Loja :: Quito :: Tulcan :: Ipiales :: Popayán
From the sleepy town of Loja, we departed by way of night bus to Quito. It seems most of our trials and tribulations throughout our journey thus far (fortunately) relate to buses, and this trip was no exception. The bus appeared reasonably normal and comfortable, however the driver insisted on blaring Ecuadorian music for the entire ride... straight through the night and into the morning. Even though I had roughly twelve hours to pay careful attention to the music, I could not distinguish whether it was a full CD on repeat or just one song on a neverending loop (as there were no commercial interruptions, I deduced it was not the radio). By the time we stepped off the bus in Quito, I had bloodshot eyes and a head pounding to some latin beat.

We walked up some steep streets in the old part of Quito and checked into an absolute fleabag hostel with holes in the floor and ceiling... but for about $1.50 per person it was hard to beat, even if we did have to unfurl our sleeping bags on the bed so as not to let the bed bugs bite. We immediately fell asleep until the mid-afternoon, and then wandered the streets of Quito exploring some of the museums, town squares, and the university. One museum/gallery in the university itself had an interesting exhibition of enlarged photos taken with electron microscopes of various things "scientific" (skin, germs, plants, mitosis, etc). During our wanderings, I was once again impressed by the size of the city. Similar to La Paz, Quito is situated at the base of a valley, with its environs stretching up into the surrounding hills. Unlike most US cities (perhaps LA being the exception), in Quito it is possible to see almost the entire city in one panoramic vista, which is utterly overwhelming. And so, feeling overwhelmed and still exhausted from our bus ride, we decided to call it an early night and retired to our somewhat suspect accomodations in order to get an early start to arrive in Colombia the following day.

In the morning we took a bus to Tulcan, where we had to cross the border into Colombia. We arrived at Tulcan at roughly 3:30pm, and as with most border crossings, had to disembark and carry our backpacks to migrations in Ecuador, and then walk across the border into Colombia. After we passed through migrations in Colombia, we were immediately surrounded by a horde of people very eager to convert our US Dollars into Colombian pesos. I had checked the exchange rate earlier and knew that it was roughly 2,500 pesos to the dollar... and when someone gave me that exact rate, I paid attention. We were trying to change $82 into pesos, and the man pulled out a calculator and punched in $82 and spit back 168,000 pesos. Perhaps thanks to all my GMAT studying several months back, a quick mental check told me something was amiss. I borrowed his calculator and did the same calculation myself, and was surprised to see the same number of 168,000. Recalling my time with Felix in Indonesia where the money changers are about as bent as the Soviet sickle and hard as the hammer that crosses it, it dawned on me that perhaps this calculator was fixed. Thus, I pulled out a pen and began doing the calculation longhand on my palm... when I finished with 205,000, I looked up and there was not a soul in sight. Apparently these guys were not accustomed to being second guessed and simply fled. Luckily, outside of migrations, we found a kind taxi driver who took us into the center of the closest town, Ipiales, lent us his calculator (which I checked to make sure was not also fixed), and drove us directly to a money exchange where we got the correct rate and real bills.

Ipiales was a rather ugly and uninteresting town, and not a very attractive introduction to the country I've heard so many fascinating things about. Nevertheless, we were not able to continue on our way to Popayán directly, since we have heard universally that it is unsafe to travel the Colombian highways at night due to guerrilla activity... guerrillas are apparently somewhat nocturnal and have been known to raid buses, rob passengers, steal food, occasionally kidnap, and even burn cars. That sounded like a little too much excitement at once, so we heeded this advice and stayed the night in Ipiales. At 6:30 the following morning we woke up and went directly to the bus terminal where we got a 7am bus to Popayán, which was due to arrive at about 3pm.

It is becoming clichéd to repeat that a bus ride was harrowing... but it's fair to say that this one was on par with our trip from La Paz to Sorata. Although this road was paved and did theoretically have two lanes, I began to wonder if the asphalt actually made things worse since the drivers could achieve mind-bending speeds on these sharp mountain curves, perched over sheer cliffs. Making the ride even more hectic were numerous landslides which often eliminated one lane entirely... I tried not to imagine the result of a boulder the size of a Volkswagen falling from the sky into our path (or worse yet, on top of our bus).

When we arrived in Popayán, we found the Colombia we had heard so much about. Popayán is a lovely little city in the mountains with striking colonial mansions and impressive cathedrals. Almost all the buildings are a gleaming white stucco with rust-colored spanish tile roofs and wrought iron balconies. The streets are clean and apparently safe, owing not in small part to the military troops standing on almost every corner dressed in fatigues and sporting very automatic guns. It is above just such a corner, from a computer beside a wrought iron balcony that I am writing these lines... enjoying the view of a blue sky powdered with white clouds and listening to some Colombian music (which sounds much like Cuban music... not the same annoying synthesized beat repeated ad infinitum with lyrics dripping with cheese laid on top, but instead a more jazzy, acoustic sound). In just a few minutes, Natalia and I are going to attempt to purchase a flight from Calí to Panama City... Calí is the third largest city of Colombia, only two hours from Popayán, which makes it an easy exit point. Unfortunately, we're being told by various travel agencies that we can only purchase a round-trip ticket, which is about twice the price (as it should be... none of this fancy airline arithmetic) of a one-way ticket, because we are not residents of Panama. Neither are we residents of Colombia, so I don't really understand this logic, and with the help of cheaptickets.com, I am trying to work around this and finagle the purchase of a one-way ticket. Keep your fingers crossed that it works out, and in just two days we will be on our way out of South America and into the middle stretch towards home.

In the meantime, from the land of thugs, drugs, Maseratis, and mules...
We remain,
Tom & Natalia
- posted by Thomas @ 2:33 PM

 
Piura :: Loja
Having peeled my hands from the clammy keyboard in Piura, Natalia and I moved on to an extended sit in the bus terminal, where I wound up hosting a card tournament for several Peruvian children who were quite fond of improvising rules and spontaneously exchanging cards... I now wonder if the problem of counterfeit money and other dubious business practices is more the product of nature or nurture.

When we boarded the bus, we were genuinely surprised by the lack of space between the seats, which almost fully reclined, casuing a sort of domino effect... once a person in the front seat reclined, the rest of the bus was obliged to recline to avoid getting crushed. The bus was so full, the driver began carrying aboard plastic lawn chairs which were set in the aisle for overflow passengers. One person was in fact lying across the gearshift box next to the driver. We departed at 10:30 and quickly fell into a rather uncomfortable sleep, only to be woken around 12:30 am when we were crossing the border from Peru to Ecuador. Everyone had to disembark and walk first to Peru migrations and then across the frontier to migrations in Ecuador. As we crossed the frontier, we walked passed a little shack that was manned by armed guards... two men drinking whiskey in the doorway greeted us in unison with a slurred "Hello." An interesting way to enter a country at just after midnight.

We got back on the bus and continued on our way... the landscaped having changed from coastal desert to steep, thick jungle roads. Despite having traveled similar roads in earlier portions of our journey, I am still not accustomed to this, and consequently sat white-knuckled as we ripped around mountain curves. I was relieved when the bus pulled to a stop less than an hour later, at which point we all had to disembark once more for a police check point. The police opened all the baggage compartments and carefully reviewed several pieces of luggage (ours not included, thankfully). We were obliged to pass through this same sort of check point twice more in the wee hours of the morning. Because our trip was punctuated by these police check points, and because the road was growing increasingly worse, I didn't sleep another wink. For the final two or three hours of our ride there was a fog so thick that from my seat towards the front of the bus, I could not see the road ahead through the windshield. I was both petrified and mystified by how the driver was able to intuit the right moment to throw the wheel hard to the right or left and avoid careening over the edge of a sheer cliff. The only consolation that the fog offered was not being able to see into the abyss below.

I breathed a tremendous sigh of relief when we pulled into the bus terminal in Loja, alive (and exhausted).

Natalia and I shouldered our backpacks and began walking in the direction of the city center in a light drizzle. The town was still asleep at 6:30am, and there was an apparent absence of accomodations. We found one hotel which was quite nice, and asking a price which surprassed it's faux-luxury... $25 a night here is equivalent to a room at the Ritz in Boston... and this was far from the Ritz. We continued walking until we found another sign advertising accomodations... we rang the bell and a small window in a green door slid open (reminiscent of the guard at the gates of the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz)... We were let into a towering hallway that was stacked on both sides with new mattresses and bed parts. I wasn't sure if perhaps we would have to select a mattress and then carry it off to some hidden corner. Strangely, the only employees in this place were all under 15 years old, and one of the pre-teens led us up a rickety staircase to a hallway full of strange doors... some looked like they were tall closets, some looked like they were liliputian storage areas... but all had room numbers tacked above. We entered our Alice-in-Wonderland room which had three beds, all of which were furnished with mattresses of dubious age and descent... which made us wonder at why there were brand new mattresses stacked in piles below. But for six dollars a night for the two of us, we were satisfied... and our streetfront balcony was a nice perk.

Although only a 10 hour bus ride, Loja is a world away from Peru. The city is clean, the people are friendly, and the money is real. Interestingly, Ecuador abandoned their national currency (the Sucre) about five years ago after some large political/bank scandal, and, in turn, adopted the good old US Dollar. This made me recall a long lost friend of mine whose family moved from Ecuador to Florida roughly five years ago because her father was a bank executive... the circumstances were hazy, but the aftermath is clear. Strangely, though, the coins they use here look nothing like the coins in the United States... and I wonder if they would be accepted outside of Ecaudor, despite their direct relation to the Dollar. I don't think we'll risk it.

So, tonight we will bid farewell to Loja and continue by way of nightbus (there was no other option... believe me, this is not some sort of masochistic tendency on my part) to Quito. We are passing quickly through Ecuador, and in the next few days we will most likely venture into Colombia, which we have heard from other travelers is a hidden treasure in South America which receives a bad reputation for the activity of guerrillas in isolated parts (mostly around the Darien Gap - the border with Panama - where there are no highways)... We have heard that the cities in the South West of Colombia offer striking examples of colonial architecture, that the people are friendly, the atmosphere is relaxed, and the prices are right. So we expect to venture to either Calí or Popayán in Colombia from Quito, and then move on directly to Bogota, where we will fly to Panama.

For now, we are enjoying the freedom from tourist traps and scheming locals. Now I'm off to have a quick dinner before we start another all-night bus adventure. Keep your fingers crossed!

All our best from this hemisphere,
Tom & Natalia


- posted by Thomas @ 3:06 PM

 
Puno :: Cusco :: Lima :: Trujillo :: Huanchaco :: Piura
I left off in Puno, shortly after Natalia and I arrived in Peru, and now we're already planning our exit into Ecuador. We had a great time in Puno, especially visiting the islands on Lake Titicaca... and the train ride to Cusco was fantastic. The train wrapped around the western side of Lake Titicaca, and continued through the Altiplano, winding through mountain greenery and small little adobe pueblos along the way. We had mixed weather during the train ride, with spots of heavy rain, but generally it was a smooth and pleasant ride. The train itself was quite luxurious, especially for South America. As it's a tourist train, it was also quite expensive. Unfortunately, the ten hour ride was without stops, so we were forced to eat the lunch offered on the train... and for ten dollars each, we received a piece of trout the size of a half-dollar and a few sprouts. Needless to say, the service was not quite on par with the cost. When we arrived in Cusco, we were wholly impressed. Foremost, Cusco is a tourist haven... but once you get passed the hard-selling locals, the architecture and the city are really lovely. The Plaza de Armas is exquisite with a large gothic cathedral and a huge fountain in the center, and cute shops and restaurants surrounding the plaza with balconies for dining, etc. The old part of Cusco, just off the Plaza de Armas, is a maze of cobblestone streets with little shops and impressive vistas of the city and the mountains in the distance. While we were still above 11,000 feet the whole time, walking the steep streets got quickly exhausting, but our city wanderings were punctuated with frequent stops for fruit juice and photos. The weather in Cusco was chilly, particularly in the evening, when we slept with thermal underwear. Our hostel also had a small electricity problem, so we wound up playing card games by candlelight for most of the evening. One night we went to a cafe called Mama on the Plaza de Armas where they were showing a free movie with dinner... we saw The Last Samurai, which we enjoyed.

In Cusco, we were investigating a trek to Machu Picchu, which we found to be universally rather expensive. It would also be difficult to hike the Inca Trail for four days with severely overloaded backpacks (the hike at 13,000 - 14,000 feet is more than a casual walk). So we decided to save the expense and put off going to Machu Picchu for another visit. In one tourist agency, we found a flight to Lima for only $50... and since the nice bus to Nazca and also to Lima cost just about the same, we made the decision to save roughly 30 hours of traveling and fly directly from Cusco to Lima (about a 50 minute flight). Unfortunately, the only flight that was so cheap was leaving at 7am, which required that we wake up at 5am to get to the airport on time.

Once in the airport, we discovered that our flight was delayed due to "incement weather"... apparently the people in Cusco have never been to Boston to really understand the phrase "inclement weather"... a light drizzle and clouds hardly qualifies! So we departed a few hours late, and arrived in Lima around 10am.

Lima is a mess. It is a huge, sprawling city with some beautiful colonial-mestizo architecture mixed in with crumbling buildings and obscured by the smog of an endless and chaotic stream of traffic. Traffic lights hardly exist, and those that are present and functional are simply ignored. We took a taxi from the airport, which is a good distance from the city center, and arrived in the Miraflores district, which is reportedly the only safe place to walk the streets during the day or night. Hostels there cost about three times what we were accustomed to paying, and they were nothing special. We were also surprised that the taxi cost about as much as the hostel... to put this in perspective, we paid 5 nuevo soles (peruvian currency - about US$1.50) for the taxi to the Cusco airport, and in Lima, for a ride of similar duration, we were charged 55 nuevo soles (about US$16). Unreal. We quickly agreed that Lima was not a place to stay, so we bargained with another cab to take us to a bus terminal where we found a bus leaving to Trujillo, our next planned stop. We were not remiss to leave Lima.

When we arrived in Trujillo, we met a woman from Holland who recommended that we go to Huanchaco, a few minutes outside the city and on the beach. She was also going there, so we shared a cab and arrived in Huanchaco in the wee hours of the night. We found a relatively inexpensive hostel right on the beach, and had a peaceful rest listening to the waves crash on the sandy shore just about a hundred yards from our window. In the morning we walked along the beach and marveled at the totora reed kayaks everywhere that were apparently used by fishermen to bring in the morning catch and also by tourists to attempt surfing the waves. I considered giving it a try, but the freezing water quickly pushed the idea from my mind. We found a cozy little thatched hut on the beach serving ceviche (raw fish in lime juice), so we enjoyed an early morning meal of ceviche and then took a mini bus into Trujillo where we found another bus heading to Piura... since Piura is only about six hours from Trujillo, we decided to skip our interim stop in Chiclayo and advance another day in our schedule.

We arrived in Piura in the early evening, and we were not impressed. The city is very lively with taxi-scooters buzzing everywhere, cars perpetually honking, loads of people walking the streets, and lots of stores blasting rap music and latin beats to lure people in to buy the latest in rubber sandles or pocket combs or tv antennas. Apart from two other tourists we saw in our "Hostel California", we were the only gringos (I've seen) in the entire town. It's impossible to identify this as cause or effect, but it's with good reason that there are not many tourists here... the town is small, very busy, dirty, and the people are not friendly. A simple request for directions is received as though we are asking for someone's first born. We've also had some small problems with counterfeit money... this has happened in other places in Peru as well, but already twice here, where our change has been given in counterfeit bills and coins. I now know enough to at least distinguish between genuine and counterfit bills, but the coins are almost impossible to distinguish (for my untrained eye... the merchants seem to know the difference just by touch).

I am now writing from an small, sweltering, and overpriced internet cafe across the street from a bus terminal in Piura... it is only 2pm and we are waiting for a 10:30pm bus to leave to Loja, Ecuador. We're just killing time now, playing cards, and trying to find ways to beat the heat. As we're in the heart of the "coastal desert" (if there can be such a thing), there is a heavy, suffocating heat... strangely, despite the indecent humidity, there is nothing green around... it's just sand, rock, dirt, and an oppressive sun. We're eager to leave Peru behind and move into Ecuador... while we greatly enjoyed Puno and Cusco, from Lima onward we have found the places to be not very attractive, and the people to be rather untrustworthy and unfriendly. Our fingers are crossed that Ecuador will be a different story.

Now back to our backgammon-chess-cards tournament... which is being conducted entirely in English for Natalia's learning pleasure. She says hello to everyone as well. We will catch up again once we've landed in Ecuador.

Until that time, I remain...
Tom
- posted by Thomas @ 1:31 PM

 
Puno :: Uros :: Amantaní :: Taquile :: Puno
Today Natalia and I arrived back in Puno after a two day tour of several islands on Lake Titicaca. We went with a tour group organized through All Ways Travel. The price was roughly the same as the other agencies offering similar tours in Puno (US$12 for two days all-inclusive!!), but we met other tourists who used All Ways Travel and recommended it highly. Everything was perfect, except that our tour group slightly exceeded the advertised 25 person capacity making things a bit crammed at times. Our group was from all over... several Italians, some people from the US (mainly Texas and Northern Cali), England, Chile, Peru, etc. We left Puno early Thursday morning and took a slow-moving skiff into Lake Titicaca.

We arrived at the Uros Islands about 45 minutes later. The islands derive their name from a pre-Inca culture that existed in this region, and theoretically passed down their traditions to the inhabitants of these floating totora (reed) islands. The truth is that the inhabitants are more a mix of Aymara and Quechua, and the Uros culture has been all but lost over the centuries. These islands are made entirely of stacked reeds and today are quite touristic. In fact, they used to be scattered about Lake Titicaca, but due to their popularity with tourists, the residents "floated" them closer to Puno to draw more visitors. The islanders adopt a fairly "hard sell" approach, offering their handicrafts and rides in small reed boats. If you can overlook the insistence of the island vendors, it's a very special place. Each island has a small school, and roughly 20 inhabitants on average. If there are civil disputes on the islands, the residents have been known to saw the islands in half and leave their foes drifting on a different current! For me, this visit was particularly meaningful since I felt as though I was in a way returning to the roots of the Viracocha Expedition, which brought me to South America in the first place. Seeing similar style reed ships and other people from the same culture as the Bolivians who built The Viracocha was an almost symbolic closure... sort of like seeing the beginning after living the end. I mentioned Viracocha to a few of the islanders and several of them enthusiastically remarked that they knew of the project and the families building those boats.

Following the Uros, we travelled for nearly four hours by boat to Amantaní Island. There we were picked up by a host family and led to their house on the island. Unfortunately, Natalia and I were matched with a family whose house was nearly at the summit of the island, so we had to climb for nearly 40 minutes with our overloaded backpacks up a steep rocky road at over 13,000 feet. When we arrived at the family's house, we were ready to pass out. The house and this arrangement was incredibly interesting. The family actually lives in a small complex of adobe huts with thatched reed roofs... there are four generations living together, and about 11 people in total, according to our best count. The houses have earth floors and the nicest parts have glass windows. We ate a lunch of soup, potatoes, and rice cooked on an adobe stove with a sage brush fire... while guinea pigs (called Cuy) ran freely around the hut. Apparently guinea pigs are both a delicacy and a type of currency in Peru, and particularly on Amantaní. In the evening, the family lent Natalia and I some traditional Peruvian clothes, and we joined other families, tourists, and islanders for a fiesta, dancing to the rhythm of skin drums and pan flutes. It was quite an experience, particularly when we exited the "dance hall" for a breath of fresh air and saw more stars than I've ever seen... we even saw a shooting star make a full arc across the sky.

The next day, we woke up early in the morning and saw the sun rise over the mountains in the distance on the horizon of the lake. Norma, the young woman of the family who was principally charged with us delivered a great breakfast of tea and pancakes, and then lead us back down the steep trail to find our launch. We cruised about an hour to neighboring Taquile Island. Unlike Amantaní, Taquile has more fully embraced tourism. Although the islanders still rigidly adhere to a tradition of knitting hats in different colours to indicate their marital status, they welcome tourists with enthusiastic band recitals and offers of woollen goods, bracelets, or herbs to refresh during the hike up to the island summit. There we had lunch, and then hiked down a steep stone stairway to the port where our launch was waiting to take us back to Puno.

We arrived in Puno late this afternoon, and checked into the same hostel as before... we're ready to go to sleep soon, as we have an early morning train to catch to Cusco. The train ride is reputed to be quite slow but with spectacular views of the Andes. We will confirm upon our arrival. At least for the moment we will not have to suffer another harrowing bus trip!

Until soon, all our best...
Tom and Natalia


- posted by Thomas @ 10:32 PM

 
La Paz :: Sorata :: Copacabana :: Puno
A few more words on La Paz... after Natalia and I left the internet cafe where I made the last entry, we spent the remainder of the day exploring the city, and it merits a bit more description. First, the city sits at about 2 miles above sea level (the highest capital city in the world), so oxygen is scarce, and it's a bit exhausting climbing the steep streets... especially when you have to push your way through crowded street markets everywhere. The streets are truly overrun with an uncannily eclectic mix of people. Natalia observed the oddity of indigenous people mingling with suited business men and machine-gun toting military. Many indigenous people (Aymara Indians) come to the city from the surrounding pueblos, mostly to sell fruits, herbs, crafts, or simply to beg. The Aymara women are consistently dressed very traditionally... they wear their hair in two long braids, often with hair extensions to make their braids longer, they wear many layers of dresses (apparently the more dresses one wears at any time, the wealthier they are)... the final layer usually resembles a kitchen apron or painter's smock. On their backs they have brightly colored blankets tied around their necks that appear to hold a bundle equivilant to my 70 liter backpack... or if they aren't carrying some sort of dry goods in their blanket-pack, they're carrying a baby. Perhaps most striking and unusual, though, is the fact that every woman wears a british-style bowler hat (worn on the side if they're single, and on top if they're married).

When Natalia and I returned to our hostel, we passed the San Francisco plaza and a beautiful (although slightly run down) cathedral... it was then that we realized our hostel, located just a block and a half behind the cathedral, was right in the middle of the "Witches' Market", where you can buy a bizarre assortment of goods including amulets, potions, delicately crafted silver jewellery, sweets and dried llama foetuses (I did in fact buy one - supposedly for good luck, but we'll see if US Customs agrees).

We had dinner in La Paz at a lovely cafe/art museum (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Plaza), and then a deep sleep before we departed for Sorata.

The distance from La Paz to Sorata is not great - as the crow flies, it should be less than an hour's drive, by bolivian roads, it should be roughly 2 hours... but with the steep and perilous descent into the mountain basin where Sorata is perched, the bus ride took over 4.5 hours and left us nearly paralyzed with fear. The road down the mountains is steep, unpaved, with many craters and evidence of landslides, and again just wide enough for our bus... although theoretically two-ways. The edge of the road is without any guard, and from the bus windows, many times the edge was not even visible - we were just staring straight down a ravine of several thousand feet. If this weren't scary enough, our bus driver was overly concerned with finding that perfect Bolivian song on the radio (note: they all sound the same), and so was often driving with one hand while tuning the dial with the other.

Natalia nearly collapsed when we finally landed at the Hostal Mirador in Sorata, pale white thinking about our eventual ascent back up the same path...

Our hostal had some incredible views of the mountains and valley, which are lush green, full of tall trees and exotic birds and insects. Sorata itself is a very small town, but the setting is breathtaking.

In our hostal we met a nice Swiss couple, and the next day joined them on a 3 hour hike through the mountains to a cave that houses an underground lake... it was a long walk under a scorching sun, but the cave was truly impressive, which made it worthwhile. Unfortunately, we were not able to take any pictures that captured the scale or mystery of the cave... even with flash, the results were disappointing.

Today we departed from Sorata... prepared to brave the ascent out of the mountain valley. Natalia and I actually planned to have our seats on the bus be on the side away from the road's precipice... in part because we didn't want to stare into the gorge of eternal peril, and in part because we opened the bus window as wide as possible for a potential escape hatch if the bus slipped. Thankfully, we made it up the mountains without any problems, despite a heavy rain and thick fog in parts.

The bus took us to Huarani (about half way back to La Paz) where we waited on the side of the road for another bus to take us to Copacabana. We eventually arrived in Copacabana, which is a really quaint town with a lovely plaza and cathedral, right on the shores of Lake Titicaca. We had a quick lunch, and then found a random car offering rides to the Peruvian boarder, just about 5 miles away. We walked through Bolivian Immigrations and then across the boarder and through Peruvian Immigrations... then hopped on the back of a sort of hybrid moped-taxi which took us another 5 miles to Yunguyo, where we found a rusty old bus hollering for people to go to Puno. We boarded the bus, which was typically overcrowded with people sitting in the aisle... and drove about 3 hours to Puno.

When we arrived in Puno - just a few hours ago - we were bombarded at the bus station with offers for hotels, hostels, food, taxis, etc... one especially persistent guy kept pushing an "economic and nice" hostel... when we asked how much, he said 30 Sol each (about US$10)... which is outrageously expensive for here... so when I said absolutely not, the price quickly dropped to 20 Sol each, and then 10 Sol each. Knowing we were simply being preyed upon, we just started walking away from the terminal and toward the city center on our own. The roads became darker and less populated, which began making us nervous... and luckily we happened upon a small police station. When I went in to ask for advice, the police chief insisted on going with us in a taxi and negotiating for us at various hostels. We accepted the kind offer, which soon became awkward when we realized the police chief was pushing certain places that were also unusually expensive, and seemed to have a very good rapport with the hostel/hotel owners... so finally we said a gracious thank you, and went on our own to find a 10 Sol per person place in the middle of the city center.

Our hostel, by chance, is just a few doors down from a travel agency (All Ways Travel) where I've heard we can book an interesting and inexpensive tour of the floating totora islands on Lake Titicaca... so I will be investigating that tomorrow morning.

That brings us to the present, and as Natalia is waiting patiently for me to finish this so we can finally get to sleep after a very long day, I should probably not push my luck and wrap this up.

Until next time,
Tom
- posted by Thomas @ 9:31 PM

 
Fear and Loathing in Bolivia (Uyuni :: Potosí :: Sucre :: La Paz)
Today Natalia and I arrived in La Paz. We´ve had quite an adventure through Bolivia so far. Uyuni we found to be a rather uninteresting and almost eerie town on the boarder of the desert with a large main street and a constant flow of foot traffic without any particular purpose or destination. Much of the town seems to be geared towards the tourists coming from the Salar lake (like us). We said goodbyes to the other members of our tour group over dinner and a few games of pool in a dingy arcade, and we departed the following morning for Potosí. The six hour bus ride took us through some breathtaking landscapes and some of the most serious squalor I have seen yet in South America. The people seem to be mostly of indian (Aymara) descent, and most wear traditional clothing and live in adobe huts in the countryside.

When we arrived in Potosí, we were not very impressed... it appeared to be a more densely populated, chaotic, and utterly filthy version of the countryside we had passed through on our way. We thus decided to quickly move on to Sucre rather than stay in Potosí. I fear now that this was not a prudent decision. Apparently, Potosí has a very rich and tragic history that centers around the silver mines of the 19th century. In the city center, there is a wealth of colonial architecture and old world charm that we missed entirely. Perhaps one day we will return to find the hidden spirit of Potosí.

We arrived in Sucre on Thursday night, and found a comfortable hostel directly across the street from the bus terminal. The following day, we ventured into the city center to change money, and found much of the ambience that I imagine we missed in Potosí. There is a lovely cathedral on a town square, and a lot of colonial architecture with wrought iron balconies and ornate facades. We felt it might be nice to stay for a few days and really explore the city, but then we met an expat Dutch resident who told us differently. Apparently, there is some political unrest coming soon, due to changing laws for coca workers... I wasn´t clear on the details, but I gathered enough to understand that the last time something like this happened, the entire country virtually shut down for over 10 days... tourists were trapped because none of the buses, trains, or planes were working, and it´s also not the safest time to be wandering the streets with blonde hair and a backpack.

Thus, we determined to leave for La Paz that very night... and we cut Cochabamba out of our itinerary. The bus ride to La Paz was 15 hours of pure hell. Bolivia is reputed to have some of the most dangerous roads in the world, and this is no exaggeration. First, about boarding the bus... when we arrived at the bus station, we were immediately lost in a horde of people carrying packages, trying to sell bread and sweets, pushing to buy tickets, breast feeding babies, etc... total mayhem. We had to leave our backpacks in a small office on one of the upper floors of the terminal, and later saw them reappear with a bed frame, tires, bags of potatoes, and a kitchen set... all of which were lowered with ropes down onto the top of the bus and tied into place. The bus itself was little more than a glorified school bus with people sitting in the aisle, buying things through the windows, and generally adding to the chaos. When we departed, we saw more of the same beathtaking landscapes which were made even more dramatic by a violent thunderstorm in the distance. We began on a paved road that shortly turned into a gravel strip twisting through green vegetation on a mountain slope. The greenery gave way to rocky gray-brown areas too steep for any vegetation. As the road climbed into the mountains and the shoulder disappeared with a sheer cliff on one side and a steep incline on the other, we saw memorial stones and crosses for those who attempted this journey before us with less good fortune. It was quite a contrast when, at the same time, the scenery was so magnificent. Just about 15 feet wide, the road was just able to accomodate our bus... but it was theoretically two-ways. I held my breath every time we waited for other large vehicles to pass, and my panic increased as we were able to see in the twilight, wrecks below along a river.

Needless to say, I didn´t get much sleep during the 15 hour trip, and was much relieved to climb down from this death trap in La Paz in the early morning, knuckles still white.

La Paz is a massive and bustling city that easily overwhelms. Geographically, it is in the shape of a bowl, with overcrowded barrios rising up all around the sunken city center. We have only been here for a few hours, and we have checked into a ratty little hostel on the outskirts of the city center. My main mission now is to find a chip for my digital camera so we can continue taking photos, and also to determine whether we will make a day trip to Sorata (a small mountain town just an hour or two from La Paz), or whether we will not risk the political insurgency and instead rush onto Puno in Peru. Either way, our time in Bolivia is drawing to a close rather soon, and both Natalia and I are incredibly excited to continue our adventure as we push North.

More to come soon...

All our best wishes,
Tom & Natalia

- posted by Thomas @ 11:04 AM

 
San Pedro de Atacama :: Altiplano :: Uyuni
Natalia and I have just finished an incredible three day trip through the Atacama desert and the Bolivian Altiplano by jeep. In San Pedro de Atacama we joined a group of four other people through Colque Tours and departed early Monday morning into the desert and across the Bolivian frontier. Once we exited the desert and entered the altiplano, we saw several spectacular crater lakes and lagoons. Although the terrain is similarly dry and inhospitable, the high altitude (over 12,000 feet) keeps the water from evaporating. Some of the lakes were colored a bright green from copper deposits, others a sapphire blue due to a mix of arsenic and copper, and a few were a deep red because of plankton. We saw some impressive rock formations, hot springs, guysers, and a lot of sand, rock, and cactus. We also saw wild llamas, vicuñas, chinchillas, flamingos, desert mice, and a host of unidentified birds.

The first night, we slept in a sort of thatched hut on the side of the "laguna colorada" (red lagoon)... the accomodations were very basic, with no running water and just a small electric generator that kept a few light bulbs flickering. The high altitude made it difficult to sleep, and both Natalia and I suffered from the unrelenting headache associated with altitude sickness. Our hut was at nearly 14,000 feet.

The following day, we continued our drive through the desert until we arrived at the banks of the great salt lake. Not quite the same as Utah... the lake is about 12,000 kilometers square in area, and consistently about 20-25 feet deep... and solid salt. I was able to understand from our guide that due to volcanic activity, mountains rose up and trapped sea water which continued to evaporate, leaving salt deposits... the lake was initially much much deeper... and all the water that evaporated was enough to leave about 25 feet of solid sea salt behind.

At 5am this morning, we departed to drive across the lake. To our good fortune, there was a heavy rain last night, so there was a thin coating of water on top of the salt. We were about half-way across the lake by sunrise, and the reflections of the sky and clouds in the still sheet of water on the lake were absolutely spectacular. I took several photos of Natalia standing on the salt with the appearance of her floating in the middle of a brilliant sunrise. Later that morning we arrived at the Isla de Pescadores (Island of Fisherman), where we hiked up to the top of a small mountain in the middle of the salt flats and had breakfast amidst a cactus forest. Then we continued to a "salt hotel" (a hotel in the middle of the lake built entirely out of salt bricks), and on to the other side of the lake, where there is a village that processes and sells the salt. We saw this work in progress... done entirely by hand - the salt is shoveled into trucks, the trucks dump it in a field where there are adobe ovens heated by sage brush fires, and the salt is scooped onto the top of this oven, and then ground by hand and placed in plastic bags, which are even sealed by hand - rolling and then burning the plastic. Four women working all day can yield about 5,000 one kilo bags of salt.

After our brief stop in the village that produces salt, we continued on towards Uyuni. I had read about some of these tours having problems with breakdowns en route, and was just about to say thanks that we had made it to our final destination without a problem when our jeep stopped. We had to wait for several cars to pass (and there isn't much traffic here) until one pulled over to help... they went back into Uyuni with a 5 liter water jug which they filled with gasoline... and when they came back, only after we gave the jeep a serious push, we were on our way again.

We arrived in Uyuni a few hours ago... it is a tiny little village with a lively central market and a lot of pedestrian activity. Natalia and I found a room in a hostel with a "private bath" (a luxury here) for roughly 35 Bolivianos, which is a little over $4. Granted we haven't tested the hot water yet, and the floor boards are scalloped so badly that it hurts to walk... but such is budget traveling.

Tomorrow we'll be moving on to Potosì in the morning, and I will provide another update again soon. Until then, thanks for reading!

As always,
Tom
- posted by Thomas @ 2:08 PM

 
Concepción ::Santiago :: La Serena :: Calama :: San Pedro de Atacama
Natalia and I are now sitting in the middle of the Atacama Desert - which has the dubious distinction of being the absolute driest place on earth. We really got off to a running start, traveling over 1,200 miles in about 48 hours.

On Thursday night we left Concepción. Natalia´s family and several friends joined us in the bus terminal for a poignant send-off. Her cousin´s boyfriend gave us a gift of two tickets aboard a luxury bus to Santiago... a double decker with seats that reclined into full beds... which was very kind. We arrived in Santiago without a hitch at about 6am, walked a few blocks with all our stuff to a different bus terminal where we played cards until about 8:30 when the ticket offices opened, and purchased tickets to La Serena. Natalia commented that already she felt like a "gringo", wandering through the streets with a fully loaded backpack. We left our stuff with a custodian in the terminal and went to the Vaccination center in Santiago where we got our final vaccine for Yellow Fever, and then had lunch with a Stanford GSB alum and his friend from HBS. They recently started a sort of private equity/LBO shop, and it was interesting to discuss some of their business ideas as well as hear about their experiences from business school. The HBS grad actually admitted that he would´ve preferred to attend Stanford, which was nice to hear.

The bus trip to La Serena was a bit of a nightmare. We left Santiago at 3:30 in the afternoon, and for the entire 8 hour trip we were subjected to the wailing of two babies and the off-key singing of a group of young kids sitting directly behind us. The singing was only punctuated by an occasional kick at our seats. We landed in La Serena at 11:30pm totally exhausted and incredibly thankful to get off the bus. I had planned for us to go directly from La Serena to San Pedro de Atacama... which, according to a website that gives distances between cities around the world (http://www.geobytes.com/CityDistanceTool.htm) would be a short busride - a little over 100 miles. Looking at a map, that distance sounded suspect, but I was just hoping that the maps I saw were not drawn to scale. Well, it happened that there were no direct buses to San Pedro until Monday, so first we would have to go to a city called Calama, which was on the way... and a mere 14 hours (about 700 miles) from La Serena. Clearly the maps were more reliable than the website. Before we departed for Calama at 2:30am, Natalia took a shower in the bus terminal... when I suggested this, she laughed herself into tears, but afterwards conceded that it was an excellent idea.

The ride to Calama was about as uneventful as the scenery... hour upon hour of desert. We passed through several towns, which were basically a few "houses" grouped together alongside the road set against the vast expanse of sand and rock. The houses were constructed of an array of materials ranging from adobe bricks to rusted tin and tires. I thought Concepión was estranged from civilization, but this put a new spin on an old theme... I can´t imagine how people live in places like that.

When we arrived at the "terminal" in Calama, we weren´t sure we had reached our destination. The bus terminal is just the shoulder of a road with a few stone buildings on either side. We found an office that sold tickets to San Pedro, and waited alongside the road for another bus to pass and take us further into the desert. The ride to San Pedro de Atacama was only about an hour and a half, and we were greeted at the terminal (again, basically the shoulder of a road) by a guy with a jeep who offered to take us to a hostel. After a few minutes of conversation, we decided to trust him, and arrived at our current accomodations...

Last night we walked through the town of San Pedro, which is rather spartan but quaint, with rustic adobe buildings and cute little restaurants. We happened upon a family bingo event with a live band playing traditional Chilean music, and then had an excellent meal and a peaceful sleep in the first real bed of our trip.

Now we are about to eat breakfast and investiage tours into Bolivia... then we will probably move from this hostal to camp in the desert for a night, in order to save some money and also have a different type of experience. So far, everything is going more or less according to plan, we are on schedule, and very eager to keep pushing North... to see new places, meet new people, and most of all, to share time together. Just a few days into our trip, we are already feeling closer than ever and really working well as a team. I´m so excited for everything that lies ahead - both during our journey home, and beyond.

Until next time... Tom
- posted by Thomas @ 7:47 AM

 
Farewell Concepción
I have less than five hours remaining in Concepción before Natalia and I board a bus to Santiago. The last few days have been absoultely full of random errands and tying up loose ends. In addition to emptying my apartment, closing accounts, processing financial aid information for Stanford, making sure all of our personal belongings are shipped to the United States, and sorting out our budget for the trip, we´ve been running to various farewell parties and saying goodbye to many of the friends and family we have here. For Natalia especially this has been a very emotional time. Last night we had a big barbeque at her house and almost her entire family - immediate and extended - came to see her off. I delivered a tearful speech about how much I have appreciated all their hospitality and support, and about how excited I am for the future that awaits us in the states... and her father and some uncles and cousins also shared some very sentimental and kind words.

What Natalia is doing - leaving her family and home to join me in the United States - is incredibly rare here in Chile and goes very much against the cultural grain. She´s showed an amazing amount of courage and strength through this time. While I left my home at 18 years old to begin college, and since then have travelled and lived around the world, this is the first time Natalia will be leaving her house for an extended period... and try as I might, I don´t think I can even fathom the emotional leap she´s taking. All I can say is that I will stand by her and lend her as much support and encouragement as possible.

So, with that being said - let the adventure begin!

To share some logistics - we´ve planned a budget of roughly $15 USD per day ($2 breakfast, $3 lunch, $3 dinner, $1 internet/phone, $6 hostel) for personal expenses, and we figure roughly $1.20 per mile of travel. We´re leaving with roughly $700 each - $400 of which are in AmEx travellers cheques, $200 in USD, and $100 in Chilean pesos. The rest of our funds have been wired to my account in the United States, which we will be able to draw upon with an ATM card. We will hopefully be able to stay within budget, especially since occasionally we will be traveling through the night and not need a place to sleep. Our first few stops will be Santiago, La Serena, and San Pedro de Atacama. From San Pedro we will be taking a 4x4 jeep tour through the desert/altiplano and will arrive in Bolivia. That should bring us through the first week, roughly. We will probably also spend a day or two in San Pedro before we depart to soak in the atmosphere. I will try to be vigilant about making entries as we progress.

We have very little packed - we´re each bringing four t-shirts, three pants, two shorts, a bathing suit, 7 pairs of underwear and socks, hiking shoes, sneakers, sandals, a towel, toiletries, a sleeping bag and inflatable mattress, and a stocked first aid/medical kit. We will both be carrying a mace spray bottle for safety. I am also taking a tent and various camping equipment, like headlamps, rope, a diving knife, compass, bug spray, etc. An unexpected addition to our packing list is Natalia´s engagement ring. Unfortunately I couldn´t find a service here in Chile to send her ring to the US... even DHL told me my best bet was to hide it in a casette tape and send it by regular mail... very funny. I´m a bit nervous to be carrying a diamond-platinum ring with us, but I´ll have it hidden in a plastic case and stashed along with our money and passports in a small purse-like bag that I´ll be wearing around my neck and under my shirt.

We´ve been very thorough with our trip planning - having researched each of the places we´re going, and also having spoken with other travelers who we found via the web who were kind enough to share their experiences and offer advice. It would be a bore to outline all the planning/logistics here, but if you have specific questions, I´d be happy to answer them. Just write me at tom@livelli.com.

I´m now off to Natalia´s house to finish putting together our packs and head to the bus terminal with her family. I can´t really express how excited I am that this moment has finally arrived...

Heading North,
Tom
- posted by Thomas @ 4:35 PM