from Arequipa to Cuzco is blocked by ¨manifestaciónes¨ (protests) and there are no bus companies running that route except really dodgy ones that might apparently dump you miles outside Cuzco and force you to hitchhike whilst protesters are throwing rocks at you (one story we heard from another traveller). alternately, they might take backstreets around the protests and construct makeshift bridges of wood for the buses to cross (our friend Martin´s experience). so while that does sound like a fun adventure (except for the rock part), we figured the Nazca route might be a bit easier.
it´s quite odd to be finally going to Macchu Picchu, one of the supposed ¨must see¨, ¨this will be the highlight of your trip¨ destinations. not to be ¨one of those people¨, but I have a feeling my highlights are going to be things like the time we went into a step-back-in-time diner in the middle of nowhere in Chile, truly resembling a scene in a Western, where all the customers were drunk old men enjoying their siesta a little too much. but I am sure that Macchu Picchu will be great, and I will have to admit to being a pretentious jerk and eat my words within days.
by the way: I did get a bit sick in Chivay, which was boring, but I got better real quick and because we had to stay an extra night we ended up seeing a pretty big street party: the folks of Chivay were having the 184th anniversary of their town. other than donkeys and llamas and dancers galore, we saw a giant sculpture of bamboo being constructed during the day, which we took to be some kind of street art until Lion realised the entire thing was covered in live fireworks. (there were also a few extra firewords on the ground, which small children were playing with.)
we heard it set off at midnight and rushed out onto the street (look, I´d like to say we partied with the locals all night and all that, but guys, there was still ice in the gutters at midday the next day: it was TOO COLD). anyway, picture spinning wheels of fire, spraying sparks all over the streets, and cheering crowds. it was WACKY. so something good came of the lettuce-incident!
we have 45 days left now!! ...oh my goodness, that´s not very long at all!!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Ro is Sick of Peru
Oh wait I mean she is sick in Peru. Yes it is true, the Deital Department of Health and Hiking has once more blighted us. We have made our way to the APPARENTLY breathtaking Colca canyon. Yesterday we arrived in Chivay after ascending on the old bussy-wuss to a monumental 4700m (Chivay itself is only 3700, though. Still high enough for me to get a spot of head pain.)
Upon arrival we caught a cab to the hot springs just out of town. Well, not hot springs but hot pools. They weren't quite hot enough for my liking but they were pretty good, surrounded by cliffs. One thing that really tickled my fancy was the woman coming around with a menu in a plastic sleeve. So you could order drinks and food to ingest whilst luxuriating in the thermal baths! Hel-lo! That sort of thing is not usually my bag, but the fact that I could actually afford it made it more my bag. So I went craaazy and got a Cuba Libre. Ro went insaaane and got a Sangria. Ugh. Nightmare. The woman came and bought them to us with a little bendy straw in each and it was quite a thrill.
Since we were already firmly ensconsced in the lap of luxury we decided to go hogwild and get a half-hour massage too! Talk about hedonism! Ro was massaged by a nice friendly looking Peruvian woman in a comfortably-fitting t-shirts and cotton trousers. I was massaged by a sweaty gentleman who appeared to be an amateur boxer, attired in a gorgeous shiny singlet that stretched invitingly over his magnificent gut and a pair of red budgie-smugglers that might have been a decent fit for Harry Potter. But he was very professional. And the entire exercise, baths and rum and all included, worked out to about $20 each, which is really not so bad.
But thennn we woke up nice and early today, all ready to hike our way along the fine old canyon, when Ro woke up sick! We blame the lettuce. Sheesh guys, are you just trying to punish me for buying a walking pole or something? Or perhaps this additional blight is because I accidentally said ¨shite¨ when I bumped into some holy table in the delightful convent in Arequipa the other day. (A woman with red hair gave me a filthy look, but why? At least I had the decency to Gaelicise it.) Eeeeeeentonces (that is Spanish for ¨So.¨ A little touch of culture for you) we might just catch an ol' autobus to the canyon instead.
Oh by the way. Ro and Greg both kindly informed me that the reason no one comments much is because it is a labyrinthine and near-impossible process so I ´spose you are all forgiven.
Where's the love y'all? I don't know.
Caro
Upon arrival we caught a cab to the hot springs just out of town. Well, not hot springs but hot pools. They weren't quite hot enough for my liking but they were pretty good, surrounded by cliffs. One thing that really tickled my fancy was the woman coming around with a menu in a plastic sleeve. So you could order drinks and food to ingest whilst luxuriating in the thermal baths! Hel-lo! That sort of thing is not usually my bag, but the fact that I could actually afford it made it more my bag. So I went craaazy and got a Cuba Libre. Ro went insaaane and got a Sangria. Ugh. Nightmare. The woman came and bought them to us with a little bendy straw in each and it was quite a thrill.
Since we were already firmly ensconsced in the lap of luxury we decided to go hogwild and get a half-hour massage too! Talk about hedonism! Ro was massaged by a nice friendly looking Peruvian woman in a comfortably-fitting t-shirts and cotton trousers. I was massaged by a sweaty gentleman who appeared to be an amateur boxer, attired in a gorgeous shiny singlet that stretched invitingly over his magnificent gut and a pair of red budgie-smugglers that might have been a decent fit for Harry Potter. But he was very professional. And the entire exercise, baths and rum and all included, worked out to about $20 each, which is really not so bad.
But thennn we woke up nice and early today, all ready to hike our way along the fine old canyon, when Ro woke up sick! We blame the lettuce. Sheesh guys, are you just trying to punish me for buying a walking pole or something? Or perhaps this additional blight is because I accidentally said ¨shite¨ when I bumped into some holy table in the delightful convent in Arequipa the other day. (A woman with red hair gave me a filthy look, but why? At least I had the decency to Gaelicise it.) Eeeeeeentonces (that is Spanish for ¨So.¨ A little touch of culture for you) we might just catch an ol' autobus to the canyon instead.
Oh by the way. Ro and Greg both kindly informed me that the reason no one comments much is because it is a labyrinthine and near-impossible process so I ´spose you are all forgiven.
Where's the love y'all? I don't know.
Caro
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
copacabana, running out money and heading for Peru
Hey all!
So after our last post Caro and I both got sick within a day of one another (not very sick, just enough to have to each spend a day in bed) and by the time we were better we were sick of La Paz and didn´t want to wait around another couple of days getting our strength back and getting everything sorted out again, so we didn´t go hiking on the Choro trail. This is still a source of some misery to me.
However, we went to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca instead and that was lovely.
We caught a minibus (another one) from La Paz. After about two hours´ driving, the minibus stopped next to Lake Titicaca and the rest of the bus got out and wandered off. ¨They must all be getting off at this town,¨ we thought, remaining on the bus. Not so. Two armed sailors (Bolivia has a Navy, and yet not a coastline) wandered up to our bus and indicated that we should get out. After a little bantering in Spanish we established that they wanted us to catch a ¨ferry¨ (a small rickety motorboat, through the wooden boards of which we could see water below) to the other side of the lake, and that the minibus would meet us over there. ¨Um... how?¨ we wondered. The mystery was soon solved when we saw the minibus drive onto a similarly rickety wooden barge. We all made it across okay.
Copacabana in Bolivia is not the Copacabana that the song is about... that place is in Brazil. Nevertheless it´s a fairly peaceful town on the bank of what appears to be an ocean but is actually high-altitude Lake Titicaca.
There is an island in this lake, called Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) which most people catch a ferry to from Copacabana. However since we missed the Choro trek, Caro and I and our new friend Martin (from Germany, who we met on the minibus from La Paz) decided to hike 17 kilometers to another town on the edge of the peninsula, and hire a motorboat from there to take us to the island.
The trek was beautiful; it went along the shoreline of Lake Titicaca most of the way, past all these little farming villages with donkeys and llamas and pigs and cows and sheep and dogs gazing at us from beside the dirt road.
Halfway along we saw a ¨floating island¨. Way back in the day, some folk in Bolivia and Peru used to live on floating islands built from reeds, fishing for trout all day. Supposedly some people still live like this but it is difficult to know whether this is true or not because all the ¨floating islands¨ advertised by tour companies are now just (quite literally) built for tourists. But since we were walking past, we went to have a look anyway. It was kind of cool, I guess. They were using empty plastic drink bottles, tied together, to support the raft, as I could see through the reed fronds hanging down. I don´t think that´s quite traditional but I suppose it´s pretty sensible. The guy running us, in answer to Martin´s question, said that he lived there because ¨there is great fresh fish and the tourists come to see the raft¨. We appreciated his honesty.
Catching a little motorboat from the end of the peninsula was pretty fun - again, we could see the water through the wooden planks, but we made it across okay. Our driver (who saw us walking along the road and ran out to offer the services of his boat) dropped us at the island, not at the usual landing bay, but at what appeared to be a small cliff. ¨There is a little path up there,¨ he told us, ¨You can walk to the town from there. Twenty minutes.¨
Forty hard-slog minutes later, we did in fact reach the town. And then we had the new dilemma of trying to find something to eat, exhausted after hiking all day (hiking at altitude is kind of tough by the way) because everything was closed - the locals were having a fiesta. This means they were all down at the plaza in their Sunday suits (men) and shiny party dresses (women), swigging from beer bottles and dancing around drunkenly. But we found an open restaurant eventually and boy howdy was it good to eat!
My bed had a window at the end of it. Miraculously, I somehow awoke in time to watch the sun rise over the lake without getting out of bed. It was pretty great.
We walked around Isla del Sol a bit the next day and then caught a ferry ¨back to Copacabana¨. This meant, we discovered, first being deposited at the other end of the island for an hour and a half, and being forced to pay 5 Bolivianos to get off the boat. Not that good of a time for Caro and I, since we were once again starving (and badly needed lunch), but also because we had run out of cash. There is no ATM on the island, obviously, but what we didn´t realise before we left La Paz is that there is no ATM on Copacabana either. We knew we were going to be pushing it with money, but after having to pay that 5Bs we had to borrow money from Martin for lunch.
It would be okay, we reckoned, because we´d be back to Copacabana before 5pm and we could get a cash advance from the bank. Well, after this ¨now you have an hour and a half to wait on the island¨ that we were not expecting from the ferry, we did not get back to Copacabana until after 5pm and the bank was shut. It did not open again until 2.30pm the next day.
Caro and I spent the intervening time living on a few emergency US dollars hidden in Caro´s pack, about $5 worth of Chilean currency I was planning on taking back to Australia as a souvenier (changed for a pretty poor rate, since we were miles from Chile), and some torn Bolivian bank notes that we´d been hoarding for a while (we begged the girl at our hostel for some sticky tape to fix them up again - bingo, another 40 Bolivianos! magic!)
Anyway, the bank eventually opened, I eventually got through the inevitably huge queue and we eventually got enough money to pay for our accomodation and leave town!
After a slightly hellish night bus and bording crossing we are now in Arequipa, Peru. Hurray! It is already clearly richer than Bolivia here, which for some reason feels really strange. For example:
So after our last post Caro and I both got sick within a day of one another (not very sick, just enough to have to each spend a day in bed) and by the time we were better we were sick of La Paz and didn´t want to wait around another couple of days getting our strength back and getting everything sorted out again, so we didn´t go hiking on the Choro trail. This is still a source of some misery to me.
However, we went to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca instead and that was lovely.
We caught a minibus (another one) from La Paz. After about two hours´ driving, the minibus stopped next to Lake Titicaca and the rest of the bus got out and wandered off. ¨They must all be getting off at this town,¨ we thought, remaining on the bus. Not so. Two armed sailors (Bolivia has a Navy, and yet not a coastline) wandered up to our bus and indicated that we should get out. After a little bantering in Spanish we established that they wanted us to catch a ¨ferry¨ (a small rickety motorboat, through the wooden boards of which we could see water below) to the other side of the lake, and that the minibus would meet us over there. ¨Um... how?¨ we wondered. The mystery was soon solved when we saw the minibus drive onto a similarly rickety wooden barge. We all made it across okay.
Copacabana in Bolivia is not the Copacabana that the song is about... that place is in Brazil. Nevertheless it´s a fairly peaceful town on the bank of what appears to be an ocean but is actually high-altitude Lake Titicaca.
There is an island in this lake, called Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) which most people catch a ferry to from Copacabana. However since we missed the Choro trek, Caro and I and our new friend Martin (from Germany, who we met on the minibus from La Paz) decided to hike 17 kilometers to another town on the edge of the peninsula, and hire a motorboat from there to take us to the island.
The trek was beautiful; it went along the shoreline of Lake Titicaca most of the way, past all these little farming villages with donkeys and llamas and pigs and cows and sheep and dogs gazing at us from beside the dirt road.
Halfway along we saw a ¨floating island¨. Way back in the day, some folk in Bolivia and Peru used to live on floating islands built from reeds, fishing for trout all day. Supposedly some people still live like this but it is difficult to know whether this is true or not because all the ¨floating islands¨ advertised by tour companies are now just (quite literally) built for tourists. But since we were walking past, we went to have a look anyway. It was kind of cool, I guess. They were using empty plastic drink bottles, tied together, to support the raft, as I could see through the reed fronds hanging down. I don´t think that´s quite traditional but I suppose it´s pretty sensible. The guy running us, in answer to Martin´s question, said that he lived there because ¨there is great fresh fish and the tourists come to see the raft¨. We appreciated his honesty.
Catching a little motorboat from the end of the peninsula was pretty fun - again, we could see the water through the wooden planks, but we made it across okay. Our driver (who saw us walking along the road and ran out to offer the services of his boat) dropped us at the island, not at the usual landing bay, but at what appeared to be a small cliff. ¨There is a little path up there,¨ he told us, ¨You can walk to the town from there. Twenty minutes.¨
Forty hard-slog minutes later, we did in fact reach the town. And then we had the new dilemma of trying to find something to eat, exhausted after hiking all day (hiking at altitude is kind of tough by the way) because everything was closed - the locals were having a fiesta. This means they were all down at the plaza in their Sunday suits (men) and shiny party dresses (women), swigging from beer bottles and dancing around drunkenly. But we found an open restaurant eventually and boy howdy was it good to eat!
My bed had a window at the end of it. Miraculously, I somehow awoke in time to watch the sun rise over the lake without getting out of bed. It was pretty great.
We walked around Isla del Sol a bit the next day and then caught a ferry ¨back to Copacabana¨. This meant, we discovered, first being deposited at the other end of the island for an hour and a half, and being forced to pay 5 Bolivianos to get off the boat. Not that good of a time for Caro and I, since we were once again starving (and badly needed lunch), but also because we had run out of cash. There is no ATM on the island, obviously, but what we didn´t realise before we left La Paz is that there is no ATM on Copacabana either. We knew we were going to be pushing it with money, but after having to pay that 5Bs we had to borrow money from Martin for lunch.
It would be okay, we reckoned, because we´d be back to Copacabana before 5pm and we could get a cash advance from the bank. Well, after this ¨now you have an hour and a half to wait on the island¨ that we were not expecting from the ferry, we did not get back to Copacabana until after 5pm and the bank was shut. It did not open again until 2.30pm the next day.
Caro and I spent the intervening time living on a few emergency US dollars hidden in Caro´s pack, about $5 worth of Chilean currency I was planning on taking back to Australia as a souvenier (changed for a pretty poor rate, since we were miles from Chile), and some torn Bolivian bank notes that we´d been hoarding for a while (we begged the girl at our hostel for some sticky tape to fix them up again - bingo, another 40 Bolivianos! magic!)
Anyway, the bank eventually opened, I eventually got through the inevitably huge queue and we eventually got enough money to pay for our accomodation and leave town!
After a slightly hellish night bus and bording crossing we are now in Arequipa, Peru. Hurray! It is already clearly richer than Bolivia here, which for some reason feels really strange. For example:
- People selling empanadas (yummm) and fruit juice (yummm) and magazines (muy interesante!) are selling them from shops, rather than little trolleys on the street;
- I haven´t seen any little old ladies in traditional dress selling piles of mandarins/bananas/eggs laid out on cloth on the road;
- Haven´t (yet) seen any super-dodgy looking markets selling super-dodgy looking food;
- Even the advertisements on television look richer!!
And all kinds of other small things. Hell, even the beggars look richer! Also, people are taller and more European-looking. Some of them are taller than us!! Wiieerd.
Monday, June 8, 2009
We're not getting any Yunga
Hey hello gringos. I hope everyone is going well?
I am sort of curious about how actually reads this blog. Word on the street is that there are more than two of you, but I am not certain whether this is. If you read you should comment. It makes us post more when we feel we are not alone in the universe.
I had a great great great birthday! Thank you for asking. Ro and I went for a wonderful old hike down into a valley in Coroico. There was a river at the bottom thick with butterflies, including those enormous bright blue ones fringed with black around the edges of their wings that you think only exist in documentaries or something. A butterfly even landed on my shoe and chilled out there for a while which I am pretty sure means good luck. It was a lovely little patch of river; we only saw two other people and found a delightful watering hole to swim in, and then just lazed around in the sun.
The walk back up to town was kind of tough. It involved a spot of bushbashing our way up a steep hill. But it was worth every second of it. And it was a perfect day, probably the sunniest and warmest birthday I have ever had.
We were pretty beat by the time we climbed back up to town, so we went straight to Cafetál, a hostel restaurant that apparently does the best food in Coroico. I myself can only report on the quinoa casserole, but I can unreservedly say that it was extremely tasty. We also befriended a very nice girl, a student of art history from Amsterdam wearing a red poncho, and invited her to join us at our table. We had heard from someone in town that there was a fiesta on the top of the mountain that night. So we asked her if she wanted to check it out with us, which she did.
It was a very odd sort of celebration. When we arrived there were cars and taxis parked everywhere. The top of the hill was mainly bare, except for satellite towers and a church. And obviously cars and taxis, and lots of people, and little stalls, and a band playing pachanga music (this rubbishy genre that I truly hate, not entirely dissimilar to Michael Crawford singing Cat Empire songs, or maybe Ricky Martin's ¨Cup of Life¨ on repeat play) on a little stage.
Coroico is a wonderful place, one of my favourites that we have been to. It is lush and green, and we stayed at a beautiful hostel. The sort of place that calls itself an ¨Eco Reserve,¨ but unlike most ¨Ecotourism¨ it only cost $7 a night for a beautiful spacious double room, with enormous windows through which you could see hummingbirds and big squirrels and mysterious enormous rodents.
But nooowwwwww we are back in La Paz! Staying in a slightly less gringo part of town. Before we were on Jiminez, which is so gringo that stores in the surrounding streets have everything written in Hebrew to support the outrageous volume of Israelis in alpaca jumpers.
Tomorrow we hike again! A nice little three day baby called the El Choro trail. It leaves from high up in the mountains, almost 4700m, but then runs downhill, almost down to Coroico again in fact. We were both a bit worried that it might be a bit tough on our knees, all that walking downhill. So today I bought a walking stick and I think now I can officially announce that I am the sort of person who hikes! Congratulations me. And it was only $20 (a pair of poles is usually five times that amount, I don't know what kind of jerk blows that kind of money on glorified freakin' dowelling rods.) So those mountains should WATCH OUT.
One wacky thing about La Paz is that there are some quite decent restaurants of the Asian persuasian. Sorry, I will never say ¨Asian persuasion¨ again. Or will I? Before we went to Coroico I ate some pretty rad tenpura at an Asian fusion place (they accidentally served me shrimp at first which was odd since I ordered ¨Tempura de Verduras¨ off the ¨Menu Vegetariana¨ but boy were they apologetic when I embarrassedly pointed out that I don't eat seafood), and last night I got pad Thai at another Asian fusian place which was even better, and then tonight I ate tofu yakisoba at a modest yet enchanting Japanese place! BELIEVE IT OR NOT. Mannn it's great, being able to afford to dine out.
We'll be back on Saturday. Just in case you are wondering.
Love love love
Lion
I am sort of curious about how actually reads this blog. Word on the street is that there are more than two of you, but I am not certain whether this is. If you read you should comment. It makes us post more when we feel we are not alone in the universe.
I had a great great great birthday! Thank you for asking. Ro and I went for a wonderful old hike down into a valley in Coroico. There was a river at the bottom thick with butterflies, including those enormous bright blue ones fringed with black around the edges of their wings that you think only exist in documentaries or something. A butterfly even landed on my shoe and chilled out there for a while which I am pretty sure means good luck. It was a lovely little patch of river; we only saw two other people and found a delightful watering hole to swim in, and then just lazed around in the sun.
The walk back up to town was kind of tough. It involved a spot of bushbashing our way up a steep hill. But it was worth every second of it. And it was a perfect day, probably the sunniest and warmest birthday I have ever had.
We were pretty beat by the time we climbed back up to town, so we went straight to Cafetál, a hostel restaurant that apparently does the best food in Coroico. I myself can only report on the quinoa casserole, but I can unreservedly say that it was extremely tasty. We also befriended a very nice girl, a student of art history from Amsterdam wearing a red poncho, and invited her to join us at our table. We had heard from someone in town that there was a fiesta on the top of the mountain that night. So we asked her if she wanted to check it out with us, which she did.
It was a very odd sort of celebration. When we arrived there were cars and taxis parked everywhere. The top of the hill was mainly bare, except for satellite towers and a church. And obviously cars and taxis, and lots of people, and little stalls, and a band playing pachanga music (this rubbishy genre that I truly hate, not entirely dissimilar to Michael Crawford singing Cat Empire songs, or maybe Ricky Martin's ¨Cup of Life¨ on repeat play) on a little stage.
Coroico is a wonderful place, one of my favourites that we have been to. It is lush and green, and we stayed at a beautiful hostel. The sort of place that calls itself an ¨Eco Reserve,¨ but unlike most ¨Ecotourism¨ it only cost $7 a night for a beautiful spacious double room, with enormous windows through which you could see hummingbirds and big squirrels and mysterious enormous rodents.
But nooowwwwww we are back in La Paz! Staying in a slightly less gringo part of town. Before we were on Jiminez, which is so gringo that stores in the surrounding streets have everything written in Hebrew to support the outrageous volume of Israelis in alpaca jumpers.
Tomorrow we hike again! A nice little three day baby called the El Choro trail. It leaves from high up in the mountains, almost 4700m, but then runs downhill, almost down to Coroico again in fact. We were both a bit worried that it might be a bit tough on our knees, all that walking downhill. So today I bought a walking stick and I think now I can officially announce that I am the sort of person who hikes! Congratulations me. And it was only $20 (a pair of poles is usually five times that amount, I don't know what kind of jerk blows that kind of money on glorified freakin' dowelling rods.) So those mountains should WATCH OUT.
One wacky thing about La Paz is that there are some quite decent restaurants of the Asian persuasian. Sorry, I will never say ¨Asian persuasion¨ again. Or will I? Before we went to Coroico I ate some pretty rad tenpura at an Asian fusion place (they accidentally served me shrimp at first which was odd since I ordered ¨Tempura de Verduras¨ off the ¨Menu Vegetariana¨ but boy were they apologetic when I embarrassedly pointed out that I don't eat seafood), and last night I got pad Thai at another Asian fusian place which was even better, and then tonight I ate tofu yakisoba at a modest yet enchanting Japanese place! BELIEVE IT OR NOT. Mannn it's great, being able to afford to dine out.
We'll be back on Saturday. Just in case you are wondering.
Love love love
Lion
Friday, June 5, 2009
wacky transport day
hello everyone! let me tell you about our wacky transport day. it was one of those days where you spend most of it thinking, ¨boy we are definitely not in australia right now¨.
after la paz, we decided to go to a little town called coroico, a few hours and about 1500m down the mountain. most gringos do this journey by taking a mountain bike tour down ¨the world´s most dangerous road¨ but Lion wasn´t keen and I couldn´t be bothered so we just took the bus.
the ¨bus station¨ was apparently in a suburb of la paz called villa fatima, so we took a taxi. (you can´t fit on a bolivian bus with a backpack.) the taxi driver drove reasonably smoothly, except that at one point he took a wrong turning and thus decided to reverse approximately two blocks to get back to the turning. the rest of the traffic didn´t seem too impressed, but then again people honk for no apparent reason pretty much constantly here so maybe they didn´t mind?
(as an aside, it´s ridiculously cheap and fast to get a taxi in south america at any time, in any location. what´s wrong with our home city that taxis are so difficult?)
anyway, the bus station was an old service station that had been gutted out, and the buses were an eclectic collection of minibuses with cramped seating, each with a very pushy little old lady (bolivia does pushy old ladies VERY well) racing around the grounds yelling the destination and price of their minivan. as we arrived in the midst of this in our taxi, we were not even out of the car when we were accosted by about seven of these ladies yelling, ¨COROICO AMIGA? QUINCE BOLIVIANOS AMIGA! CORIOCO AMIGA? EN ESTE MOMENTO AMIGA¨
this kind of aggressive salesmanship happens almost everywhere in bolivia, and it´s not just targeted at gringos (well, maybe a bit more at gringos sometimes, but the minibus ladies yell at EVERYONE) - so we are a bit used to it now. however, as we were standing there with our packs surrounded by all these ladies I realised they all a foot shorter than us, and so rather than feeling confronted I couldn´t help finding the whole thing a bit funny.
anyway, we chose our Señora (pretty much randomly), and the driver strapped our packs to the top of the minibus as I watched nervously and wondered if they would make it to Coroico (they did), and then we piled in and waited.
Señora, who had assured us that the van was full and that it would be leaving ¨in este momento¨ (i.e. right away) ran off to recruit more customers. I wasn´t that surprised. (the minibuses don´t really have a departure time, they just leave when they are full of people. this works well in a busy city like la paz. however catching the minibus on a slow day, we later discovered, can be a loooong process). luckily, it didn´t take her long to find passengers this time, so when finally the microbus was nice and uncomfortably full we departed.
Lion was sitting in the front, on the gearbox, between the driver and a bolivian man whom (she would later discover) was bus-narcoleptic and kept falling asleep on her shoulder. to his credit though, he held her guitar for her. being in the front, she got a nice view of the driving style, which consisted of the driver crossing himself and muttering a short prayer each time he went to overtake. (but he was a pretty good driver really, most of the time he only drove on the wrong side of the road when there was nothing else coming.)
thus we headed out of the city (past a seedy love motel called ¨hotel paraíso, 24 horas entrada¨), and through a police checkpoint. every police checkpoint in bolivia is accompanied by rows and rows of stalls selling biscuits, drinks, fried chicken etc. the sellers come up to the bus window, holding armfuls of stuff they think you might want. or, as we discovered from watching everyone else, you can also shout your order to them. then they will race back to the stall and grab the bottle of water or whatever and try to get back to the bus before it departs again.
a group of young bolivian guys on our bus asked for a bottle of coke, but they were a little late about it and our bus started to take off just as the señorita passed the bottle through the window (and before they´d paid her). so she had to run after us, and the bus was through the checkpoint by then so they had to ask the driver to stop. ¨un momento, no pagé la señorita!¨. no, mate, you didn´t! by the time she had caught up to the bus she was pretty pissed off and NOT impressed by their fumbling around for change, which they still hadn´t found. ¨cinco bolivianos POR FAVOR!¨ she said again (not very politely despite the ¨por favor¨), rolling her eyes and panting.
anyway, then we were finally off onto the highway. Lion and I had heard it was going to be a four-hour trip, so we were pleased to see a sign that said it was only 82km to Coroico. ¨great!¨ we said to one another, ¨it won´t be far at all!¨ however, we were less reassured when the next sign said 97km. and then when the next sign (about five minutes down the road) said 60km, we started thinking maybe something wasn´t quite right. from here, the signage went back to 80km, down to 40km, back up to 65km, down to 40km, back up to 45km, and then was still saying 40km twenty minutes later.
the journey took two and a half hours, in the end. I still have no idea how far it was.
the most humourous thing about this journey for me (there were a lot of competitors) was the narcotics checkpoint. we saw the sign indicating we´d be reaching such a checkpoint in 500 metres, and looked at each other worriedly (NOT because we were carrying any drugs... we just weren´t looking forward to the wait, and having our backs searched, etc). but that happened was that the driver passed a list of the passengers´ names (which had never, at any point, been checked against any kind of ID) and the minibus sailed on through.
pretty sweet huh? be nice if customs in Australia was that easy!
we have since been through this checkpoint a second time, and I swear that what I saw was the ¨narcotics officer¨ passing a big yellow envelope to the driver, rather than the other way round? nooo idea what was going on there.
anyway now we are in Coroico, safe and sound! and it is lovely. it is in the Yungas, which is a mountain range covered in green sub-tropical rainforest complete with hummingbirds and big colourful butterflies and stunning views and a very, very cold river. there are all kinds of other stories to tell about Coroico but I am out of time. we went for a hike on lion´s birthday yesterday, which was quite difficult and also quite stunning.
anyway now I have to go and meet our new friend from the netherlands for dinner. maybe soon we will go on a three-day hike. good times!
hope you are all well!! xxx
after la paz, we decided to go to a little town called coroico, a few hours and about 1500m down the mountain. most gringos do this journey by taking a mountain bike tour down ¨the world´s most dangerous road¨ but Lion wasn´t keen and I couldn´t be bothered so we just took the bus.
the ¨bus station¨ was apparently in a suburb of la paz called villa fatima, so we took a taxi. (you can´t fit on a bolivian bus with a backpack.) the taxi driver drove reasonably smoothly, except that at one point he took a wrong turning and thus decided to reverse approximately two blocks to get back to the turning. the rest of the traffic didn´t seem too impressed, but then again people honk for no apparent reason pretty much constantly here so maybe they didn´t mind?
(as an aside, it´s ridiculously cheap and fast to get a taxi in south america at any time, in any location. what´s wrong with our home city that taxis are so difficult?)
anyway, the bus station was an old service station that had been gutted out, and the buses were an eclectic collection of minibuses with cramped seating, each with a very pushy little old lady (bolivia does pushy old ladies VERY well) racing around the grounds yelling the destination and price of their minivan. as we arrived in the midst of this in our taxi, we were not even out of the car when we were accosted by about seven of these ladies yelling, ¨COROICO AMIGA? QUINCE BOLIVIANOS AMIGA! CORIOCO AMIGA? EN ESTE MOMENTO AMIGA¨
this kind of aggressive salesmanship happens almost everywhere in bolivia, and it´s not just targeted at gringos (well, maybe a bit more at gringos sometimes, but the minibus ladies yell at EVERYONE) - so we are a bit used to it now. however, as we were standing there with our packs surrounded by all these ladies I realised they all a foot shorter than us, and so rather than feeling confronted I couldn´t help finding the whole thing a bit funny.
anyway, we chose our Señora (pretty much randomly), and the driver strapped our packs to the top of the minibus as I watched nervously and wondered if they would make it to Coroico (they did), and then we piled in and waited.
Señora, who had assured us that the van was full and that it would be leaving ¨in este momento¨ (i.e. right away) ran off to recruit more customers. I wasn´t that surprised. (the minibuses don´t really have a departure time, they just leave when they are full of people. this works well in a busy city like la paz. however catching the minibus on a slow day, we later discovered, can be a loooong process). luckily, it didn´t take her long to find passengers this time, so when finally the microbus was nice and uncomfortably full we departed.
Lion was sitting in the front, on the gearbox, between the driver and a bolivian man whom (she would later discover) was bus-narcoleptic and kept falling asleep on her shoulder. to his credit though, he held her guitar for her. being in the front, she got a nice view of the driving style, which consisted of the driver crossing himself and muttering a short prayer each time he went to overtake. (but he was a pretty good driver really, most of the time he only drove on the wrong side of the road when there was nothing else coming.)
thus we headed out of the city (past a seedy love motel called ¨hotel paraíso, 24 horas entrada¨), and through a police checkpoint. every police checkpoint in bolivia is accompanied by rows and rows of stalls selling biscuits, drinks, fried chicken etc. the sellers come up to the bus window, holding armfuls of stuff they think you might want. or, as we discovered from watching everyone else, you can also shout your order to them. then they will race back to the stall and grab the bottle of water or whatever and try to get back to the bus before it departs again.
a group of young bolivian guys on our bus asked for a bottle of coke, but they were a little late about it and our bus started to take off just as the señorita passed the bottle through the window (and before they´d paid her). so she had to run after us, and the bus was through the checkpoint by then so they had to ask the driver to stop. ¨un momento, no pagé la señorita!¨. no, mate, you didn´t! by the time she had caught up to the bus she was pretty pissed off and NOT impressed by their fumbling around for change, which they still hadn´t found. ¨cinco bolivianos POR FAVOR!¨ she said again (not very politely despite the ¨por favor¨), rolling her eyes and panting.
anyway, then we were finally off onto the highway. Lion and I had heard it was going to be a four-hour trip, so we were pleased to see a sign that said it was only 82km to Coroico. ¨great!¨ we said to one another, ¨it won´t be far at all!¨ however, we were less reassured when the next sign said 97km. and then when the next sign (about five minutes down the road) said 60km, we started thinking maybe something wasn´t quite right. from here, the signage went back to 80km, down to 40km, back up to 65km, down to 40km, back up to 45km, and then was still saying 40km twenty minutes later.
the journey took two and a half hours, in the end. I still have no idea how far it was.
the most humourous thing about this journey for me (there were a lot of competitors) was the narcotics checkpoint. we saw the sign indicating we´d be reaching such a checkpoint in 500 metres, and looked at each other worriedly (NOT because we were carrying any drugs... we just weren´t looking forward to the wait, and having our backs searched, etc). but that happened was that the driver passed a list of the passengers´ names (which had never, at any point, been checked against any kind of ID) and the minibus sailed on through.
pretty sweet huh? be nice if customs in Australia was that easy!
we have since been through this checkpoint a second time, and I swear that what I saw was the ¨narcotics officer¨ passing a big yellow envelope to the driver, rather than the other way round? nooo idea what was going on there.
anyway now we are in Coroico, safe and sound! and it is lovely. it is in the Yungas, which is a mountain range covered in green sub-tropical rainforest complete with hummingbirds and big colourful butterflies and stunning views and a very, very cold river. there are all kinds of other stories to tell about Coroico but I am out of time. we went for a hike on lion´s birthday yesterday, which was quite difficult and also quite stunning.
anyway now I have to go and meet our new friend from the netherlands for dinner. maybe soon we will go on a three-day hike. good times!
hope you are all well!! xxx
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)