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San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

I knew that getting out of San Pedro would be a challenge, but I thought I had timed it right. I was wrong.

Timing is pretty difficult in Latin America for a North American. Punctuality is encouraged and expected more than most places in the world short of Japan. To try to plan trips and meals and a life in a place where noone is on time and nothing ever happens by the clock is something of a challenge. Hence, I am stuck in Chile.

San Pedro is a tourist trap. In the purest sense of the word. The bus for Salta, Argentina only runs three days a week. It runs Friday morning. It left about an hour before I arrived. Timing.

There are a couple bus agencies that leave out of San Pedro, but for wheer honesty, I recommend Geminis. The other main agency told me a bunch of crap to try to get me to spend my money there. The moneychangers here are also ridiculously crooked. Use the ATM for mey if at all possible. San Pedro is also riddled with tourist agencies offering all manner of things to do like:

  • Bike Tours
  • Sandboarding
  • Geysers
  • Sightseeing

Me, personally; been there, done that. So I decided to use the couple days respite I had been given and catch up on some writing and learn the town. San Pedro really has one main street; Caracoles. You’ll find most of the restaurants here and a good number of gift shops. San Pedro also has the cheapest bandannas I have ever seen. Even cheaper than Wal-Mart in the USA, which is no mean feat.

The most important thing in San Pedro is this: do not eat cheap meat or consume cheap milk products. Things like cooling and refrigeration are considered something of a luxury this far out in the desert. Hence, many of the budget restaurants, simply do not have refrigerators for their food. It is not uncommon for the meat to simply sit out overnight. Be wary!

Food prices run the gambit in San Pedro, so shop around. I will tell you that you can pay whatever price you want and eat well here. I will tell you that you should spend a few lunches simply bouncing around to the nicer restaurants and just having a coffee or a beer. Each of the nicer restaurants generally has a special type of small layered bread and some amaaaazing sauces that they serve as a free appetizer. This stuff is great! There is a restaurant on the main drag that serves a vegetarian lasagna that I maintain is the best Italian food I have eaten in my entire life. I wish I could remember the name of that place.

I spent a pleasant couple days in San Pedro simply catching up on my journal writing. unfortunately, I didn’t write much about Chile, just about the other countries I had been lazy in documenting. San Pedro also has blindingly fast internet when compared to anywhere in Bolivia so I was finally able to back up all my pictures. Though, as I was holed up in a hotel room or a cafe writing most of the time, I didn’t take many pictures of the pueblo itself.

The hostel I stayed at, Hostal la Ruca ( a place I highly recommend), had a number of fantastic characters staying there as well. Among the best were Sophie and Nick. A couple who had been off traveling consecutively since 2008. They were full of great advice, neat stories, and smiles. I eventually even swapped ipod contents with Sophie and made off with all her good music!

San Pedro is absolutely perforated by hawkers. Every street you walk down you will be constantly waylayed and hollered at, sometimes even followed for blocks, by people trying to get you to come purchase their services or tours. Get ready for it.

My second morning in the city, I was feeling quite good after a decent nights sleep in the agreeable temperature and decided to go out for breakfast. As I was seated for my 3,500 peso breakfast, an older woman sat down at another table nearby. I asked her if she was flying solo this morning, and she informed me she was with someone.

“Here?” I queried. We were the only two people in the place.

“Well, not in the building, but I have a friend.”

“That must be very lovely for you. Congratulations on making a friend!” I joked. She was not amused.

Eventually she came and sat at my breakfast table and we swapped stories of traveling and the things we had seen. Then things got wierd.

“Well, you don’t seem American at all,” She said.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Well, you know, Americans are quite stupid.” The words seemed to float from her mouth and just hang there in the air for a tencount while I did mental monkeybars to keep a straight face and see where this was going. She obligingly continued.

“Americans, as a whole are so uncultured. They are oblivious to the world around them. They are rude, and ignorant, to be sure.”

I don’t know what my face looked like as she said all this. I was doing my best to keep stoic, but it certainly wasn’t easy. After several more minutes, I realized she actually had completely missed the fact that she had insulted me, my entire family, and the vast majority of everyone I had ever met. She just didn’t connect the dots. Every negative thing she said, she seemed to just be describing her own actions. Finally, I had had quite enough and put some money on the table for the bill and excused myself to go back to my journal.

A few days of rest and relaxation were a godsend after the trundling dust covered frozen highlands leaving of Atacama, but I was on a virginaly tight schedule. I had managed to pad two days into my schedule through sheer luck, but those days had been eaten alive by San Pedro bus schedule. Now it was time to get the heck outa Dodge. On the walk to the bus with Nick and Sophie, I encountered the delightful French Canadian girl from my ill fated Machu Pichy excursion. I feel like a retard because even now I can not remember her name! We talked for a while about what had transpired since we last crossed paths, and I found her to be genuinely good natured and honestly care about the people around her even though were were hapless traveling flotsam. This is of particular note as my experience with most French Canadians has been decidedly negative. Much like the old French woman I had breakfast with in San Pedro.

The bus ride from San Pedro, Chile to Salta, Argentina is no joke. The ride takes the better part of half a day, and covers a great deal of boring terrain and many, many curvy roads. I have gotten into the habit of packing motion sickness pills as I almost lost it a few times on particularly windy bus rides. Sophie confided in me that she often gets motion sick, but bravely declined my last motion pill, saying she should be fine.

This was not the case.

Eventually, Sophie rejoined us from her trip to the lavatory and I gave her my last motion pill in case things made a resurgence and she soldiered on. There was a strange old man sitting next to Sophie who, according to her, had been around almost the entire world. His wife had died a couple years back, and now he was traveling to Argentina, the one country he hadn’t really explored because he wanted to see it before he died.

Our traveling gentleman handed me his camera at one point, refusing to speak English, instead speaking in his native French and gesticulating with sign language. This, I decided, was worth being answered in kind. He wanted a picture of the landscape out my window. Instead, what he got was a fashion show of me, the Canadian next to me, Sophie, and every wild face we could possibly make as he wildly gestured and babbled for me to return his camera to him until we three were all laughing too hard to even lift a finger to click the camera buttons any more. I mean it when I say that this is the hardest any of us have laughed in our entire lives. This simple shenanigan is the funniest (sic) thing I did in my entire Latin American trip. Fun with cameras. Fun with seniors.

At the border crossing into Argentina, I met a monk of the Order of John the Baptist. He had been regaling Nick with wonderful Christian stories the whole bus ride. It nothing else, it made for a good picture.

After a LOOOONG bus ride watching random scenery and the fruits of the dreaded Canyon Lasers ™, we all arrived rather late in Salta, AR. When you get there, take a moment to talk to the employees of the local hostels wandering the terminal; they are quite helpful. There is free wireless at a bakery at the North(?) end of the terminal if you need to do some research. Welcome to Argentina. Let the games begin!

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The Atacama Exodus and the famed Chile Border Crossing; Uyuni Day 3

There were no neighbors. Just piles of rocks and holes in the ground. The fart smell of steam, the welcome scent of gas cans in orange pyramids on top of the jeeps. The Atacama Geysers.

This morning was cold, as I mentioned before, and nearly lightless. The geysers that had drawn us out of bed at around 4 a.m. As you can see I was still a little bit punchy.

All the cold and steam and early morning lead up to an amazing sunrise over more wild landscapes.

Driving through the wilds of the Atacama, we were promised a reward of natural hot springs and a delicious breakfast. The hot springs, we were told, had changing rooms built around them to shelter you fromt the wind and cold while you suited up and down. it was a beautiful sight.

The food had been getting better the whole trip. The first day was a little lackluster but had been improving the entire time. Today was no exception, though there is only so much you can do so far from what passes for civilization in Bolivia. From here it was off to the Chilean border. A border crossing that was notorious for not allowing anything resembling food or drink across. Everyone, myself included, was divesting themselves of food items, handing them over to people traveling into Bolivia or just throwing them in the garbage. The border was something of a minimalist statement. Yes, that dot in the distance is a guy on a bicycle. Yes, there are people crazier than me in the world.

For some reason, another girl who had to make the crossing with us thought she could sneak a llama fetus through the border. For a peek of what these look like, check this out. My first impression is that if they are stopping Pringles cans, they may balk at letting dessicated unborn animal carcasses. 😀

The border was pretty tame as far as crossings are concerned, other than waiting around for a while. One thing to note about crossing into Chile, by bus there is no fee. If you are flying into Chile, there are reciprocity fees totaling around $135 USD for a U.S. citizen. Since this whole trip is el cheapo, I’m glad I made it by bus. 🙂

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The Atacama High Desert; Day 2 of Uyuni Tour

It’s cold. The kind of cold that makes you think about what good firewood the bodies of your friends would make. We are all just meat popsicles. I can see my breath in the air in front of computer screen. We had two hours of power earlier from a gas generator somewhere on the premises growling away in the evil night. It was enough to cook some food and drink a toast with our strange band of travelers.

In the predawn flashlight my thermometer reads minus 8 Celsius… inside our hotel room. Yesterday was a picturesque but challenging day.

I first had an inkling of what we were in for when our guide bought a large sweatshirt at a snack stop in the morning. Seriously, the guides will not tell you how cold it is going to be. Our guide did warn us about the elevation; which in itself is no joke. 5000 meters above sea level is the real deal. Most of us had coca leaves and catalyst to chew on to alleviate some of the effects and I had some elevation sickness medication as well.

Even with all this it was quite easy to be short of breath after a short run, people were burning from the sunshine relatively quickly, and the cold was bitter even in full sunlight as there was little protection from the wind. For both sun and wind protection, I resort to bandanas. Again. I would encourage anyone traveling anywhere to bring several bandanas.

We did get to see some amazing rock sculptures while truckign through the desert. It really was this beautiful.

The rest of the day was less impressive to the color impaired people on the trip. We spent a large remainder of the day visiting lagoons of varied colors (red, green, blue, brown, silver, etc) and looking at the flamingoes that were indigenous to each pond.

Parts of the trip truly felt like another planet; As if we were stranded on another planet. Nothing but odd tracks through the rocks for as far as the eye could see. This is not a place to explore on your own unless you are insanely well prepared… and insane. Trust me, stay on the barely beaten path for Atacama and Uyuni.

Now preparing to leave the negative 8 hotel for the last day of our Atacama Uyuni tour, I am glad that I’ll be heading on to Chile instead of trying to make the entire return drive in one day, as many of my compatriots will be doing later.

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Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

All night bus rides have become something of a specialty of mine. So has getting ripped off.

Luckily, when leaving La Paz for the second time, my wonderful hosts gave me yet another piece of superlative advice. If you go to the bus terminal and buy your bus ticket for Uyuni there, instead of paying for the “tourist bus” you will only pay about 100 Bolivianos (I paid 90) instead of over 200B and you will ride on the same bus in the same seating as the tourist ticket holders. This is a common theme, and if you get upset by it you are only wasting energy. Everyone everywhere in Latin America will charge you more for being foreign, just try to avoid the sincere rip-offs like this one.

Waking up on a bus with the sun leering brightly in and me peering blearily out has become something of a common morning for me. Today is no different. At first glance, Uyuni appears to be something of a hole… a loose conglomeration of hovels and poorly maintained streets.

At second glance, it appears the same way.

In fact, Uyuni truly is a place you don’t want to spend much time. Thus I got to moving. Within two hours of landing in the city I had spoken to over ten travel agencies, picked up three stray Belgians, booked us all a stellar trip through the Salar de Uyuni and the Atacama desert, and was on my way to find breakfast. Highlights as follows:

  1. All tour agencies only want your money.
  2. All tour agencies will lie to you.
  3. You can get it cheaper… but you might sacrifice something.

There seems to be a floor price of about 500 Bolivianos for a decent 3 day tour from Uyuni. Believe me when I say that below that, the bottom really falls out. 600B is a solid average price, though you can pay a bit more and get less people in the jeep with you.

Fair warning: if you are looking to pay less than that, you may likely get some amazing story to go along with your tour… like one of these:

  • 8 flat tires and running out of gas three times
  • No drinking water provided for a three day trip through the desert
  • Wheels falling off the jeep while it is in motion

These all actually happened to people I met down there. Another key point for enjoyment of the Salar tours is the guide. I offer this advice, speak to your guide personally before you pay. Every agency told me they had English speaking guides, but only two would actually let me speak to them before we paid. Of the many jeeps we encountered while on the tour, almost none had an English speaking guide even when the entire jeep was filled with people who only spoke English.

Do not eat at a cheap restaurant in Uyuni. After I had eaten, I walked down the street and chatted with some other travelers at a less pricey looking restaurant. As I sat and chatted with them, one of their group came back from the bathroom with this story:

The waitress in the ladies bathroom was busy unclogging a toilet by hand. thereafter, she simply wiped her hands on her apron and walked straight back into the kitchen.

Everyone at that table put down their forks immediately. Springing a bit for a better meal is usually a good idea everywhere in Bolivia, but still does not guarantee clean food. Use your head, and take appropriate measures should you get sick.

Quick recap on the city of Uyuni:

  1. Shop around. Get a good price around 500-600B.
  2. Verify you are getting a guide who speaks your language.
  3. Don’t skimp on food if you eat there.
  4. Get the heck out of Uyuni as fast as possible.

All things aside, Uyuni did provide some interesting photo opportunities.

I was in the city of Uyuni a total of about 4 hours. I wouldn’t recommend anyone take longer than that. Once our tour got underway, we headed straight for an old train graveyard. You might think this sounds boring, but all you need is an imagination and a camera and you can entertain yourself for hours.

A great deal of the landscape looked like the Southwestern United States…

This was just a brief stop to get everyone warmed up. After the trains, we swung back through the city to pick up our cook. That’s right, most tours will include a cook to prepare all your meals for you on the trip. While none of it was as good as the food on the Pampas tour outside Rurre, it was generally quite palatable and filling.

The key to really enjoying this tour, as with may others, is getting a good group of individuals together. I had a blast with one of my travel mates, Tim, and was largely eschewed by the other two in the jeep. It will make all the difference in the world, especially when going through the Salar where much of the photography requires coordinated and imaginative group interaction. If you don’t believe me, google “salar de uyuni photos” and take a look at what some people have cooked up. It is astounding. My photos of the Salar have a unpolished appeal as well.

At the end of the first day we found ourselves rolling off the Salar and into rocks where we saw a great sunset and found a wild building made entirely of salt… with some interesting choices in decoration…

In places like this, electricity is a luxury. While the showers were heated by gas, the “hotel” only had 2 hours of electricity per night run off of a generator. There was a power strip in the lobby that everyone was expected to charge camera batteries and things off of. This gave me the perfect opportunity to use my light socket current tap to charge electrics in the privacy of my own room.

All in all, the Salt Hotel was novel and comfortable. One thing to note: when they tell you that breakfast is at 7… you need to set your own alarm. The guide will not wake you up until it’s time to leave. The second day of the trip goes up to ridiculous heights of around and over 5000 meters above sea level. More on this later…

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Rurrenebaque and Bolivian Magic

Rurrenebaque is the best part of Bolivia. Aside from dynamite, because dynamite is just all around excellent.

This includes the surrounding jungles and is, of course, a sweeping generalization. Getting to Rurrenebaque is rather easy from La Paz if you are willing to invest either the time or money; 20 hours on a bus, or$ 60-75 USD for the plane. Two companies fly on specific days, TAM and Amaszonas, and are often canceled due to weather so Amaszonas is your best bet, with 4 flights daily, if you are on a tight schedule. Their office address is not listed in the Lonely Planet, but they have English speaking staff and are located at 1649 Avenia Saavendras in the Miraflores district.

The plane is something of a flying machine with egg crate seats inside one seat to each side of the tiny aisle with no head or leg room. Luckily it is barely an hour flight. Getting off the plane at the “airport,” read as large grass field, was a very rewarding experience. Leaving the cold and altitude of La Paz for the blessed warmth and 300 meter elevation of Rurre was enough to put a smile on my face. The fact that there were almost zero taxis as well was even better. Grab the Amaszonas shuttle into town for 6 bolivianos; the mototaxis are madmen and everyone knows two men on the same motorcycle are gay.

Once you get into town, have a blast! As soon as I arrived in Rurre, I took off to find a hostel and a tour group. Walking through town I saw many questionable places to stay, but just as many that had beautiful courtyards, perfectly clean rooms and hot water. If you get off the bus and take a left, walking due west, you will get to the only park in town. I stayed across that park at Hostel Oriental. Nice place, all in all.

After I checked in to my room, I came out front to ask the owner about tour companies. Instead, I met the second Argentinian I had ever encountered; Evelyn.

After some brief conversation with the owner of the hotel, the two of us decided to take off and go for a hike to one of the miradors overlooking the jungle and city. It wasn’t a cakewalk. The hike was it’s own reward and the view was quite nice. At the top, we ran into a couple of German girls, Monique and Anika, and decided with strength in numbers to go hunting a tour into the wild for the following day.

Rurrenebaque is not an easy town to get lost in. It is a grid, and though many things look the same, there are landmarks you will quickly come to recognize. Maps are available in nearly every hotel and tour agency, of which there are many! Take your time and walk around the town talking to every tour agency you find. You will quickly memorize the schpiel, as it is the same everywhere, and just get down to prices. Dolphin Tours is located very near the only bank in town. We managed to land a decent price of 400 Bolivianos per person for the full tour package with food, water, transport, etc; the same thing every other agency was offering for a bit more money. Prices can vary wildly, so check around.

There are almost no cars in Rurre. However, there is an absolute flurry of motorcycle traffic on every street. Motorcycles are available for rent from several different Mototaxi booths around town, recognizable by the thatched roofs and dozens of small displacement bikes in various stages of disrepair sitting underneath them. The key to getting around Rurre is either walking or renting a motorcycle; you can get one for about 20 Bolivianos an hour, or 150 Bolivianos for a full day.

Check the brakes first.

Then the horn and lights.

Seriously.

Take an afternoon or three and get up to the swimming pool mirador above the city. It’s a walk, or a rather sketchy motorcycle ride. Taking a bike up or down that “road” is not for the faint of heart. Once you are there, though, it is lovely. Evelyn and I spent the rest of the day just hanging out above town and finally retired to get ready for the Pampas tour the next day.

Punctuality is not a Latin American strong point. Don’t sweat it. Our tour left an hour or so behind schedule, riding out of town in a jeep that looked like it had seen better days. We knew we were in for a three hour jeep ride. We didn’t realize just how much shakin would be going on. The first half of the ride, we all spoke and laughed with one another, until the ride started to shake the teeth out of our mouths and we grew silent. After a while, even the thoughts were shaken out of our heads and we all became zombies. Towards the end it shook the very life out of our bodies and everyone just passed out.

When we arrived at the park entrance, we sat around and stared at one another as brains came back online. I had expected to be dripping sweat and swatting at mosquitoes, but the day was warm and a mild breeze came in from the waters and tempered the warmth of the sun. There were almost no mosquitoes and everything seemed perfect. We traded the jeeps for longboats with outboard motors and slid into the waters like vipers.

Erick our guide spoke near perfect English, if a little slowly. The ride through the Pampas was a godsend; warm sun, lovely breeze, amazing colors and wildlife. I had been waiting for that ride for a very long time. We stopped on the bank at one point and squirrel monkeys came out of everywhere. Not once, but twice one of the monkeys climbed up on top of my head and hung out. We drove past a few different encampments and finally arrived at ours and there was a large cayman sitting securely in the middle of the area. And as we pulled the longboat up onto the shore, another large cayman shot out from under the front of the boat as we ran over it in the shallows.

The food was delicious. That night we went to another building nearby and talked, joked, made duck faces with Pringles, and watched la puesta del sol.

The morning came eeeaaarlyyyyy. We woke around 4:30 and shuffled out to the longboat. I had slept fully clothed and under a mosquito net. The boat slipped into the water with allt he noise our 6 h.p. engine could muster, breaking the near crystal placidity of the water and air of the Pampas.

There was barely light to see the trees lining the banks, luckily for us, Erick knew the waterways well. Eventually, we entered a small lagoon where another boat was already silently floating. Erick positioned us and cut the engines, using the emergency backup plan, an oar, to put fine tuning on the boats relation to the sunrise.

I have been largely very lucky in my random assortment of tourmates. This morning is no exception, of the 7 members of our tour group, not one is antisocial or out of place. We all have a great time chatting, joking, and waiting for our own private Inti Raymi. The stillness off the water reflects the dawn into our eyes with startling effect. Even as the river life around us stirs into action we are silent; praising the coming of the dawn. I even forget to keep swatting at mosquitoes.

Minutes stretched by and we just sat and listened and absorbed the world made new around us. Erick eventually pulled the engine back to life and broke the spell. We were all quite hungry. Breakfast came in a splendid fashion and afterward we were all off to a special part of the river: to swim with dolphins.

In the Amazon, one of the few places these amazing freshwater dolphins exist, they are the ultimate force. Dolphins hunt cayman, eat pirhana, they simply dominate everything. There are parts of the river where it deepens and the dolphins tend to congregate and kill off other would be predators. How did the guides learn what parts of the river was safe? By jumping in. If they made it back out, chances were it would be a decent swimming spot.

Once we pulled up into the lagoon, I was the first one in the water. Not because I was brave, just tired of waiting. The water was cool and lovely, and I was swimming for a few moments when I felt something glide across the bottoms of my feet. Part of my brain started calculating the distance back to the boat and waited for the first bite. It never came.

Others jumped in the water soon thereafter and other than a glimpse or dorsal fins and blowholes from several meters away and repeated swipes at the bottoms of my feet, I didn’t get much face time with the dolphins. On the upside, I also didn’t lose any digits to less friendly water creatures. I think that’s a net win.

The rest of the day was planned for Anaconda Hunting, an activity I am told is rather fruitless and uncomfortable. The Alliance, we few who booked our trip together, had sought to avoid this particular brand of unpleasantness and had booked a return trip to Rurre with another group a day earlier than our current compatriots. After arriving in the pampas, I was a little sad that I had cut this trip short, it was just that beautiful, but I was on a short schedule to make it to Buenos Aires and if even one thing went wrong, I would miss my necessary arrival date. Cutting the pampas short by a day was a way of giving myself a little cushion. The one thing I did miss out on, which I am sad I missed, was pirhana fishing.

The ride back was lovely. The strangers occupying the forward seats in the boat were smoking pot and chatting amiably amongst themselves. I just sat back and enjoyed every second of the amazing boat ride. Even as I write this, some weeks later, this is still one of my fondest memories of all the geography of the Americas.

The ride back to Rurre in the jeep was near identical to the ride out to the Pampas. Once back in town we all took off for the hostel and a hot shower! It had only been a couple of days, but it was a very welcome treat. Evelyn spent the remains of the day at the Mirador pool while I ran around on motorcycles and tried to get some laundry done at the #1 Laundry.

What does it take to be #1? Apparently not much as they lost my favorite bandana and replaced it with a pair of small knit gloves. Either the laundry in Bolivia is as poorly functioning as nearly everything else, or they have some magical new technology that can fabricate new clothes on-the-fly out of old clothes.

With a day left to kill in Rurre, I set off to explore the town a bit more, again choosing to rent a motorcycle. The gentleman who agreed to rent me his bike asked me to prove I could ride it first. I followed him a short distance to a road and jumped on the bike. I ripped off with all the fury of a 125cc engine and quickly reached third gear, maybe 40 mph, before I realized that a large section of the road simply was not there. I grabbed the front brakes and they collapsed to the post. Nothing.

Panic is not an option at that point, so I just jumped on the rear brake and luckily it engaged and i left a wonderful fishtail swipe down the road, letting off the brake and straightening the bike  just before it and i pitched off the embankment through dirt and mud before bouncing off the half constructed road and up on to pavement again where I could stop the bike with the rear brake effectively.

When I finally circled back around to the owner of the bike, he was still laughing. He smelled drunk. he laughed and laughed and eventually sputtered the Spanish equivalent of ‘That was awesome!’  before he produced a small wrench from his pocket and adjusted the connection to the front brakes again so they would engage again. He had disconnected them on purpose. As a joke. Seriously.

Rurre was lovely; at night, during the day, whenever, the weather was deliriously good and the people were unique. If you are ever in Bolivia, make it a point to go there. I can’t really explain how great it felt to be out in the middle of nowhere after being caught up in the feeling of a big city like La Paz. The freedom of so much nature was refreshing and inspiring. It is times like these that remind me that travel and experience is a good thing. That we wander for a while to collect new sights, flavors, ways of thinking, and impressions of mankind and his relationship to other men and the world… so that we can bring all this back to our family, or own country, and refresh old ideas… remove what has grown stagnant and enliven our relationships with people and with the world around us. This is worthwhile. This is it’s own reward.

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La Paz, Bolivia

I have heard from many people what a nice city this is. Then upon further probing, everyone seems to say they thought it would be a rathole and it turned out to be decent. I came into it the same way.

Let me tell you, you may not want to spend extended amounts of time in this city, but if you are here between stops, take a couple days and look around. I rode llamas, witnessed indiginous people versus riot police, discovered new foods, made great new friends, and wondered what in the hell was going on around me at least 4 times a day. That last one could have had something to do with the altitude. The altitude here is no joke at over 3600 meters above sea level; be ready for it.

I also know almost nothing about lodging in this city as I had a wonderful couple hosting me and giving me ideas of things to go do everyday. Eventually, La Paz became a cross between a playground and a transport hub for me. I wasn’t blown away by it, but I did enjoy my time. Here are some fun photo highlights.

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Cocaine, the Peruvian Police, and bus companies that Suck!

Never, ever, ride with the Litoral bus company. Also, please plan ahead when attempting a border crossing. Details as follows.

In the lobby at Loki I caught a glimpse of possible one of the most unique faces I have ever seen. I remembered it from the thermal baths near Machu Pichu, both Mauricio and I were staring and trying to figure out what part of the world she was from. Turns out she is Finnish.

Irja is a hippie. Pure and simple free spirited loverly and ready with a great smile at the drop of a hat… And she can curse with the best of them.

Irja and I were both heading for Bolivia at 10 p.m. but to different cities with different bus companies. Unfortunately, no one bought tickets for her bus to Copacabana, so another company, Litoral, bought those passengers from them and then double booked a staggering amount of seats on my bus leading to mass confusion and turpitude. Irja played Rosa Parks and refused to leave her seat when the completely inept Litoral worker told her to move to another seat. I was active-aggressive, if there is such a thing. I followed the Litoral workers around harassing them until they situated everyone properly and had seats for each person and had loaded their bags. This did NOT endear me to them. This becomes important later.

As with most night buses, there are two drivers who alternate sleeping and driving. This particular bus had a man and woman which I hadn’t seen before. All night we slept fitfully in a bouncing jungle of speed-bumps, dirt roads, and checkpoints. Towards early morning, Irja and a number of other people debarked to connect to Copacabana and points beyond. I feel it important to reiterate here, that I was not one of them.

Continuing on, we reached the border of Peru and Bolivia around mid-morning. I knew this was going to be a bit troublesome and I was ready for it. Or so I thought.

The line to get checked out of Peru was not short; probably around 200 people when I joined the queue. This part went as expected; slow and routine. I must also say that the Peruvian side of the border had the most organized moneychanging operations I have seen at a latin American boder crossing. A number of people seated at desks under sun umbrellas simply waiting for people to come to them; not ONE person yelled “Cambio!” at me. When attempting to cross the official border, I was stopped by the Peruvian Police and asked to come in to their offices for a “random” security screening to ensure I wasn’t smuggling cocaine. This involved them sifting through my daypack (my main pack still being on the bus) and emptying all my pockets to check me for illicit substances. Eventually, they were satisfied that I was not a coke mule or carrying explosives and they helped me put all my belongings back together and ushered me out.

While walking to the Bolivian area, I swung by a stand to grab something to drink and reached in my pocket to pay for it. This is when I noticed that I was the equivalent of about $30 USD short on money. Money that the Peruvian Police had counted about 5 minutes ago. I wheeled about and walked back to ask “WTF” and was answered with “We have guns.” Classy.

Not thrilled about this I marched over to Bolivia to get signed in and get the hell out of Peru. I know it is hard for people from the U.S.A. to enter Bolivia. This is due to a few different reasons:

  1. The U.S. makes it difficult and costly to obtain a Visa.
  2. Political ties to Venezuela and Brazil
  3. It means more money for the Country.

Currently it costs $135 USD for a U.S. Citizen to enter Bolivia for up to 90 days. Since the ATMs in Latin America also disperse dollars in $20 increments, I paid my attending officer $140 and asked for change. I was told to go across the street and make photocopies of my passport for their records. After doing so I came back and supplied the officer with papers and again asked for my change of $5. He then directed me to another room for a stamp and finalization. I walked there with him for the conclusion of formalities and spoke with another officer to get my stamps finalized. Once this was finished, I cast about for the first officer and he was gone. When I asked officer number 2 for my change he said I would have to go talk to the other guy. The door was locked and I was quickly ushered out of the building by a nearby guard. It was around this time, while heftily cursing thieving bastards that I realized my bus was nowhere to be seen.

This is just a small reminder from the Universe that there is always a bigger problem ahead, so stop freaking out. When I asked some of the locals taking part in the Latin American all time favorite sport of standing-around-in-the-street, a couple of them pointed to a white bus perhaps a mile away rounding a bend out of sight. Remember, the frequency with which I am told the truth in Latin America is something akin to the number of times a Playmate spontaneously combusts during a breast augmentation operation in Antactia. Sure it might happen, but don’t hold your breath. This in mind, it is time to assess options:

  • Believe the men in the street and freak out
  • Don’t believe them and go look for the bus
  • Hire a collectivo to take me to La Paz and try to find my bag with the agency when I get there
  • Take matters into hand immediately with the help of a questionably sane taxi driver

I went with the last option. I grabbed the closest bicycle taxi and I told him to get me to a car taxi as fast as possible. When he did, I told the taxi driver, his tongue lolling out in the head offsetting one lazy eye, to get me to the Litoral bus as fast as possible. This may have been a mistake.

If you know anything about physics, you know there is a certain point at which some vehicles become inhibited by their own inherently poor aerodynamic nature and simply cannot produce the power to move faster in teh face of air resistance; this is referred to as drag limited. I believe that a similar phenomenon exists in such places as Alabama and Latin America, however it has something to do with the frequency and quality with which a vehicle is serviced; we will call this principle “Mechanic Limited. It is my firm belief that it is because of this rule of physic that I am alive today.

The engine of his Toyosa station wagon (yes, I said Toyosa) screamed and cried; thrashing at it’s mortal bonds like Cerebrus in chains. Hurtling down the freeway in the back of a station wagon of indeterminable age, as the cabin began to fill with fumes, I looked around for a seatbelt and found it. Unfortunately, the clips to attach the seat belt to had been removed or destroyed long ago. Mercifully, the brakes work as the taxi driver pulls up to the first police blockade on the highway. Yelling out the window, my max charioteer informs the police that my bus left me in the dust and asks him to radio ahead to the next police officers and make them stop the bus. The Officer answers in the affirmative, and raises the gate so we can once again attempt to commit suicide by speed.

A solid 10 minutes of terror follow as the engine screams and emits Sisyphean smells of torment and suffering and cows, children, and adults fly by uncomfortably close to the paint on our side of the road. Finally, somewhere in the distance a shape becomes noticeable. The Bolivian National Police have stopped the bus and are holding it until I get there and can rejoin my fellow travelers and, more importantly, my backpack.

Upon our arrival, the car shoked and the engine ceased, I couldn’t see if the driver did it on purpose or not. He quotes me a price in Bolivianos which means absolutely nothing to me as I have none and have only been in the country for less than an hour. I offer him $5 US and he hesitates. Reaching in my back pocket to get my $5 bill out, I suddenly remember that particular currency is not at my disposal anymore thanks to the dutiful border police earlier. My only monetary recourse is a $20 bill. The driver is elated, and I am a little upset as teh bus ticket only cost me $18 to begin with.

Mounting the bus, I spare only a stiff middle finger for the two bus operators before heading back to my seat. I am met with a chorus of voices telling me that they had asked the drivers to stop, but the drivers insister I had already left the bus earlier at Copacabana. I don’t know who to believe and I don’t care. I know that being aggravated with the drivers will net me absolutely nothing. I iPod aided silence, I wait.

Upon arrival at the La Paz bus terminal, once I have my bag safely in hand again, I pause to ensure that the drivers receive yet another finger from me before I head inside. Now to find the Litoral office, explain what happened and ask for a $20 refund to cover my taxi fees.

Not suprisingly, when I explain the situation to the woman at the counter, her response is to call me drivea liar. When I ask her to call the drivers in question that are inexplicably unable to be reached. She tells me I am welcome to wait in the chairs in the terminal. I decline and stand at her counter. When she continues to insist I walk away, I simply sit down at her counter window with my bags and turn on my iPod again. The next several people who walk up to the window over the next 2 hours or so, I breifly explain all I have witnessed in the last day and they go elsewhere to buy tickets.

The ticket lady begins yelling and threatening to call the police, which I encourage her to do. She makes no move for the phone, explaining that she does not have the equivalent of $20 to reimburse me. She continues to try to shoo me away, even resorting to calling me “malo’ and “malo turisto” or “bad tourist” in much the way one would shoo away a stray dog. At long last, an argentinian man and his girlfriend come up and agree to buy tickets in USD, removing the latst arrow from ticket lady’s quiver.

One often hears that it is important to have photocopies of all important documents. This is one of many reasons why. Ticket Lady tells me she must have a photocopy of my passport for her records in order to issue a refund. She then directs me down a nearby street where I can get photocopies made, assuring me that she will wait for my return. Her face when I pulled out the requested photocopy from my bag was laughable. Quickly asserting that she needed one she could keep, I told her she could keep it, writing the requisite information on the back of the paper, handed it to her and received a $20 bill for all my hard work. 3 hours of sitting on the floor in a bus station netted me barely above the U.S. minimum wage for my time. Smiling like a champion, I grabbed a taxi and took off for my friends’ house in la Paz.

Quick recap of the lessons learned here:

  1. Make friends with someone on the bus so they will ensure the driver waits for you
  2. Organize your belongings the day of a border crossing
  3. Count your money before crossing the border so you know exactly how much you have
  4. You CAN get your money back… you just have to be a bad tourist.
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Jugo de Rana, Peruvian Delight

For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, that says Frog Juice.

If you are like me, you immediately hit google to see if it was available near you. No, it is probably not. This is something that seems to be indigenous to Peru. When I was much younger, Joecartoon.com had a version of this that I discovered thanks to my good friend Jared. For a good laugh, click here.

The reality of frog juice is somewhat different than the cartoon. Thus, to expel any public myths about this old school health beverage said to cure all manner of pain in the head, I, your intrepid adventurer, have set out to see the whole process from grisly start to tasty finish. Enjoy!

As with all things, be sure to find a reputable dealer, as it is often difficult to tell if it is a toad or a frog, and the toads will make you ill, while the frogs will make you better. Never buy used frogs, as it will lessen the restorative powers of your juice.

Travel DO or Travel DON’T???  Your call.

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Cuzco, Peru and the famed Machu Picchu

“I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it.”

These words have never been more applicable than when referencing the Jungle Trek to Machu Picchu. I arrived at Cusco with an email directing me to come to Loki Hostel and see if they had room for me. I arrived at an early hour, so decided to make use of the internet and restaurant for the first half of the day. Vikki, the tour desk girl was invaluable; giving directions, insight, booking Spanish lessons and tours.  If anyone ever goes there, please give her a hug for me.

Cusco is an interesting city, apparently the only job available there is shoe-shine-boy, but somehow these same people were able to save up enough scratch for a church like this one.

Mauricio, a Colombian gentleman working for the U.N., and I were booking our trips at the same time and went to the tour agency for a debreifing at the same time, so we became somewhat acquainted with one another during the process. The trip to Machu Picchu ranges wildly in cost depending on what tour group you go with, and this particular group charged $185, or $170 for students. Amerigo, the pseudo Italian gentleman who runs the show, quickly passed us off to one of his guides and that was the last we saw of him for days. The guide gave us a quick run down in mild English on the days ahead and we went back to our hostels to sleep and await the 7:30 arrival of the guide the following morning.

7:30 came and went. 8:30 came and went. Finally, a large blonde Canadian tourist came stumbling into the lobby at Loki to inform us that the car is actually a few streets away, and instead of picking us up, we would have to walk to it. Thus it began.

Our van finally got underway around 10 am, which was no problem because we still got a full day of mountain biking in through rain and waterfalls, alongside gutwrendhing drops, and in great company. Our band was a great mix of people from around the world, mountain bikers from Wales, and abrasive woman from Canada (from whose many wonderful one liners came “My stomach can eat my ass!), scattered Americans, and a Kiwi; everyone spoke English, which worked out well for me.

By mid-afternoon we had all reached a tiny little town called Santa Maria. The 4 day members of our group all went to the hostel to get acclimated and Mauricio and I went down to the center of town to get on our transport to the next city, Santa Theresa. Transportation which we had assumed was already arranged. We were wrong.

Due to the recent rains, the road between Maria and Theresa had suffered a large amount of landslides. 7 or 8 of them were currently being cleared by work crews and a significant number of cars and people were trapped on the mountain roads waiting to get to Santa Maria. This information was accompanied by the revelation that our tour guide had not, in fact, arranged our transport onward, he had simply expected to find a car heading that way and stuff us into it. We were in for a wait.

Mauricio and I are of a similar sort that we are not the type to sit around, so we promptly set to work making friends with the dozens of people similarly stranded around the town center. Hours later, our biking group came into town to grab some dinner. We took the opportunity to sit down and eat with them and find out what their day was like. They were all rather impressed with the owner of the hostel, Fabio, and his coffee growing operation behind the hostel that he claimed to operate at a loss in order to employ some local labor. My experience of humans, especially Latin Americans, is that absolutely nothing is ever done at a loss. Regardless of my opinion, the guy seems rather cool when we finally got back up to his hostel. Mauricio and I had opted to change our tour to 4 days, as it doesn’t look like we have much choice. It was near 11 p.m. and the roads are not cleared yet.

After a while playing cards at the hostel with our group the guide, Angel, came to inform Mauricio and I that we need to get our bags because he is sending us off to Santa Theresa. Following this thunderbolt, Fabio pulled Mauricio and I aside and expresses his concern for our wellbeing and asks us to reconsider braving the mountain roads at night. Whether this was him trying to get paid for two more guests or genuine concern for another human I will never know, but I agreed with him. When we brought this up to Ange, stating that we were NOT leaving and would be remaining with the group, Angel chose to inform us that this would invalidate our tickets to enter Machu Picchu and return to Cusco thereafter, leaving us high and dry. Lovely.

Walking back to the town center was no picnic. The rain had taken questionable dirt paths serving as roads and turned them into shifting mudbaths. This sort of thing doesn’t bode well.

Around 11 p.m. we finally got underway through some undesirable and undependable roads. Around 12 a.m. our shuttle stopped in the middle of the road. The driver informed us that it was too dangerous to drive anymore so he was going to stop here for the night. Trying to catch any sleep was next to impossible, as I kept slumping over and hitting my head on the window, waking myself up again.

Around 3 a.m. things started getting interesting. A number of flashlight bearing, poncho clad europeans materialized out of the darkness and opened the door to the van. The resultant session of verbal abuse revealed that these people were force marched all day with no food and no dinner. They were told to walk into the dead of night and did so until nearly 11 pm when they happened across an old Peruvian woman who was finishing up her yard and invited them all in, made them supper, and gave them blankets to sleep on her floor. Then around 1 a.m. their “guide” came back to wake them up and tell them he had procured transport to take them to the next city. Waking them up and marching them out into the night again in the rain. They were then told to purchase flashlights and pochos at the next town as they would be riding in the back of an open cattle car truck with no protection from rain or cold to reach the transport that had already been paid for but whose driver had SOLD THEIR SEATS to locals, Mauricio, and myself. Upon arrival the “guide” asked them all to produce another 10 soles a piece in order to pay the cattle car driver. At this point, I thought I was going to witness a murder. The told the guide that he would need to have the agency pay his impromptu driver and then asked the guide if he would like to further press the issue and be left in the mountains. He wisely settled the debt himself.

The beautiful Polish girl next to me confided that she had paid nearly $300 dollars for this trip and so far it had been something akin to a prison camp. I love Polish accents. Mauricio and I feel a good deal better about our lot in life now that the rain has mostly stopped and we have to push on to reach Santa Theresa. The walk isn’t unpleasant, but it is no walk in the park. After a while we come to another distinctly obstructive road block. The faint at hear have turned back as it is still peppered with cascading stones of varying sizes; some nearly the size of semi-truck tires. The bold are running through the mess. The crazy are standing in the middle of it shooting video of the stones falling around them. Guess which category I fell in to?

The sign for Santa Theresa was a welcome sight. A short while later we rolled into town tired and a bit bedraggled. Our directions of “Find Nancy” actually turned out to be much better than we expected. After 30 minutes or so of talking to the locals, we landed at Nancy’s hostel which was apparently run by her 13 year old daughter. Nancy wasn’t there, so Mauricio passed out fully clothed on the bed and I strolled around town for a little while, unable to shake a feeling of unease. Eventually, I came back and lay down for a while, catching a blessed 2 hours of sleep.

After waking, I rousted Mauricio and we set to work making a plan. We had to figure out a few things:

  1. How to get out of this town
  2. Which way to go
  3. Where was Nancy

When we asked the young girl who I still believe ran the entire hostel herself where Nancy was, she told us that there were actually two Nancy’s in town; textbook “you couldn’t have told us earlier.”

The REAL Nancy was one street over, a good distance for a 4 street town, and was abundantly informative. The guide that we were supposed to link up with left town at 5 a.m. while we were walking through the landslides. With no clear path forward or back, Mauricio and I are forced to consider our options.

There were some taxis heading back down the road we had walked in on, but we knew they would only make it as far as the slide, then we would have to find another means of returning and that meant giving up on Machu Picchu; something neither of us was prepared to do. As we were talking a local teenager came in to the hostel, blue jeans and purple crocs, and gave us a nod. Looked like someone had finally cut us a break.

While speaking with Nancy and the local boy, our erstwhile group came stumbling in to town. Some elated reunion moments and we were all to be disappointed again when Angel told us that we two had to press on, guide or not. With the faith that only the Virtuous know, we left; accompanied by Xavier, his purple crocs, and instructions from Angel, “There will be people waiting at the train depot with your names on a whiteboard. If not, I think they usually stay at Hostel Jon.”

So our new local friend Xavier led the way with his purple crocs. We walked through water, rain, canyons, jungle, and just about every kind of terrain you can imagine. We even had to cross a river at one point on some crazy cable car contraption that “only killed 4 people last year.”

Eventually we arrived at a checkpoint for entering a train station; the end of the line somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Xavier told us that we had to pretend not to know him, as for some reason that no one was able to understand, the guards would not let us into the train area to buy tickets if they knew Xavier had led us there.

For the cost of 20 soles we were led through darkness and confusion by the purple all-terrain crocs of a 16 year old boy, when the combined efforts of numerous grown men and women and the added benefit of experience and thousands of tourist dollars had failed to accomplish anything that could ever be mistaken for a successful operation. Congratulations Peru.

The train led to Aguas Calientes, the town closest to Machu Picchu, where we debarked and looked around for the mystical individuals with a whiteboard. I don’t have to tell you the outcome.

In walking the city, Hostel Jon was easy to get directions to but rather hard to find. Eventually we found a sign that said ‘Hostel Joe’ and went for it. As we approached, sequestered behind another sign was a smaller placard reading ‘Hostal John.” Inside, god-forbid, was a woman writing our names on a whiteboard. We had to get a picture.

No one knew where our new guide was, but they did know that we had a room at another hostel. We stumbled across some of the other people we would be going with in the morning and they told us that our “guide” would be at a certain restaurant near the plaza.

Thus, safely within reach of Machu Picchu, Mauricio could devote ourselves to well earned hot showers. The town was named Aguas Calientes, after all. Not surprisingly, the hostel that we were holed up at, some unpronounceable name in a long desiccated local language, which professed to have hot water, had nothing of the sort.

Dinner came and our “guide” was as surprised to see us as we were to finally see him. In a lightning strike of fortune, the guide produced our tickets to Machu Picchu, and our return train tickets to Cusco along with my ID card they had used to get a discount on my ticket. This was also a surprise to all the other people we were eating dinner with, as none of them had been given their tickets yet, and when they were finally given their tickets, they were told they needed to pay another $15 dollars for the train.

Folks, this up-selling is an all-too-common trend. When faced with this, the best course of action is simply to refuse to pay the extra and walk away. These people entered into a contractual agreement with you, and you DO NOT have to pay for their idiocy. As soon as you have your ticket/food/ride, you are no longer held hostage. Don’t buy into it.

Mauricio brave, and clean, soul that he is decided to take a shower in the arctic water of our cursed shower. I gave it a pass and decided to simply smell bad for one more day.

4:30 a.m. comes early. The bus to Machu Picchu, a $7 and priceless ride, begins transporting people at 5 a.m. Mauricio and I got there before the bus but after about 200 people in line. Luckily, the group we ate dinner with was in line much earlier than us and we skipped forward a hundred people or so in line. This is key. Only 400 people, first come first serve, are allowed on to the Wayna Picchu mountain within the park. I only found this out the day before, but as you will see it is something of a big deal. Machu Picchu was worth every bit of nastiness we endured.

Throughout the day, I met numerous people, including a German girl, Viola, I had seen in several cities recently, and a marvelous Peruvian girl with the Arabic name Zulema who hiked Wayna Picchu with Mauricio and I.

I cannot find words to describe this place. It has withstood massive earthquakes without losing a stone; earthquakes that have leveled many other cities nearby. It is beautiful and strong, and it was abandoned. Go. Just go.

After Machu Picchu, we were tired; bone tired. It had been a long several days at high altitudes. For some reason, I had the bright idea of walking back down the unending stair case from Machu Picchu to the base of the mountain and then back into town. It was just rough.

Aguas Calientes is named such for some thermal hot springs that are situated a bit above town. Mauricio and I took some well deserved rest and sat in the pools for most of the remainder of the day. We met a ton of people there, Koreans, Europeans, Americans and everyone was abuzz with the wonderment of the day.

Finally, after yet another reunion with our first tour group, we went down to the train station. We were told, yet again, that there would be people at the train station with our names on a whiteboard waiting for us. Robbed of our faith in humanity, but renewed with our faith in ourselves and our unending resourcefulness, Mauricio and I boarded a train bound for Ollantatanbo; a city still 1.5 hours by car from Cusco and our questionable reservations at Loki.

Exiting the train, we climbed a hill with the rest of the struggling masses, seeing several people with signs, though none with our names. Finally, cresting the rise, we found our drivers.

They ushered us quickly, along with several others, up another road to a parking lot with a blessed white microbus waiting to take us to warmth, a bed, and salvation. There was another train arriving an hour or so later with the last member of our return bus group. The bus drivers told us that that train had broken down somewhere and there was no word on when it would be arriving and we had to leave without them. True to form, they were lying to our faces, as the train pulled in to the station as we were driving away. We stopped and collected our last man and went on our way. I have seldom been so happy to see a bed as I was when I returned to Loki. True to form, they had somehow lost my reservation, but had a last minute bed that I could use going forward.

The next day I went to the Loki tour desk and explained what had happened and Vikki called Amerigo and had him come over to the hostel. After much conversation, and a little help from Mauricio, I was refunded enough money to rent a Honda Hurricane 250, a complete set of safety gear, and pay for a tank of gas the following day. Score.

The following morning, Sunday, I wandered down to the motorcycle shop and happened to meet a guy named George who was renting a bike and taking off with a small group of people on a tour of the Valle Sagrada. As we were waiting on the street a smallish girl with a too-large helmet on the back of another motorcycle asked me if she could ride with me for the day. This can mean trouble.

She had hired the other bike and man as a guide for the day and opted at the last minute to ditch him and ride with the random stranger on another bike. Ballsy, I had to hand it to her. Some hours later after we stopped for lunch, I was to discover she was not only ballsy, but the most attractive British girl I had ever met.

A long and amazing day on the back of my bike saved her some money and gained her some bruises when I caught a rut the wrong way leaving an Incan salt mine. A quick left hand low side left her quite shaken. I was nearly untouched with legs and arms and boots and helmet, but she scratched and bruised her left leg at angle heel and hip. Trooper that she was, she insisted that we drive on to go see other ruins once the rest of the crew had driven back to Cusco.

If you are reading this, I tell you now as a friend, do not ride Peruvian roads at night. NEVER ride Peruvian mountain roads at night. In my collective life I have never honked a horn more than I did in that single night riding across Peru. Blind mountain corners must be preceded by significant honking as you go through the turn to let someone know on the other side you are coming. The heart-stopping moment comes when you hear the replying honks and you have to wonder what lane they are in and how big the oncoming projectile is. There were times when we were driving along and suddenly the road simply was not. In the space of 2 meters where the light shone, the road simply ceased to be and I had to throw the bike into the adjacent (read as Oncoming) lane until the collapsed road had come back again. This was not uncommon.

Finally, we stopped about 15 kilometers from Cusco at a small gathering of buildings and asked for some hot tea to stave off the chill of the last few hours of riding. We were nearing 4000 meters above seal level (over 12,000 feet) and it was not cold or friendly. Stopping for a while on Domingo Santa (Easter Sunday) we got to eat some neat looking pastries baked on questionable construction paper and weak but hot coca tea accented by some coca leaves I had in my pack. It was a godsend.

Riding into Cusco, we got to say hi to Neon Jesus and some of the locals with their extremely accurate directions around the one way streets to get back to the center of town to return the helmets and bike to the rental agencies. After returning her to her hotel and finishing the exit formalities, I had less than an hour to get to Loki, retrieve my bag and make it to the bus station to catch my next 20 hour bus to La Paz and my new couchsurfing friends. It was time to move.

This short bit of history would not be complete without ending it with a huge thanks to Mauricio, Hannah, Vikki, and the many other people in this tale who made this a harrowing and lively tale of success and teamwork. Thank you all!

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Travel Do’s and Don’ts: Guinea Pig Tasting

In Ecuador and Peru, I have seen an item on several menu’s called Kuy. When asking around, I discovered this was actually a guinea pig indigenous to the area. Something of a delicacy, and eaten only on special occasions, the guinea pig is served whole; ears, eyes, teeth, and claws all still attached. The following video should give you an idea of what you are in for.

For anything other than the novelty factor…

Travel DON’T