Peru Album #2!! These are photos from Cusco, Machu Picchu and my motorcycle ride, plus the floating islands in Lake Titicaca. Below you will find a link to the Picasa album as well as a slide show embedded in the blog. Enjoy!
Second Installment of Peru Photos!!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Photos!!
So I am FINALLY getting around to putting my pictures up online. There is little reason for anyone to be checking this blog now that I am back in the United States but just in case I'll post a link each time I put up a new album of photos.
First Installment: Photos from Northern Peru
First Installment: Photos from Northern Peru
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Oh my god Leah is posting PICTURES
I know that I haven´t put up a lot of pictures, but it takes FOREVER to load them. So here is a small selection. When I am back stateside I´ll probably create albums on Flickr for all who want to see the grand motherload of photos (and there are a lot I tell you. A lot).  |
| Isla del Sol - Copacabana, Bolivia |
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| The crowd of "waiting" before leaving Copacabana. The boats in the background are what we took. |
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| There are lots of people with llamas (many with baby llamas that are impossibly adorable) in Cusco who walk around getting tourists to take pictures of them for a tip. I got really angry one day when I saw people take a picture of two girls in native dress and walk away while the girls called out "propina! propina!" The girls chased the tourists down. |
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| Motorcycles to go to Machu Picchu!!!!! (Mine is in the middle) |
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| Dylan and ruins on the ride up the mountain |
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| Impossibly adorable child |
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| Impossibly adorable children who, after Dylan and I both took this picture, crowded around us demanding coins as payment |
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| The woman who made us lunch on the 2nd day of our ride. Delicious trout from the river below. |
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| My fellow motorcyclists (Dyland from Portland and Sander from Holland) and I at Machu Picchu |
Monday, June 6, 2011
Purple thumbs and Presidents
Yesterday Peru elected a new president. You know those pictures of people after they voted in Iraq proudly showing their inked finger? Well its the same in Peru, only without as much of the pride. Rather, much like you find in the United States, everyone I talked to felt as though they were choosing between the better of two bad options. Voting in mandatory here and I met one person who told me she would rather pay the fine (I think she said it was 70 soles which is like 30ish USD) than vote. I met another person who "voted" but really just drew a dick and wrote "No Corruption" between the options instead of choosing one.
The actual day of the election was pretty calm. Because voting is mandatory a lot of stuff shut down, though the voting happened on a Sunday so a lot of stuff would´ve been shut down anyway. In the days leading up to the election there seemed to be a little more happening. First of all, the entire country was covered with propaganda for the two candidates. The favored method seemed to be painting their names and slogans and icons (Every candidate has a sign associated with them, for example Keiko´s was an orange K, Ollanta´s was a stylized red O, a party near Nazca uses a graphic of a bunch of grapes, that is next to their name on the ballot. This is what voters mark with an X to signify their chose. My guess is that its for the illiterate voters out there) in huge letters across buildings, walls, or any other flat surface that people would drive or walk by. For months there are going to be huge orange letters screaming "Keiko Presidente 2011" around the country (Keiko did not win). In the cities there were also banners and I did manage to see a few tv ads, though I haven´t watched all that much Peruvian TV. When I was in Cuzco I did manage to "participate" in a rally for Keiko (and by participate I mean I stumbled upon it and then stood in the crowd, sticking out like a sore gringo thumb). Even though I am clearly not Peruvian I was still handed election shwag, a pendant to wave in the air and a few bracelets that said "Yo Kiero un Peru para mi" (For you non Spanish speakers that translates to "I want a Peru for me" with the "Kiero" a play on the real word, quiero).
It was fascinating to watch the rally. Everyone seemed really worked up! There was more energy and fervor out of this, actually, relatively small crowd than you typically get at American political rallys (rallys during the 2008 election being the exception). The energy actually reminded me of the 2008 election. It sort of felt as though I was seeing democracy in action. I had an interesting conversation with a Peruvian man somewhere between the age of 40 and 60 (I seriously cannot judge peoples´ ages here. Its impossible). He told me why he was voting for Keiko, which basically can be boiled down to the following: the other candidate (Ollanta) was leftist and he thought that with a leftist president Peru would experience terrorism again (a huge problem for Peru in the 80s. Keiko´s father, a former president of Peru, is actually credited with ending a lot of this terrorism and getting Peru back on its feet), he didn´t believe in socialism (other candidate socialist), but mostly he thought that men were two prideful and egotistical and women work a lot harder than men so he was going to vote for the woman candidate. This was followed by a story about how the tale of Adam and Eve is really a story about how men are always trying to blame someone else. Not bad for a guy from a machismo culture! (We also talked about how many people wouldn´t vote for Keiko because her father was charged with corruption and human rights violations after his presidency and currently is in jail. Many people think she would´ve pardoned her father if elected). However, Ollanta won and that has some of the Peruvians that I know worried. He is closely allied to Hugo Chavez and is a military guy so some people are worried about authoritarianism and Peru´s government becoming anti-American, I´m sorry, anti-United States (If your answer to the question "Where are you from?" is "I´m American" many south Americans (especially Argentines and Brasilians) will respond "So am I." Not gonna lie, I find this annoying.)
Perhaps the most intriguing thing about the Peruvian election, no alcohol can be sold from Friday through midnight on Sunday. No drunk voting people!! Sunday night, after the election results had been announced, I traipsed through the city of Trujillo with some Peruvian friends seeking a place that would sell us alcohol before the legal midnight lifting of the ban (it wasn´t that hard to find somewhere). So, thats my election story, not super interesting. I tried to write a post about it before the election took place but the wifi on the bus I was on was being futzy. That´s right, wifi on a bus in Peru. And I got a really good hot meal and a blanket I wanted to steal (but mom and dad taught me well and I didn´t, or I forgot at 1am when I got off the bus) because of its cool gold embroidery. Greyhound are you listening to me? Peruvian buses are kicking your ass! Come on now! Oh, and I bought contacts today because it was cheaper and easier to have a quick eye checkup and buy contacts here than to do it in the USA.
I am now it the town of Chiclayo in Northern Peru. I´m going to explore some pre-Columbian ruins over the next few days before heading back south towards Lima. I have 9 days left in South America! Let the countdown begin!
The actual day of the election was pretty calm. Because voting is mandatory a lot of stuff shut down, though the voting happened on a Sunday so a lot of stuff would´ve been shut down anyway. In the days leading up to the election there seemed to be a little more happening. First of all, the entire country was covered with propaganda for the two candidates. The favored method seemed to be painting their names and slogans and icons (Every candidate has a sign associated with them, for example Keiko´s was an orange K, Ollanta´s was a stylized red O, a party near Nazca uses a graphic of a bunch of grapes, that is next to their name on the ballot. This is what voters mark with an X to signify their chose. My guess is that its for the illiterate voters out there) in huge letters across buildings, walls, or any other flat surface that people would drive or walk by. For months there are going to be huge orange letters screaming "Keiko Presidente 2011" around the country (Keiko did not win). In the cities there were also banners and I did manage to see a few tv ads, though I haven´t watched all that much Peruvian TV. When I was in Cuzco I did manage to "participate" in a rally for Keiko (and by participate I mean I stumbled upon it and then stood in the crowd, sticking out like a sore gringo thumb). Even though I am clearly not Peruvian I was still handed election shwag, a pendant to wave in the air and a few bracelets that said "Yo Kiero un Peru para mi" (For you non Spanish speakers that translates to "I want a Peru for me" with the "Kiero" a play on the real word, quiero).
It was fascinating to watch the rally. Everyone seemed really worked up! There was more energy and fervor out of this, actually, relatively small crowd than you typically get at American political rallys (rallys during the 2008 election being the exception). The energy actually reminded me of the 2008 election. It sort of felt as though I was seeing democracy in action. I had an interesting conversation with a Peruvian man somewhere between the age of 40 and 60 (I seriously cannot judge peoples´ ages here. Its impossible). He told me why he was voting for Keiko, which basically can be boiled down to the following: the other candidate (Ollanta) was leftist and he thought that with a leftist president Peru would experience terrorism again (a huge problem for Peru in the 80s. Keiko´s father, a former president of Peru, is actually credited with ending a lot of this terrorism and getting Peru back on its feet), he didn´t believe in socialism (other candidate socialist), but mostly he thought that men were two prideful and egotistical and women work a lot harder than men so he was going to vote for the woman candidate. This was followed by a story about how the tale of Adam and Eve is really a story about how men are always trying to blame someone else. Not bad for a guy from a machismo culture! (We also talked about how many people wouldn´t vote for Keiko because her father was charged with corruption and human rights violations after his presidency and currently is in jail. Many people think she would´ve pardoned her father if elected). However, Ollanta won and that has some of the Peruvians that I know worried. He is closely allied to Hugo Chavez and is a military guy so some people are worried about authoritarianism and Peru´s government becoming anti-American, I´m sorry, anti-United States (If your answer to the question "Where are you from?" is "I´m American" many south Americans (especially Argentines and Brasilians) will respond "So am I." Not gonna lie, I find this annoying.)
Perhaps the most intriguing thing about the Peruvian election, no alcohol can be sold from Friday through midnight on Sunday. No drunk voting people!! Sunday night, after the election results had been announced, I traipsed through the city of Trujillo with some Peruvian friends seeking a place that would sell us alcohol before the legal midnight lifting of the ban (it wasn´t that hard to find somewhere). So, thats my election story, not super interesting. I tried to write a post about it before the election took place but the wifi on the bus I was on was being futzy. That´s right, wifi on a bus in Peru. And I got a really good hot meal and a blanket I wanted to steal (but mom and dad taught me well and I didn´t, or I forgot at 1am when I got off the bus) because of its cool gold embroidery. Greyhound are you listening to me? Peruvian buses are kicking your ass! Come on now! Oh, and I bought contacts today because it was cheaper and easier to have a quick eye checkup and buy contacts here than to do it in the USA.
I am now it the town of Chiclayo in Northern Peru. I´m going to explore some pre-Columbian ruins over the next few days before heading back south towards Lima. I have 9 days left in South America! Let the countdown begin!
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Motorcyles and Machu Picchu
Everyone has heard of the classic Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu but have you heard of the other ways to get Machu Picchu? A few hours in Cuzco and you will know almost all of them, you don't even need to step foot into one of the 100s of travel agencies to know the basics of the Salkantay 5 day trek or the multi-adventure option Jungle Trek or of the different 2 day 1 night options-by car, by train, via the Sacred Valley etc... Despite being the most famous and the ''classic'' approach to Machu Picchu the Inca Trail isn't how most tourists arrive. This is because the Inca Trail is highly regulated, only 500 permits per day are issued, 300 of which go to guides and porters. There are heavy fees and taxes associated with the trail as well. All of this means that you have to book the Inca Trail weeks, if not months, in advance and it is, by far, the most expensive way to approach Machu Picchu, thus the many other options being hocked at tourists in Cusco [along with massages, you can't go three feet down the street without someone shoving a flier in your face and saying 'Lady massage!'].
So, which of these alternative options did I take to Machu Picchu? None of them! I broke, slightly, away from the well worn tourist trail and, with two guys I met in Copacabana, and crazily rented a motorcycle to drive to Machu Picchu. Now I haven't driven an actual motorcycle since my parents still owned the farm they sold when I was 14. At that point in time I wasn't actually big enough to hold the motorcycle up on my own, so one of my brothers was aways on the back with me. I did own my 35cc Honda Metropolitan scooter for a few of years, but that is a slightly different beast than a 250cc motorcycle that weighs more than I do. And the road isn't exactly the easiest in the world. Nonetheless, after 20 minutes of practicing in a back yard and on a dirt road in a Cuzco suburb I decided that I could do it. It was more expensive than taking a tour to Machu Picchu [note to anyone planning on going to Machu Picchu, its fecking expensive] but it was SO worth it.
The first day was the easiest as far as driving was concerned. After a little while in Cusco suburb traffic [where I stalled once] we were on smooth asphalt that went through smaller and smaller towns. We missed the turn to Pisac and ended up climbing up the mountain for about 20 minutes in the wrong direction, which was fine cause it gave me some practice on curves. After turning around we hit the Sacred Valley, which was ABSOLUTELY gorgeous. There was the red of quinua crops to one side, lush green hills rising up on either side of us, a roaring river to the right lined with green trees. The road curved just enough to make riding fun but not so much that we had to slow down. After about 45 minutes we hit the small town of Pisac and climbed up to the ruins of Pisac. I'm not gonna lie, you pull into a parking lot crowded with tourist buses on a motorcycle and you just feel cool, whether you look it or not. Things took an unexpected turn after our visit to the ruins because Dylan's bike wasn't functioning properly. It kept dying on him, luckily it was downhill to the town of Pisac. There we asked about a mechanic and were sent to a mechanic that only worked on cars. Then we were told that there was a mechanic a 10 minute ride down the road, but not in the direction we were headed. There was no way Dylan's bike could make it in 10 minutes. We spent at least 20 minutes calling the rental agency, a challenge for my spanish, to see if they could talk us through fixing the bike. [they couldn't]. Finally we put everything on hold to eat, as we hadn't since having bread for breakfast at 7am and, as it was nearly 2pm, were a little grouchy.
During and after lunch I asked a few more people about a motorcycle mechanic and got directions to one in town, which was a little challenging to find. We finally found it but it was closed, as it was Sunday, so I had to go back to the call center, put my Spanish to the test again and call the mechanic [note, new word learned areglar, which means to fix, not be confused with alquilar, which is to rent. These words sound very similar over a phone and can cause confusion]. The mechanic and I finally established that he would meet us at his shop. At this point I'd gotten separated from the boys and after searching for them in the town I just rode to the mechanic, afraid he would leave if I didn't show up. To my great relief the boys were there and the mechanic was working on the bike. The problem, a dirty spark plug. 15 minutes later we were on the road so that we could get to the next town before sundown.
Day 2 we headed off early. We had to try and make it to the town of Aguas Calientes that night if we were going to stick to the 4 day rental plan, and our wallets desired that greatly. We stopped in the impossibly adorable Incan town of Ollantaytambo to expore the incredible Incan ruins there. I cannot understand how the Spanish thought that the Incans were stupid, un-cultured, and infidels. One look at the ruins of their cities and citadels and that seems impossible. I can't imagine what it would have been like to have seen the living, breathing, functioning cities. Only a few minutes outside of town Dylan got a flat tire. Thankfully he got the flat tire about 2 minutes away from a tire repair shop. Half an hour and 15 soles later we were back on the road. The drive was AMAZING. It wound up a mountain pass, with hair pin turns and incredible scenery. We kept stopping to soak it up, though my camera was hard to get out of my bag so I took few pictures. It got cold as we climbed. There were farms and tiny houses and adorable children that let us take their picture and then crowded around us shouting ''Propina! Propina [tip]" There were snowcapped peaks in the distance. It was so incredible! Then the ride took us down. The landscape turned lusher, greener, more jungley. After a rapid descent [minus a stop for the most amazing trout I've eaten on this trip in a tiny, side of the road, truck stop esque restaurant] we hit a dirt road for the last 75-100km. There was road construction and a lot of stopping. The last 30 or 40 km were on a twisting, essentially one lane road with a gorge plummeting down to the river on one side. The boys kept stopping to take pictures, but I was exhausted and just wanted to get to Santa Theresa so I didn't really appreciate this landscape until we drove back to Cusco two days later.
We finally arrived in Santa Theresa, near the bottom of the gorge we had just ridden down. We couldn't find the hotel the agency had told us to store our bikes in, but we found another hostel. In the process of searching I stupidly stopped on a hill and, when trying to start and turn around on it, I ended up dropping the bike on myself. After righting it it didn't want to start. We didn't have time to worry about that though, so we stashed the bikes and grabbed a taxi to the train station. There are no roads that go to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu. You can only arrive by train, foot, or horseback. We didn't think we had time to walk to the town [it was 20km supposedly] and we had arrived just in time to take the last train of the day. Now, its common knowledge that where there are tourists there is money but Machu Picchu is taking this to an extreme. Our train ride lasted just over half an hour and cost us abut 18 US dollars. If you don't pay in US dollars you get screwed on the exchange rate into soles. Nonetheless, we took the train, gritting our teeth at the cost. We got to Aguas Calientes, bought our tickets to Machu Picchu, checked into a hotel, ate dinner, and crashed into bed.
The next morning we woke up before 4am. The first 400 people into Machu Picchu can hike up to WayanaPicchu [That would be the mountain you see right at the end of the ruins in all of the photos] and we were intent on being one of those 400 and NOT paying for the $8 bus from the town to the ruins. There is a bridge 2km from the town that doesn't open until 5am [the ruins open at 6am and it, supposedly, is an hour hike from the bridge. The buses leave town at 530 and take about 30 min to get to the ruins]. A small bribe, this is South America after all, got us across the bridge at 430. We hiked up the road in silence, staring at the stars and the black shapes of the mountains and trees. It was incredibly beautiful, peaceful, and worth the bribe. The road itself switchbacks up the mountain but there is steep hiking trail of steps that cuts up, we missed the steps and walked for about half an hour, then saw the lights of the people who had waited for the bridge to open and joined them on the steep climb. Our early entrance cut off probably half the steep climb, which I was glad for. We were probably one of the first 50 people into the ruins. Machu Picchu is amazing. Its beautiful. Its incredible. Its interesting. It lives up to all the hype. Thats all I have to say about it. The hike up WayanaPicchu was steep and hard and exhausting and totally worth the views. We spent about 6 hours in the ruins before heading back to Santa Theresa to fix my bike [an easy fix, electrical chord just not making a connection] and spend the evening in hot springs, soaking our aching muscles.
Day 4 we got up at 6am and drove all the way back to Cusco. The drive was so beautiful. The first 30km scared me much more than they had in the other direction, as this time I was on the outside of the road, closer to the cliff edge. I came to understand why Peruvians are so horn honking happy - its lets people know you are passing them and its a great way to let people know you are approaching on all of the blind corners that exist here. It was early morning so the sun hitting the hills just made everything more stunning. The last section of our dirt roadness was some of the most stunning. I was surrounded by lush, jungle vegetation but right in front of me was a snowy peak, over 5600 meters high, gleaming in the sunshine. For over an hour I rode towards that mountain, climbing all the way. Hitting tarmac again was GREAT, riding was suddenly so much easier. About halfway through the ride my bike started making a funny sound, the boys had gone ahead of me and I was a little panicked, meaning that I took the twisty curves down the mountain slower than I would've liked. It was just dirt causing my chain to stick and a little lube fixed it, the only bike probem we fixed ourselves. We took a different road into Cusco, going through a beautiful patchwork of farms with the snowy peaks of the mountains in the distance. The drive into the city was a little difficult, but I didn't kill the engine once. After returning the bike and showering off the layers of dust I went ahead and took someone up on that ''Lady massage?'' offer.
My next trip...it just might be by motorcycle...
So, which of these alternative options did I take to Machu Picchu? None of them! I broke, slightly, away from the well worn tourist trail and, with two guys I met in Copacabana, and crazily rented a motorcycle to drive to Machu Picchu. Now I haven't driven an actual motorcycle since my parents still owned the farm they sold when I was 14. At that point in time I wasn't actually big enough to hold the motorcycle up on my own, so one of my brothers was aways on the back with me. I did own my 35cc Honda Metropolitan scooter for a few of years, but that is a slightly different beast than a 250cc motorcycle that weighs more than I do. And the road isn't exactly the easiest in the world. Nonetheless, after 20 minutes of practicing in a back yard and on a dirt road in a Cuzco suburb I decided that I could do it. It was more expensive than taking a tour to Machu Picchu [note to anyone planning on going to Machu Picchu, its fecking expensive] but it was SO worth it.
The first day was the easiest as far as driving was concerned. After a little while in Cusco suburb traffic [where I stalled once] we were on smooth asphalt that went through smaller and smaller towns. We missed the turn to Pisac and ended up climbing up the mountain for about 20 minutes in the wrong direction, which was fine cause it gave me some practice on curves. After turning around we hit the Sacred Valley, which was ABSOLUTELY gorgeous. There was the red of quinua crops to one side, lush green hills rising up on either side of us, a roaring river to the right lined with green trees. The road curved just enough to make riding fun but not so much that we had to slow down. After about 45 minutes we hit the small town of Pisac and climbed up to the ruins of Pisac. I'm not gonna lie, you pull into a parking lot crowded with tourist buses on a motorcycle and you just feel cool, whether you look it or not. Things took an unexpected turn after our visit to the ruins because Dylan's bike wasn't functioning properly. It kept dying on him, luckily it was downhill to the town of Pisac. There we asked about a mechanic and were sent to a mechanic that only worked on cars. Then we were told that there was a mechanic a 10 minute ride down the road, but not in the direction we were headed. There was no way Dylan's bike could make it in 10 minutes. We spent at least 20 minutes calling the rental agency, a challenge for my spanish, to see if they could talk us through fixing the bike. [they couldn't]. Finally we put everything on hold to eat, as we hadn't since having bread for breakfast at 7am and, as it was nearly 2pm, were a little grouchy.
During and after lunch I asked a few more people about a motorcycle mechanic and got directions to one in town, which was a little challenging to find. We finally found it but it was closed, as it was Sunday, so I had to go back to the call center, put my Spanish to the test again and call the mechanic [note, new word learned areglar, which means to fix, not be confused with alquilar, which is to rent. These words sound very similar over a phone and can cause confusion]. The mechanic and I finally established that he would meet us at his shop. At this point I'd gotten separated from the boys and after searching for them in the town I just rode to the mechanic, afraid he would leave if I didn't show up. To my great relief the boys were there and the mechanic was working on the bike. The problem, a dirty spark plug. 15 minutes later we were on the road so that we could get to the next town before sundown.
Day 2 we headed off early. We had to try and make it to the town of Aguas Calientes that night if we were going to stick to the 4 day rental plan, and our wallets desired that greatly. We stopped in the impossibly adorable Incan town of Ollantaytambo to expore the incredible Incan ruins there. I cannot understand how the Spanish thought that the Incans were stupid, un-cultured, and infidels. One look at the ruins of their cities and citadels and that seems impossible. I can't imagine what it would have been like to have seen the living, breathing, functioning cities. Only a few minutes outside of town Dylan got a flat tire. Thankfully he got the flat tire about 2 minutes away from a tire repair shop. Half an hour and 15 soles later we were back on the road. The drive was AMAZING. It wound up a mountain pass, with hair pin turns and incredible scenery. We kept stopping to soak it up, though my camera was hard to get out of my bag so I took few pictures. It got cold as we climbed. There were farms and tiny houses and adorable children that let us take their picture and then crowded around us shouting ''Propina! Propina [tip]" There were snowcapped peaks in the distance. It was so incredible! Then the ride took us down. The landscape turned lusher, greener, more jungley. After a rapid descent [minus a stop for the most amazing trout I've eaten on this trip in a tiny, side of the road, truck stop esque restaurant] we hit a dirt road for the last 75-100km. There was road construction and a lot of stopping. The last 30 or 40 km were on a twisting, essentially one lane road with a gorge plummeting down to the river on one side. The boys kept stopping to take pictures, but I was exhausted and just wanted to get to Santa Theresa so I didn't really appreciate this landscape until we drove back to Cusco two days later.
We finally arrived in Santa Theresa, near the bottom of the gorge we had just ridden down. We couldn't find the hotel the agency had told us to store our bikes in, but we found another hostel. In the process of searching I stupidly stopped on a hill and, when trying to start and turn around on it, I ended up dropping the bike on myself. After righting it it didn't want to start. We didn't have time to worry about that though, so we stashed the bikes and grabbed a taxi to the train station. There are no roads that go to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu. You can only arrive by train, foot, or horseback. We didn't think we had time to walk to the town [it was 20km supposedly] and we had arrived just in time to take the last train of the day. Now, its common knowledge that where there are tourists there is money but Machu Picchu is taking this to an extreme. Our train ride lasted just over half an hour and cost us abut 18 US dollars. If you don't pay in US dollars you get screwed on the exchange rate into soles. Nonetheless, we took the train, gritting our teeth at the cost. We got to Aguas Calientes, bought our tickets to Machu Picchu, checked into a hotel, ate dinner, and crashed into bed.
The next morning we woke up before 4am. The first 400 people into Machu Picchu can hike up to WayanaPicchu [That would be the mountain you see right at the end of the ruins in all of the photos] and we were intent on being one of those 400 and NOT paying for the $8 bus from the town to the ruins. There is a bridge 2km from the town that doesn't open until 5am [the ruins open at 6am and it, supposedly, is an hour hike from the bridge. The buses leave town at 530 and take about 30 min to get to the ruins]. A small bribe, this is South America after all, got us across the bridge at 430. We hiked up the road in silence, staring at the stars and the black shapes of the mountains and trees. It was incredibly beautiful, peaceful, and worth the bribe. The road itself switchbacks up the mountain but there is steep hiking trail of steps that cuts up, we missed the steps and walked for about half an hour, then saw the lights of the people who had waited for the bridge to open and joined them on the steep climb. Our early entrance cut off probably half the steep climb, which I was glad for. We were probably one of the first 50 people into the ruins. Machu Picchu is amazing. Its beautiful. Its incredible. Its interesting. It lives up to all the hype. Thats all I have to say about it. The hike up WayanaPicchu was steep and hard and exhausting and totally worth the views. We spent about 6 hours in the ruins before heading back to Santa Theresa to fix my bike [an easy fix, electrical chord just not making a connection] and spend the evening in hot springs, soaking our aching muscles.
Day 4 we got up at 6am and drove all the way back to Cusco. The drive was so beautiful. The first 30km scared me much more than they had in the other direction, as this time I was on the outside of the road, closer to the cliff edge. I came to understand why Peruvians are so horn honking happy - its lets people know you are passing them and its a great way to let people know you are approaching on all of the blind corners that exist here. It was early morning so the sun hitting the hills just made everything more stunning. The last section of our dirt roadness was some of the most stunning. I was surrounded by lush, jungle vegetation but right in front of me was a snowy peak, over 5600 meters high, gleaming in the sunshine. For over an hour I rode towards that mountain, climbing all the way. Hitting tarmac again was GREAT, riding was suddenly so much easier. About halfway through the ride my bike started making a funny sound, the boys had gone ahead of me and I was a little panicked, meaning that I took the twisty curves down the mountain slower than I would've liked. It was just dirt causing my chain to stick and a little lube fixed it, the only bike probem we fixed ourselves. We took a different road into Cusco, going through a beautiful patchwork of farms with the snowy peaks of the mountains in the distance. The drive into the city was a little difficult, but I didn't kill the engine once. After returning the bike and showering off the layers of dust I went ahead and took someone up on that ''Lady massage?'' offer.
My next trip...it just might be by motorcycle...
Saturday, May 28, 2011
A post that is nearly a long as it took me to get to Cuzco
The first I heard about the Lake Titicaca border crossing between Copacabana (Bolivia) and Puno (Peru) being blockaded by protestors was on my flight from Rurrenabaque to La Paz. One traveler was asking if anyone had any information and everyone´s response was ´The border is closed down?´ This was indicative of how easy it was to find information about the blockade. I learned that Peruvians protesting plans to mine a spiritual Incan mountain and dump the waste in Lake Titicaca had shut down 80km of the road between Copacabana & Puno, effectively closing down the land crossing. However, there were boats that were ferrying tourists between the two towns so there was no need to worry. A Peruvian from Puno I met in Sucre said he would keep me updated after telling me that he had walked 7 hours through protestors to get home. Even when I searched for news in Spanish over the next week & a half all I found were articles from when the protestors first shut down the road.
When I arrived in Copacabana the only signs of the protests were computer printed signs saying 'Boat to Puno tomorrow, 7:30am' taped over the placards usually advertising bus departures. The town was quiet, peaceful, and not full of stuck travelers. The first signs that things were shifting came when I returned from a night on nearby Isla de la Sol. A fellow traveler stopped me on the street and asked if I was trying to get to Peru. He and two friends (all Portlanders!) had been riding their bikes but now had a broken wheel and were trying to avoid the boats because (a) they were concerned about getting the bikes on (b) they were expensive and (c) they had heard stories of people paying to get on the boat and then being told there was no space for them and their backpacks. They had found a bus & driver who was willing to go to the Peruvian border via the other side of the lake, they just needed to get enough passengers to make it financially feasible. I figured, what the hell, I do want to get to Peru, these guys seem cool, sounds like the boats might not be reliable, and this could be an adventure. What followed was a nearly 3 day long adventure that involved lots of struggling with the way that Bolivians communicate, especially with tourists they are trying to earn money off of, which is to say not very well.
After hours of recruiting the planned bus departure fella through because two large groups and a couple of other people bailed at the last minute, leaving us with too few people to make the bus worth it. There was scrambling and a minibus was found that would fit the 12 of us remaining. We loaded all of our bags and three bikes on the top. Then the communication issues began. At first we had been told that it would take about 4 hours to get to Puerto Acosta, the town nearest the border. Now we were told that it would take 6 hours and that the driver would be leaving us there, not driving us the extra to the border. When asked why he responded 'There is nothing there.' Our efforts to find out if there would be buses from Puerto Acosta that late at night (it was nearly 3pm) were not met with straight answers. For the next 15 minutes we went in circles, trying to find out how easy it would be to get from Puerto Acosta to Juliaca (the transport hub north of Puno in Peru) and why exactly the bus driver refused to drive us straight to the border. Eventually we realized that it was pretty late to leave and all of us were a little off guard by the lack of straight information. So all of our bags and the three bicycles that had been piled on top of the van were unloaded. One of the Portland boys decided to try and ride through the protests after meeting two French guys who were also riding (their ride turned out to be amazing, it was beautiful and the protestors were super nice). The other two Portland boys (Dylan and Gabe) had a broken bike wheel and were sick so they joined a girl from California (Yasmine) and I in finding a hostel and booking a boat for the next morning.
We were told to be ready to go at 6:30am. The owner of our hostel was sweet enough to hurriedly make us a breakfast that we scarfed down before hurrying to our meeting place, where we promptly waited for at least 45 minutes before loading the bus and then waited at least another 15 before leaving. It was ten a minute drive to the border. I think that the Bolivians made a mint off of the border closure. Firstly, the cost of a boat to Puno is much more than a bus would´ve cost. Secondly, after explaining to us all that even though we had bought our tickets from different agencies we were all traveling with his company the owner of Titicaca tours explained that he had, through his friendship with the Peruvian border, gotten a pack of the immigration slips we needed to enter Peru. For 1 Boliviano we could buy the slip and be more prepared than the other travelers at the border, which would be very good for us since we would be arriving at about 5:30 and the immigration office closed at 6. I turned to Gabe, said that was BS, the guy totally got them for free, we didn´t need them in advance and then because they were just 1 Boliviano, maybe 30 cents, we bought them anyway. This became something of a theme over the next 2 days. (Another theme of the coming days was the pain in the assness & difficulty of moving the 8 panniers that Gabe & Dyland had between the two of them since they had been instructed to take apart their bikes in order to get them on the bus and boat. After the entire ordeal Gabe professed his undying gratitude for the multiple times Yasmine and I lugged a pannier or two in addition to our own bags).
We arrived at the middle of no where spot near the border where there were three impossibly small looking boats waiting for the mass of us tourists and then we waited. And waited. I have no idea what we were really waiting for because after about 10 or 15 minutes of waiting two guys in border guard uniforms appeared and then a few minutes after that the table that would serve as the makeshift immigration office appeared and then a table where we could exchange money appeared. But still we waited. After about an hour one group of tourists finally got their exit stamps, but then they had to wait for their boat (they left after my group did). My group waited for another 15 minutes and then we were finally told to line up for our stamps. Then we discovered that we had to pay 2 Bolivianios for our stamp (remember when I said the Bolvians were making a mint? There were probably at least 100 of us trying to get to Peru and the strike had been in effect for over 2 weeks). Begrudingly we paid our 2 Bolivianos and lined up to get on the boat. They would only let 4 or 5 people load at a time and they instructed the bikes to go on first. Then they wouldn´t let Gabe come back for the last of the panniers or let me join him in the loading. So I shoved my way through the tourists in front of me, thankfully allowing Yasmine and I to get the last two comfy seats inside the boat cabin. It was 10:30 by the time we left. Granted all of this was an ad-hoc operation BUT they´d been doing it for more than 2 weeks and I gotta say there was a lot of confusion and a lot of waiting and a serious lack of information (please note previous statement about communication when dealing with tourists whose money you want) and I thought that after 2 weeks of doing this it should´ve been much much smoother. This was in great contrast to what we ended up experiencing in Peru.
A long, slow, dull 8 or 9 hour boat ride across Lake Titicaca was next. We thought that Puno would be quiet, that the protestors were just blocking the road part of the way between Copacabana and Puno. We thought that Yasmine and the boys would catch a night bus to Cusco while I was planning on staying in Puno for a few days. The Peruvian I had met earlier in my trip had invited me to stay with his family outside of Puno and I really wanted to see the famous floating islands. We were wrong.
We arrived in Puno in darkness (it gets dark at 6pm this time of year. totally hard to adjust to). In the madness of unloading one of the 8 panniers vanished. While the boys were looking for it I talked to the guards at the end of the dock about buses to Cusco. He told me we couldn't leave tonight, the protestors had blocked the road north of Puno to Juliaca. He laughed and I thought he was joking, then another guard told me wasn´t. Yasmine and I went ahead of the boys while they put together their bikes to see what we could figure out about a place to stay and getting out of Puno. But first, we had to get our Peruvian entry stamp in our passports.
We didn´t know that the protestors had made it to Puno but they had started filling up the town 4 days earlier. The first few minutes of our walk the streets were quiet, there was even a family playing volley ball in the street. Then there started to be people. Then things started getting busier and busier. There were more and more people. We came upon a plaza were trucks and cars were corralled together. The backs of the trucks had been turned into kitchens and everywhere people were eating and talking. There were banners and slogans written on the sides of the truck saying things like 'Aqua es vida'. Everyone was kind to us as we wove our way through the masses, trying to work our way towards Plaza de Armas where we had been told we would find the immigration office. A few blocks from the plaza a man stepped out of a tourist agency and tried to convince to leave our bags in his office before continuing to the immigration office. Considering the loss of the pannier 10 minutes earlier we refused. He relented but insisted on accompanying us to the immigration office. The protestors had filled the plaza and it would not have been safe for us to walk through it. He took us around the plaza via side streets. I had thought that things looked crazy and packed until we got closer to the plaza and I heard the riotous chanting. The immigration office looked closed, you had to knock on the door to be let in. (Actually most of the businesses looked closed. If they were open they had the gates that they pull down when they are closed down with just a tiny door open that they could quickly shut when the protestors went by). Travelers poured in to get stamped and travel agency officials were offering different ways to get to Cuzco left & right. Yasmine & I were worried about the guys, hoping that they would also have a nice Peruvian befriend them and get them safely to the office, which, thankfully, is exactly what happened.
Miguel was our hero for the night. He had offered Yasmine & I hotel room earlier, but I told him we had to wait for our friends. He found and escorted Gabe & Dylan to immigration, waited for them to get stamped, then took all us to a hotel (which we got for a discounted price) after stoppping at an atm for us. Next he took us to a restaurant (we´d been eating cookies all day), found us a way to get to Cusco the next morning, came to the restaurant to tell us and then booked it for us. We all collapsed onto the comfy hotel beds for 5 hours of sleep before getting up to meet Miguel at 5 am.
The road to Juliaca closed the day we arrived in Puno and throughout the night the tour operators of Puno were coming up with alternatives to get travelers out of the city. Some people ended up on minibuses the night we arrived and the drivers bribed the protestors to get past the blockade. We were to take a boat across Lake Titicaca to where the roads weren´t closed, where minibuses would be waiting for us to drive us to Juliaca where we could catch buses to Cusco. At 5 am we headed out into the dawn lit, mostly empty streets and headed towards the dock. There were rocks, big rocks the size of mangos, littering the streets from protestors throwing them at cars and trucks trying to get through. As we headed down the ramp towards the dock another group of tourists were walking towards us, telling us to turn around. Protestors had heard about the plan to get us out and had blocked entrance to the dock. The Peruvians with us headed us a different direction, towards a different dock. We had made it less than a block from the dock when we heard the chants of protestors. A line of men, waving flags and running came down one of the streets from the city center. They were headed towards the dock we had just left but when they saw us there was a louder cry and they switched directions, running straight towards us. This was the only truly scary part of the trip.A rock was lobbed from across the street and shattered on the ground in front of us. Another rock was thrown that some how Gabe managed to catch. I held up my small backpack to protect my head. We tried to huddle together. A few more rocks were thrown. The Peruvians escorting us managed to placate the protestors by giving them money for breakfast, though not before one of our guides was pulled away when someone shouted that he was the one in charge of the gringos. After that they left us, our guides hurried us to the other dock where we quickly loaded up the boat before more protestors showed up. Some of us on the boat were headed to other parts of Peru and some were trying to get to Copacabana so our boat had to dock at the floating islands to wait for the boat headed to Copacabana catch up to us. So I did get to see the floating islands, even though it was only for a few minutes it totally made my day because they are completely awesome.
The rest of the day went smoothly. We chugged for a few hours across the lake, the mini buses were waiting for us and were quickly loaded. They stopped in a little town so we could all buy food and then drove us the hour to Juliaca. While on the boat one of the guides had come around and asked where we were going, selling tickets to our onward destinations. I knew he was overcharging for a ticket to Cusco, I told him that and he lowered the price a little. Even though I knew he was overcharging and I knew it wouldn´t be hard to find a bus on our own , he said it would be no problem to get the bikes on so we just bought our tickets from him, content to pay a little more to have things be easier. When we got to Juliaca they dropped us off at the bus we would be taking (Not surprisingly not a tourist bus as the guy had told me it would be, but one they just put us tourists on first). It was missing most of its wheels because they were changing them. Nonetheless we loaded our bags, went and ate, returned to the bus (which seemed to almost leave us behind but in fact was going to get gas, ignoring the fact that we COULDN´T see it at the gas station and when it wasn´t where we left it would think it had left) and finally set off on the last leg to Cusco. It took another 7 or so hours, but we arrived in Cusco, got cabs to a hostel and group hugged in our room. It had been a long trip.
Even though the protests made my trip here long and even though the confrontation with the protestors on the way to the boat was scary I have to give a huge kudos to the tour operators in Puno. They came up with a plan to get us out of Puno on the spot and it ran far more smoothly than our exit from Bolivia, which had been going on for more than 2 weeks. Though they certainly made money off of us they also were genuinely concerned for our safety and well being. They put themselves in danger and some of them had to walk through the protestors for hours to get back to Puno. Also, the vast majority of the protestors were peaceful and kind to us all. The ones that confronted us in the morning were drunk young men who had been up most of the night and were caught up in a riotous mood. We, apparently, got out in the nick of time. There was another boat from Puno at 9am (which we almost went on instead of the 5am one) and I overheard people in my hostel here in Cusco talk about it. They had much more intense confrontations with protestors, involving having to hide from them. The aquatic crossing from Bolivia is no longer open, we were the last or second to last day to get into Peru that way. I have friends who are having to return to La Paz and cross into Peru via Chile. I don´t know if this is true but I heard that the military intervened yesterday as well.
Cusco is beautiful. The weather is wonderful. Next stop is Macchu Picchu. I officially don´t have enough left to explore Peru before my flight home. The end.
When I arrived in Copacabana the only signs of the protests were computer printed signs saying 'Boat to Puno tomorrow, 7:30am' taped over the placards usually advertising bus departures. The town was quiet, peaceful, and not full of stuck travelers. The first signs that things were shifting came when I returned from a night on nearby Isla de la Sol. A fellow traveler stopped me on the street and asked if I was trying to get to Peru. He and two friends (all Portlanders!) had been riding their bikes but now had a broken wheel and were trying to avoid the boats because (a) they were concerned about getting the bikes on (b) they were expensive and (c) they had heard stories of people paying to get on the boat and then being told there was no space for them and their backpacks. They had found a bus & driver who was willing to go to the Peruvian border via the other side of the lake, they just needed to get enough passengers to make it financially feasible. I figured, what the hell, I do want to get to Peru, these guys seem cool, sounds like the boats might not be reliable, and this could be an adventure. What followed was a nearly 3 day long adventure that involved lots of struggling with the way that Bolivians communicate, especially with tourists they are trying to earn money off of, which is to say not very well.
After hours of recruiting the planned bus departure fella through because two large groups and a couple of other people bailed at the last minute, leaving us with too few people to make the bus worth it. There was scrambling and a minibus was found that would fit the 12 of us remaining. We loaded all of our bags and three bikes on the top. Then the communication issues began. At first we had been told that it would take about 4 hours to get to Puerto Acosta, the town nearest the border. Now we were told that it would take 6 hours and that the driver would be leaving us there, not driving us the extra to the border. When asked why he responded 'There is nothing there.' Our efforts to find out if there would be buses from Puerto Acosta that late at night (it was nearly 3pm) were not met with straight answers. For the next 15 minutes we went in circles, trying to find out how easy it would be to get from Puerto Acosta to Juliaca (the transport hub north of Puno in Peru) and why exactly the bus driver refused to drive us straight to the border. Eventually we realized that it was pretty late to leave and all of us were a little off guard by the lack of straight information. So all of our bags and the three bicycles that had been piled on top of the van were unloaded. One of the Portland boys decided to try and ride through the protests after meeting two French guys who were also riding (their ride turned out to be amazing, it was beautiful and the protestors were super nice). The other two Portland boys (Dylan and Gabe) had a broken bike wheel and were sick so they joined a girl from California (Yasmine) and I in finding a hostel and booking a boat for the next morning.
We were told to be ready to go at 6:30am. The owner of our hostel was sweet enough to hurriedly make us a breakfast that we scarfed down before hurrying to our meeting place, where we promptly waited for at least 45 minutes before loading the bus and then waited at least another 15 before leaving. It was ten a minute drive to the border. I think that the Bolivians made a mint off of the border closure. Firstly, the cost of a boat to Puno is much more than a bus would´ve cost. Secondly, after explaining to us all that even though we had bought our tickets from different agencies we were all traveling with his company the owner of Titicaca tours explained that he had, through his friendship with the Peruvian border, gotten a pack of the immigration slips we needed to enter Peru. For 1 Boliviano we could buy the slip and be more prepared than the other travelers at the border, which would be very good for us since we would be arriving at about 5:30 and the immigration office closed at 6. I turned to Gabe, said that was BS, the guy totally got them for free, we didn´t need them in advance and then because they were just 1 Boliviano, maybe 30 cents, we bought them anyway. This became something of a theme over the next 2 days. (Another theme of the coming days was the pain in the assness & difficulty of moving the 8 panniers that Gabe & Dyland had between the two of them since they had been instructed to take apart their bikes in order to get them on the bus and boat. After the entire ordeal Gabe professed his undying gratitude for the multiple times Yasmine and I lugged a pannier or two in addition to our own bags).
We arrived at the middle of no where spot near the border where there were three impossibly small looking boats waiting for the mass of us tourists and then we waited. And waited. I have no idea what we were really waiting for because after about 10 or 15 minutes of waiting two guys in border guard uniforms appeared and then a few minutes after that the table that would serve as the makeshift immigration office appeared and then a table where we could exchange money appeared. But still we waited. After about an hour one group of tourists finally got their exit stamps, but then they had to wait for their boat (they left after my group did). My group waited for another 15 minutes and then we were finally told to line up for our stamps. Then we discovered that we had to pay 2 Bolivianios for our stamp (remember when I said the Bolvians were making a mint? There were probably at least 100 of us trying to get to Peru and the strike had been in effect for over 2 weeks). Begrudingly we paid our 2 Bolivianos and lined up to get on the boat. They would only let 4 or 5 people load at a time and they instructed the bikes to go on first. Then they wouldn´t let Gabe come back for the last of the panniers or let me join him in the loading. So I shoved my way through the tourists in front of me, thankfully allowing Yasmine and I to get the last two comfy seats inside the boat cabin. It was 10:30 by the time we left. Granted all of this was an ad-hoc operation BUT they´d been doing it for more than 2 weeks and I gotta say there was a lot of confusion and a lot of waiting and a serious lack of information (please note previous statement about communication when dealing with tourists whose money you want) and I thought that after 2 weeks of doing this it should´ve been much much smoother. This was in great contrast to what we ended up experiencing in Peru.
A long, slow, dull 8 or 9 hour boat ride across Lake Titicaca was next. We thought that Puno would be quiet, that the protestors were just blocking the road part of the way between Copacabana and Puno. We thought that Yasmine and the boys would catch a night bus to Cusco while I was planning on staying in Puno for a few days. The Peruvian I had met earlier in my trip had invited me to stay with his family outside of Puno and I really wanted to see the famous floating islands. We were wrong.
We arrived in Puno in darkness (it gets dark at 6pm this time of year. totally hard to adjust to). In the madness of unloading one of the 8 panniers vanished. While the boys were looking for it I talked to the guards at the end of the dock about buses to Cusco. He told me we couldn't leave tonight, the protestors had blocked the road north of Puno to Juliaca. He laughed and I thought he was joking, then another guard told me wasn´t. Yasmine and I went ahead of the boys while they put together their bikes to see what we could figure out about a place to stay and getting out of Puno. But first, we had to get our Peruvian entry stamp in our passports.
We didn´t know that the protestors had made it to Puno but they had started filling up the town 4 days earlier. The first few minutes of our walk the streets were quiet, there was even a family playing volley ball in the street. Then there started to be people. Then things started getting busier and busier. There were more and more people. We came upon a plaza were trucks and cars were corralled together. The backs of the trucks had been turned into kitchens and everywhere people were eating and talking. There were banners and slogans written on the sides of the truck saying things like 'Aqua es vida'. Everyone was kind to us as we wove our way through the masses, trying to work our way towards Plaza de Armas where we had been told we would find the immigration office. A few blocks from the plaza a man stepped out of a tourist agency and tried to convince to leave our bags in his office before continuing to the immigration office. Considering the loss of the pannier 10 minutes earlier we refused. He relented but insisted on accompanying us to the immigration office. The protestors had filled the plaza and it would not have been safe for us to walk through it. He took us around the plaza via side streets. I had thought that things looked crazy and packed until we got closer to the plaza and I heard the riotous chanting. The immigration office looked closed, you had to knock on the door to be let in. (Actually most of the businesses looked closed. If they were open they had the gates that they pull down when they are closed down with just a tiny door open that they could quickly shut when the protestors went by). Travelers poured in to get stamped and travel agency officials were offering different ways to get to Cuzco left & right. Yasmine & I were worried about the guys, hoping that they would also have a nice Peruvian befriend them and get them safely to the office, which, thankfully, is exactly what happened.
Miguel was our hero for the night. He had offered Yasmine & I hotel room earlier, but I told him we had to wait for our friends. He found and escorted Gabe & Dylan to immigration, waited for them to get stamped, then took all us to a hotel (which we got for a discounted price) after stoppping at an atm for us. Next he took us to a restaurant (we´d been eating cookies all day), found us a way to get to Cusco the next morning, came to the restaurant to tell us and then booked it for us. We all collapsed onto the comfy hotel beds for 5 hours of sleep before getting up to meet Miguel at 5 am.
The road to Juliaca closed the day we arrived in Puno and throughout the night the tour operators of Puno were coming up with alternatives to get travelers out of the city. Some people ended up on minibuses the night we arrived and the drivers bribed the protestors to get past the blockade. We were to take a boat across Lake Titicaca to where the roads weren´t closed, where minibuses would be waiting for us to drive us to Juliaca where we could catch buses to Cusco. At 5 am we headed out into the dawn lit, mostly empty streets and headed towards the dock. There were rocks, big rocks the size of mangos, littering the streets from protestors throwing them at cars and trucks trying to get through. As we headed down the ramp towards the dock another group of tourists were walking towards us, telling us to turn around. Protestors had heard about the plan to get us out and had blocked entrance to the dock. The Peruvians with us headed us a different direction, towards a different dock. We had made it less than a block from the dock when we heard the chants of protestors. A line of men, waving flags and running came down one of the streets from the city center. They were headed towards the dock we had just left but when they saw us there was a louder cry and they switched directions, running straight towards us. This was the only truly scary part of the trip.A rock was lobbed from across the street and shattered on the ground in front of us. Another rock was thrown that some how Gabe managed to catch. I held up my small backpack to protect my head. We tried to huddle together. A few more rocks were thrown. The Peruvians escorting us managed to placate the protestors by giving them money for breakfast, though not before one of our guides was pulled away when someone shouted that he was the one in charge of the gringos. After that they left us, our guides hurried us to the other dock where we quickly loaded up the boat before more protestors showed up. Some of us on the boat were headed to other parts of Peru and some were trying to get to Copacabana so our boat had to dock at the floating islands to wait for the boat headed to Copacabana catch up to us. So I did get to see the floating islands, even though it was only for a few minutes it totally made my day because they are completely awesome.
The rest of the day went smoothly. We chugged for a few hours across the lake, the mini buses were waiting for us and were quickly loaded. They stopped in a little town so we could all buy food and then drove us the hour to Juliaca. While on the boat one of the guides had come around and asked where we were going, selling tickets to our onward destinations. I knew he was overcharging for a ticket to Cusco, I told him that and he lowered the price a little. Even though I knew he was overcharging and I knew it wouldn´t be hard to find a bus on our own , he said it would be no problem to get the bikes on so we just bought our tickets from him, content to pay a little more to have things be easier. When we got to Juliaca they dropped us off at the bus we would be taking (Not surprisingly not a tourist bus as the guy had told me it would be, but one they just put us tourists on first). It was missing most of its wheels because they were changing them. Nonetheless we loaded our bags, went and ate, returned to the bus (which seemed to almost leave us behind but in fact was going to get gas, ignoring the fact that we COULDN´T see it at the gas station and when it wasn´t where we left it would think it had left) and finally set off on the last leg to Cusco. It took another 7 or so hours, but we arrived in Cusco, got cabs to a hostel and group hugged in our room. It had been a long trip.
Even though the protests made my trip here long and even though the confrontation with the protestors on the way to the boat was scary I have to give a huge kudos to the tour operators in Puno. They came up with a plan to get us out of Puno on the spot and it ran far more smoothly than our exit from Bolivia, which had been going on for more than 2 weeks. Though they certainly made money off of us they also were genuinely concerned for our safety and well being. They put themselves in danger and some of them had to walk through the protestors for hours to get back to Puno. Also, the vast majority of the protestors were peaceful and kind to us all. The ones that confronted us in the morning were drunk young men who had been up most of the night and were caught up in a riotous mood. We, apparently, got out in the nick of time. There was another boat from Puno at 9am (which we almost went on instead of the 5am one) and I overheard people in my hostel here in Cusco talk about it. They had much more intense confrontations with protestors, involving having to hide from them. The aquatic crossing from Bolivia is no longer open, we were the last or second to last day to get into Peru that way. I have friends who are having to return to La Paz and cross into Peru via Chile. I don´t know if this is true but I heard that the military intervened yesterday as well.
Cusco is beautiful. The weather is wonderful. Next stop is Macchu Picchu. I officially don´t have enough left to explore Peru before my flight home. The end.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Notes on La Paz
I had only planned on staying 2 more nights in La Paz after returning to the city from the Amazon. I ended up spending 4. La Paz grew on me. Its a chaotic, interesting, city full of contradictions. It is nestled in a valley with houses and streets climbing up the steep walls. In the distance the snowcaps of the Andes loom. The first sight of the city, when approaching by bus is breathtaking. It appears out of no where, sprawling before you in a cozy kind of way.
I was struck mostly by the contradictions of the city and the markets. There are markets EVERYWHERE. Every street is lined with little shops or stands or people just sitting on the sidewalks with their wares spread before them. The markets seem to be organized by theme. On one street everything is hardware related, then it transitions to lighting fixtures, toilets, on to cleaning supplies. One street is full of fruit, bananas at one end, followed by strawberries, followed by papayas. Another street has just sporting goods, soccer balls, trophies, and jerseys for sale. Then there is the electronics street, full of cameras, cell phones, tvs, etc. Another street has fabric and the sparkly, ruffled skirts that the indigenous women wear. As we walked through the streets we would call out to each other "We are in the fabric avenue now! Oh, we've moved onto the Chola clothing street! Banana street!" In addition to all of this there were evening markets that would pop up and then there was the black market, a massive web of stalls selling everything imaginable. Everything was so cheap that I was tempted to buy more than I needed. I bought two pairs of sunglasses ($3 each) and a watch (also $3). The "expensive" watches were $15, they were genuine the shopkeeper explained to me.
The contradictions were the other thing that got me. On the one hand La Paz is a hip, urban place with tattoo parlors with young people who would fit right in in a major US city. On the other hand it is a city in a third world country with the poverty, dirt, and chaos that comes with that. You see cholas in their bowler hats, sparkly flouncy skirts, petty coats, dress shoes, and colorful bundles on their back walking next to women in professional business suits, carrying briefcases, chattering into their cell phones. Swank Mercedes, clean and new, contend with wheezing buses chugging their way up the hills. There are beauitful buildings, old victorian/edwardian style buildings, in some parts of the city. The presidential palace is gorgeous and the national art museum is in a beautiful on colonial building. But most of the buildings are ugly, square, utilitarian red brick affairs. The traffic is massively insane, chaotic, and seemingly completely unorganized BUT there is a government program promoting pedestrian safety (for some reason this program involves people in zebra suits at crosswalks. Not all crosswalks, and not all the time, but you see the zebras every now and then). Because it is so congested, and nestled in a valley, the air can be thick with exhaust. But the prado (the main street through the center of town) has a beautiful, artfully designed, garden separating the two lanes of traffic. Its a crazy, interesting city and I could've spent even more time there. But, the people I was hanging out with left and so did I. After a night in the beautifully located town of Sorata I have finally made it to Copacabana. Exploring Lake Titicaca and then going back to Peru are the next items on my agenda.
I was struck mostly by the contradictions of the city and the markets. There are markets EVERYWHERE. Every street is lined with little shops or stands or people just sitting on the sidewalks with their wares spread before them. The markets seem to be organized by theme. On one street everything is hardware related, then it transitions to lighting fixtures, toilets, on to cleaning supplies. One street is full of fruit, bananas at one end, followed by strawberries, followed by papayas. Another street has just sporting goods, soccer balls, trophies, and jerseys for sale. Then there is the electronics street, full of cameras, cell phones, tvs, etc. Another street has fabric and the sparkly, ruffled skirts that the indigenous women wear. As we walked through the streets we would call out to each other "We are in the fabric avenue now! Oh, we've moved onto the Chola clothing street! Banana street!" In addition to all of this there were evening markets that would pop up and then there was the black market, a massive web of stalls selling everything imaginable. Everything was so cheap that I was tempted to buy more than I needed. I bought two pairs of sunglasses ($3 each) and a watch (also $3). The "expensive" watches were $15, they were genuine the shopkeeper explained to me.
The contradictions were the other thing that got me. On the one hand La Paz is a hip, urban place with tattoo parlors with young people who would fit right in in a major US city. On the other hand it is a city in a third world country with the poverty, dirt, and chaos that comes with that. You see cholas in their bowler hats, sparkly flouncy skirts, petty coats, dress shoes, and colorful bundles on their back walking next to women in professional business suits, carrying briefcases, chattering into their cell phones. Swank Mercedes, clean and new, contend with wheezing buses chugging their way up the hills. There are beauitful buildings, old victorian/edwardian style buildings, in some parts of the city. The presidential palace is gorgeous and the national art museum is in a beautiful on colonial building. But most of the buildings are ugly, square, utilitarian red brick affairs. The traffic is massively insane, chaotic, and seemingly completely unorganized BUT there is a government program promoting pedestrian safety (for some reason this program involves people in zebra suits at crosswalks. Not all crosswalks, and not all the time, but you see the zebras every now and then). Because it is so congested, and nestled in a valley, the air can be thick with exhaust. But the prado (the main street through the center of town) has a beautiful, artfully designed, garden separating the two lanes of traffic. Its a crazy, interesting city and I could've spent even more time there. But, the people I was hanging out with left and so did I. After a night in the beautifully located town of Sorata I have finally made it to Copacabana. Exploring Lake Titicaca and then going back to Peru are the next items on my agenda.
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