Well, I suppose it's a fitting day to update the blog as this is our last day in South America! It's hard to believe that this day is already upon us! It has been quite the journey! I am certainly looking forward to going to a cheaper country now as Argentina and Uruguay are certainly more expensive!!!
So to fill in the gaps from my last written post until now! After San Ignacio, we moved on to Colonia Pellegrini which is certainly the smallest village we stayed at in S.A.! On Saturday when we arrived, we found no restaurants open in the town, and one tiny store that had some food we could buy! There were no plazas which was odd after every little town seemed to have one! It really was an isolated little community! The extremely bumpy gravel road only had at most 3 small buses that ran once a day! We arrived Saturday, but no buses ran on Sunday so we had to stay until Monday. But the bus left at 3:30 am Monday morning so we just stayed at the common area of the hostel until it was time for the bus to depart instead of paying for another night! The owner didn't seem to mind as one of his friends was teaching us a new card game called Truco which is quite popular down here and the owner joined in as we started to play! It was incredibly confusing as they spoke no english and rules to the game involved vocabulary I had never needed to learn before and the rules seemed to change while we played! We all had really good laughs as Fabian (a fellow traveler from Germany) and I fumbled our way through the game with the two locals. Definitely a learning experience! I've looked up the rules online now and it is a little less complicated than I thought but still involves a lot of strategy!
Anyways, while at Colonia Pelligrini, we did a boat tour around a lake as we saw a variety of wildlife! Colonia Pelligrini is inside a provincial reserve. The locals swam in the water during the day but you wouldn't catch me going in the water! Besides the alligators (who apparently only feed at night and aren't a threat during the day...), the water had coral snakes which are very poisonous as well as piranhas! We hung out with Fabian and Yvette from Germany for the couple of days and it was a lot of fun! It was nice to get off the beaten track for a while and away from the more touristy areas!!!!
So we left at 3:30 am Monday morning (a week ago) and spent the next 28 hours on 5 different buses as we crossed into Uruguay and went straight to Punta del Este, Uruguay which is a narrow peninsula on the southeast corner of Uruguay. It was a quiet place as the summer rush to get to the beaches starts at the end of the month! So it was good timing as it gets even more expensive than it already was during the busy season!!! It was nice to relax a little bit around there for a couple days before we headed to Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay) Thursday night. We had heard from numerous people that Montevideo was a really boring place so we simply spent the night there and wandered around for a morning before heading off to Buenos Aires Saturday afternoon! We took the bus from Montevideo to Colonia del Sacremento from where we took a ferry across to BA.
When we arrived in BA late afternoon, Lonely Planet told us which port all the ferries left from which looked fairly close to the hostel we wanted to stay at. Well...we got off the ferry and started walking but none of the street names looked familiar!!! We had walked for a couple of blocks and I decided to look closer at the map in the book. After looking for a while and not finding our location, our BA angel came walking towards us and asked in perfect English whether she could help us! I explained where we wanted to go and if she could point out on the map where we were. Well it landed up that our location went beyond the outskirts of our map and the port we had docked at was not the one we thought it should be!!! She informed us that it was way too far to walk and we should take the bus! She walked with us for the block and half to the bus stop where the bus we needed would stop and helped us get the change for the bus that we didn't have! Everything went smoothly and it was nice to pay only 40 cents for the ride!!!
We have to leave our hostel in a few minutes for the airport, so I'll have to end here. It's been a good couple of days in Buenos Aires which included the best steak supper I have ever had last night! Cooked over an open flame "oven" to perfection! And now I'm getting hungry again....anyways - tonight we fly to Miami, Florida on an overnight flight and get to Guatemala City around noon tomorrow morning! Chris Klassen will be meeting us in the Miami Airport! It's exciting to start this next "phase" of the trip and your continued thoughts and prayers are very much appreciated!!! It's been a huge blessing to get through South America with no major mishaps and relatively good health and great weather throughout the trip!!!
I don't know when we'll have access to internet again as we are entering totally new territory and will be on the move a bit once we get to Guatemala, but I will update some more pictures on here when possible. For now - I updated a few more albums on Facebook but I'm not totally caught up! Hope and pray you are all doing well!
Monday, 19 December 2011
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Friday, 9 December 2011
Salar de Uyuni & Argentina
Ok, it's been a while since i've written anything again! I just finished catching up writing in my journal so updating here was the logical next step!
From Potosi, we bused to Uyuni which landed up being a very bumpy ride but it was accompanied by an incredible sand storm which started mid afternoon! The winds were howling like i've never seen and as we were driving into Uyuni it was difficult to see across the road at times the sand was so thick! Thankfully - it seemed to die down minutes before we got off the bus! The town of Uyuni seemed to be supported solely by tourists leaving on the Salar de Uyuni Tour as there were numerous tour agencies, hostels, and touristy shops! The rest of the town seemed pretty dead!
While walking around looking for a good cheap hostel a fellow traveler stopped us and asked if we needed any help/suggestions. It was awesome because she recommended Andes Tour Agency, which is the one we landed up going with upon her recommendation. We spent the next day around Uyuni just relaxing and resting up before going on the tour. I was just starting to feel better at this point and eating almost 3/4 of the dishes I was served at meals!
November 29, we left on the tour and we were joined by Carl and Yvette from Australia, Andreas from Germany, and Fiona from New Zealand. We had a driver for our old beat up Toyota jeep and our guide. A quick side note - the first impression we had of Carl and Yvette was Yvette giving Carl a rabies shot since he had been bitten in the leg by a dog in La Paz! The first day included the salt flats which are incredibly massive and it's an odd prairie type feeling like it goes on forever! We drove 80 kms over the salt flats to get to fish island which is named such because it slightly has the appearance of a fish...but it's a cool island in the middle of the salt flats covered with cacti - some of which are over 900 years old! We stayed that night in a hotel made of salt. Salt blocks made the walls, tables, chairs, bed frames, and salt pebbles made up the entire floor. Kind of an interesting experience that sparks a desire to stay in Canada's ice hotel some day.
Day 2 involved a stop in San Juan which had a cemetery predating Inca times where the tombs were hollowed out coral pieces with the mummies laid inside. The tombs and the mummies were very well preserved and they had made viewing wholes into each of the tombs for viewing. Every time I look at mummies I can't help but think what kind of sick person would want to look at my bones in a few hundred years. When we had pulled into San Juan, I believe it was Yvette who noticed one of our tires was leaking air so the guide and driver went to work fixing that as we toured through the cemetery just outside of town. When we walked back into town - the jeep was gone and the owner of the store where we had parked knew nothing of the jeeps location...yeah we were certainly starting to wonder whether all of our luggage on the top of the jeep was too tempting! After 5 ish minutes of pondering what to do as we were in the middle of nowhere - lo and behold our beloved jeep showed up! They had just gone to fix the front latch of the engine hood while they were in fixing mode! Well fixing mode was back in action a while later as we were making our way down a rough bumpy trail which was now in a location which could be the definition of the middle of nowhere! The jeep had run out of gas! Well, their was a jerry can on the roof from which they filled up the jeep but that didn't get it going! The driver had run the engine so dry that gas wasn't even reaching the fuel pump! So, with only a screwdriver (since taking tools into the middle of nowhere when you're driving an old jeep doesn't seem necessary), Carl and the driver eventually managed to get some gas into one of the cylinders which was enough to get the engine pulling in more gas from the tank! That set us back about 50 minutes but we were thankful that the trip could continue!!! We visited 5 different beautiful lagoons that all had flamingos in them and were surrounded by beautiful volcanos! The lagoons had different colorations depending on the minerals that were contained within the water.
Day 3 we woke up at 4:45 am to a brisk morning where we could actually see our breath! The entire salt flats tour was over 3500 meters in elevation so while the sun was powerful during the day, the nights did cool off quite a bit! Our first stop was at a site with numerous geysers! We then headed to Laguna Verde which has green colored water which wasn't as visible while we were there as the wind was not blowing and stirring up the water. But it was still an amazing view as the volcano behind it had a beautiful full cone! Our tour ended at the Bolivia/Chile border where there was a bus waiting for us to take us to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. The border crossing there was a joke! There was a Bolivian migration office at the "border" and a "gate" which was open but it was in the middle of nowhere and the gate could easily be driven around! It was the most pointless thing I'd ever seen! That and the fact that no one was working at the office that day which seems to be a regular occurrence! So we had had our passports stamped for exit in Uyuni before we left as we were warned about this useless border crossing!
Dec 2: We only spent one night in San Pedro de Atacama as it was more expensive and we headed to Salta, Argentina which made that our 3rd country in two days! It was a lot of border crossings but they all went smoothly! Chile and Argentina certainly took them more seriously than Bolivia as we needed to have our bags scanned while going through but there were no holdups. We arrived in Salta in the evening and immediately bought our bus tickets for 4:00 pm the next day for Puerto Iguazu so we could see Iguazu Falls!
Dec 3: We dropped laundry off in the morning as we had not had clean clothes for a while! They wrote on the ticket that it would be completed at 12:50 pm which gave us plenty of time to get to our 4:00 pm bus! We wanted to walk around Salta for a while so we decided we'd wait until 2:30 ish to pick up our big bags which we had left at the hostel for the day, and then go pick up our laundry before walking to the bus station. Well, when we arrived at the laundromat, we came upon locked doors and the closed sign that showed us that they would not be open until Monday (this was Saturday)...we were certainly troubled! We had the decision to make of just leaving the clothes that we had dropped off and buying replacements at some point or waiting for 2 days to get our laundry back. Well we decided to go to the bus station first to see if we could switch our tickets and we did - by paying a penalty but it wasn't too bad and certainly cheaper than replacing our laundry items!!! So we waited!
The next 2 days we walked around a lot and discovered that the stores liked to take an afternoon "siesta" break and closed doors during the heat of the day! The streets were empty during this time! While the stores were open - the streets were full of people! We discovered a great empanadas restaurant and went there twice for the cheap food! Salta is renowned to have some of the best empanadas in Argentina and they were certainly delicious!!! It was almost worth staying in Salta the extra 2 days for those! (ok that's a bit of an overstatement but it helps deal with the fact that we "lost" 2 days!)
Dec 6 we made it Puerto Iguazu! It was a 24 hour bus ride from Salta but we changed buses at 6:00 am and again at 11:00 am so that helped break it up! It really went by fast! We've taken so many buses by now that an 8 hour trip is a piece of cake! So 24 hours wasn't that bad either! We were informed when we got to Puerto Iguazu that it is no longer possible to go to the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls without a visa if you need one to get into the country. For years, an "unofficial" visit to the park was allowed for one day but this was no longer the case! For us Canadians, it's a $170 visa which we weren't prepared to get just for one day on the Brazilian side! I was a little let down because I was hoping to take one of the helicopter tours of the falls, but they only leave from the Brazilian side.
Dec 7: Seeing Iguazu Falls! UNBELIEVABLE! Another Machu Picchu moment just on a totally different spectrum! The Argentinian side is beautiful and has many pathways to walk upon and has great views of the falls so we weren't overly depressed anymore that we couldn't make it to the Brazilian side! It was a fantastic combination of the falls, jungle and wildlife!!! Just a great day hanging out at the falls and taking in the sites!
Dec 8: Took the bus from Puerto Iguazu to San Ignacio, Argentina. Today, (the 9th), we toured through an old Jesuit missions site which is located here and it is a beautiful place as well! It was a rather large complex which housed nearly 4,000 Guarani people at it's peak which I was surprised to discover! I didn't think the missions had gotten that big! It is certainly hotter here! It's also been very humid but we are enjoying the warm temperatures as we try to stay hydrated! Tonight we leave on the bus at midnight bound for Corrientes. From Corrientes, we will grab a bus in the morning to Mercedes and then on to Colonia Pelligrini which is in a national park called Reserva Provincial Esteros Del Ibera which is supposed to have more great jungle and wildlife!
If you've made it all the way to end of this in one shot I applaud you! Sorry for not updating in a long time! Hope you are all doing well!
From Potosi, we bused to Uyuni which landed up being a very bumpy ride but it was accompanied by an incredible sand storm which started mid afternoon! The winds were howling like i've never seen and as we were driving into Uyuni it was difficult to see across the road at times the sand was so thick! Thankfully - it seemed to die down minutes before we got off the bus! The town of Uyuni seemed to be supported solely by tourists leaving on the Salar de Uyuni Tour as there were numerous tour agencies, hostels, and touristy shops! The rest of the town seemed pretty dead!
While walking around looking for a good cheap hostel a fellow traveler stopped us and asked if we needed any help/suggestions. It was awesome because she recommended Andes Tour Agency, which is the one we landed up going with upon her recommendation. We spent the next day around Uyuni just relaxing and resting up before going on the tour. I was just starting to feel better at this point and eating almost 3/4 of the dishes I was served at meals!
November 29, we left on the tour and we were joined by Carl and Yvette from Australia, Andreas from Germany, and Fiona from New Zealand. We had a driver for our old beat up Toyota jeep and our guide. A quick side note - the first impression we had of Carl and Yvette was Yvette giving Carl a rabies shot since he had been bitten in the leg by a dog in La Paz! The first day included the salt flats which are incredibly massive and it's an odd prairie type feeling like it goes on forever! We drove 80 kms over the salt flats to get to fish island which is named such because it slightly has the appearance of a fish...but it's a cool island in the middle of the salt flats covered with cacti - some of which are over 900 years old! We stayed that night in a hotel made of salt. Salt blocks made the walls, tables, chairs, bed frames, and salt pebbles made up the entire floor. Kind of an interesting experience that sparks a desire to stay in Canada's ice hotel some day.
Day 2 involved a stop in San Juan which had a cemetery predating Inca times where the tombs were hollowed out coral pieces with the mummies laid inside. The tombs and the mummies were very well preserved and they had made viewing wholes into each of the tombs for viewing. Every time I look at mummies I can't help but think what kind of sick person would want to look at my bones in a few hundred years. When we had pulled into San Juan, I believe it was Yvette who noticed one of our tires was leaking air so the guide and driver went to work fixing that as we toured through the cemetery just outside of town. When we walked back into town - the jeep was gone and the owner of the store where we had parked knew nothing of the jeeps location...yeah we were certainly starting to wonder whether all of our luggage on the top of the jeep was too tempting! After 5 ish minutes of pondering what to do as we were in the middle of nowhere - lo and behold our beloved jeep showed up! They had just gone to fix the front latch of the engine hood while they were in fixing mode! Well fixing mode was back in action a while later as we were making our way down a rough bumpy trail which was now in a location which could be the definition of the middle of nowhere! The jeep had run out of gas! Well, their was a jerry can on the roof from which they filled up the jeep but that didn't get it going! The driver had run the engine so dry that gas wasn't even reaching the fuel pump! So, with only a screwdriver (since taking tools into the middle of nowhere when you're driving an old jeep doesn't seem necessary), Carl and the driver eventually managed to get some gas into one of the cylinders which was enough to get the engine pulling in more gas from the tank! That set us back about 50 minutes but we were thankful that the trip could continue!!! We visited 5 different beautiful lagoons that all had flamingos in them and were surrounded by beautiful volcanos! The lagoons had different colorations depending on the minerals that were contained within the water.
Day 3 we woke up at 4:45 am to a brisk morning where we could actually see our breath! The entire salt flats tour was over 3500 meters in elevation so while the sun was powerful during the day, the nights did cool off quite a bit! Our first stop was at a site with numerous geysers! We then headed to Laguna Verde which has green colored water which wasn't as visible while we were there as the wind was not blowing and stirring up the water. But it was still an amazing view as the volcano behind it had a beautiful full cone! Our tour ended at the Bolivia/Chile border where there was a bus waiting for us to take us to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. The border crossing there was a joke! There was a Bolivian migration office at the "border" and a "gate" which was open but it was in the middle of nowhere and the gate could easily be driven around! It was the most pointless thing I'd ever seen! That and the fact that no one was working at the office that day which seems to be a regular occurrence! So we had had our passports stamped for exit in Uyuni before we left as we were warned about this useless border crossing!
Dec 2: We only spent one night in San Pedro de Atacama as it was more expensive and we headed to Salta, Argentina which made that our 3rd country in two days! It was a lot of border crossings but they all went smoothly! Chile and Argentina certainly took them more seriously than Bolivia as we needed to have our bags scanned while going through but there were no holdups. We arrived in Salta in the evening and immediately bought our bus tickets for 4:00 pm the next day for Puerto Iguazu so we could see Iguazu Falls!
Dec 3: We dropped laundry off in the morning as we had not had clean clothes for a while! They wrote on the ticket that it would be completed at 12:50 pm which gave us plenty of time to get to our 4:00 pm bus! We wanted to walk around Salta for a while so we decided we'd wait until 2:30 ish to pick up our big bags which we had left at the hostel for the day, and then go pick up our laundry before walking to the bus station. Well, when we arrived at the laundromat, we came upon locked doors and the closed sign that showed us that they would not be open until Monday (this was Saturday)...we were certainly troubled! We had the decision to make of just leaving the clothes that we had dropped off and buying replacements at some point or waiting for 2 days to get our laundry back. Well we decided to go to the bus station first to see if we could switch our tickets and we did - by paying a penalty but it wasn't too bad and certainly cheaper than replacing our laundry items!!! So we waited!
The next 2 days we walked around a lot and discovered that the stores liked to take an afternoon "siesta" break and closed doors during the heat of the day! The streets were empty during this time! While the stores were open - the streets were full of people! We discovered a great empanadas restaurant and went there twice for the cheap food! Salta is renowned to have some of the best empanadas in Argentina and they were certainly delicious!!! It was almost worth staying in Salta the extra 2 days for those! (ok that's a bit of an overstatement but it helps deal with the fact that we "lost" 2 days!)
Dec 6 we made it Puerto Iguazu! It was a 24 hour bus ride from Salta but we changed buses at 6:00 am and again at 11:00 am so that helped break it up! It really went by fast! We've taken so many buses by now that an 8 hour trip is a piece of cake! So 24 hours wasn't that bad either! We were informed when we got to Puerto Iguazu that it is no longer possible to go to the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls without a visa if you need one to get into the country. For years, an "unofficial" visit to the park was allowed for one day but this was no longer the case! For us Canadians, it's a $170 visa which we weren't prepared to get just for one day on the Brazilian side! I was a little let down because I was hoping to take one of the helicopter tours of the falls, but they only leave from the Brazilian side.
Dec 7: Seeing Iguazu Falls! UNBELIEVABLE! Another Machu Picchu moment just on a totally different spectrum! The Argentinian side is beautiful and has many pathways to walk upon and has great views of the falls so we weren't overly depressed anymore that we couldn't make it to the Brazilian side! It was a fantastic combination of the falls, jungle and wildlife!!! Just a great day hanging out at the falls and taking in the sites!
Dec 8: Took the bus from Puerto Iguazu to San Ignacio, Argentina. Today, (the 9th), we toured through an old Jesuit missions site which is located here and it is a beautiful place as well! It was a rather large complex which housed nearly 4,000 Guarani people at it's peak which I was surprised to discover! I didn't think the missions had gotten that big! It is certainly hotter here! It's also been very humid but we are enjoying the warm temperatures as we try to stay hydrated! Tonight we leave on the bus at midnight bound for Corrientes. From Corrientes, we will grab a bus in the morning to Mercedes and then on to Colonia Pelligrini which is in a national park called Reserva Provincial Esteros Del Ibera which is supposed to have more great jungle and wildlife!
If you've made it all the way to end of this in one shot I applaud you! Sorry for not updating in a long time! Hope you are all doing well!
Thursday, 8 December 2011
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Saturday, 26 November 2011
Puno, Arequipa, Canon Del Colca, Peru - Bolivia
Ok wow - it has been almost two weeks since updating and we've certainly been on the move in that time!!! I haven't been feeling to well this week and we also haven't had internet as much this week so I'm using those as my two big excuses for not updating! But enough of the excuses because there is a lot to write about! Oh yeah - and I tried uploading some pictures for this post but the first picture I had going for over a 1/2 hour and it wasn't 1/4 done uploading yet so I'll have to scrap that idea until we get better internet (sorry Leighton!)
Alright so...while in Puno we did a day trip to two different islands on Lake Titicaca - Islas Uros which is actually a group of floating islands made of 2 meter thick reeds, and Isla Taquile. The floating islands are extremely touristy with welcome signs and the locals trying to sell handcrafts and such but it was still a really neat experience. The islands last for 11 - 12 years before they rot out and a new one has to be built. The first one we visited was 5 years old and felt quite solid! The second island housed a school, restaurant and a fish farm which apparently housed Canadian salmon which was kind of interesting! We then took the very slow boat ride to Isla Taquile which is a farming island and the locals are very traditional! Their clothing identified there relationship status' which was quite interesting! The males wear long toques which are red and white if they are single and more solid red if they were married. The single guys wear the tail of the toque to the left of their head if they have a girlfriend and to the right if they are looking for a girlfriend. Wearing it straight back meant they were single and not looking. The women were similar in the fact that married women wore solid red tops while single women wore other colored tops. If a single woman was interested in a man - she would twirl the pom poms on the edge of her head covering in the direction of the man looking for a girlfriend! What a system! So we had lunch on that island...no I did not buy a red and white toque and wear it on the right side of my head to see if I would get any pom poms twirled in my direction, and we headed back to the boat for the slow ride back to Puno.
After Puno we headed to Arequipa to hopefully catch a good glimpse of El Misti volcano looming just outside of town and to see Canon Del Colca which is over twice as deep as Grand Canyon! Well we didn't get to enjoy a great view of El Misti as the clouds kept her hidden and the few clear glimpses we got were on the bus with no chance of getting a good picture but thats ok! A quick side not, it seems every city and town in Peru had the main plaza named Plaza de Armas which means Plaza of Arms. It was a military strategy as this would be the center of refuge upon an attack and the place to distribute arms to defend the city. We had been wondering why the name repeated so many times and this makes sense! Anyways, Arequipa was a fairly ritzy city and had one street running off of the Plaza de Armas which made us thought we were back in North America. It was full of fancy stores and restaurants including a Starbucks of which we did partake in some Christmas blends! This street also had a 4 ft wide "sandwich restaurant" that served shawarma style chicken (vertical spit of chicken) sandwiches which were quite excellent!!! We tried hiking north through the town to get a better view of El Misti but the views were continuously blocked by buildings but it was a good hike outside of the more touristy area! Although the "touristy" area was filled with way more locals than tourists so that was good!
From Arequipa we did a two day trek into Canon del Colca. We saw condor's which are an endangered vulture which grows to over a 1 meter tall with a 3 meter wide wing span! There was a Cruz del Condor lookout location which is supposed to have regular Condor sitings and as we were piling back into the van after not seeing a condor - someone yelled out that they spotted a condor so out of the van we jumped! It was an amazing graceful bird that glided through the air effortlessly!!! After the condor lookout, we were dropped off at the start of our 18 km hike which brought us to our Oasis hotel which really was an Oasis! Pools, concrete huts with reed windows and roofs, dirt floors, volleyball and a wide variety of plants made it stick out from the more deserty surroundings! When we got dropped off for the hike - 4 of us were told that we actually had a different guide that we would wait for once we hiked down to the bottom of the canyon since groups were only supposed to be 8 and we were 12. So we made our way down to the bridge crossing the river at the bottom and there we waited....for 1.5 hours until our guide showed up with the 3 women he had with him. After they had a short break - we took the short 20 minute climb up to our lunch restaurant. Us 4 original guys got to the restaurant first and were almost finished our soup by the time the women got there. We just finished up the last few bites of the main course when our new guide informed us that they would take too long to get to Oasis and the rain was starting to fall so he suggested we go with one of the groups that was just leaving which happened to be our original group! We did get a little wet but it was refreshing and luckily didn't come down too hard! The climb back up out of the canon the next morning was certainly tiring! We got moving around 5:20 a.m. and climbed 1100 meters over 7 kms of switchbacks! It was a constant uphill climb which was easier where the path was "smooth" but the stair sections got difficult by the end! It made sense by the end why a bottle of coke was 5 soles at Oasis since this was the only path down! (although 5 soles is only like $2 so it really wasn't unreasonable - especially by North American standards!) I did the hike in 2 hours which I was happy with - really didn't stop to take breaks - just wanted to complete the task! We then walked 20 - 30 minutes to our breakfast spot where we relaxed for a while. On the trip back to Arequipa I was sitting beside an atheist from England and we had a good conversation about religion! One of the women from "our group" was sitting in front of us on the bus and she started listening in as she was intrigued by our conversation. It was good to hear his questions and responses to my answers.
So the next day we headed back to Puno in order to cross into Bolivia the day after that. So we took the bus to Bolivia on November 21. We booked tickets all the way to La Paz which is the capital city. It was supposed to be approximately 6 hours total but was closer to 7 by the time we had a lunch break and went through border crossing transitions. It was the easiest border to cross! Started by a quick stop in the Peruvian police station where they simply looked at our papers, then to migration where we were stamped out of Peru. We were asked no questions in either location. Then a quick walk up the street through an arch and after 10 seconds in the Bolivian migration office where they again asked no questions but simply handed us our tourist papers, we were officially in Bolivia! Well the bus took us to Copacabana where we had an hour break to find some lunch and wander around before we would transfer to a smaller bus which I understood was necessary in order to get over a bridge (some people were staying in Copacabana so the big bus wasn't necessary either!). After lunch down by the water where I got a western burger which had 2 big beef patties, ham and bacon (yes i was quite impressed by the burger!) we boarded the smaller bus and headed out of town. Oh yeah - to enter Copacabana - all of a sudden the bus stopped and we were told we need to pay 1 boliviano in order to proceed...wasn't too impressed at the surprise cost but in reality it was only like 15 cents. So 10 minutes outside of Copacabana, we pulled up to a docking location where i realized we weren't taking a bridge across the sliver of Lake Titicaca - the bus was going on a ferry! Well the bus stops and we are told to get out because we would have to pay 1.50 bolivianos in order to take a different boat across. Now i wasn't too impressed - I know - 1.50 bolivianos again wasn't much money but to me it's the principle of the matter - I had already paid to get all the way to La Paz, that should include any mandatory expenditures on route! Plus the guy at the ticket window gipped me 0.50 which he quite rudely waved me on and i simply walked off - it wasn't worth fighting for.
So we got to La Paz without anymore surprise expenditures and after finding a hotel we walked around for a while exploring. We eventually made it back to the hotel and there were ATM's right across the street which was perfect because Mike and I didn't have a lot of Bolivianos (we exchanged the few Peruvian soles we had left at the border into Bolivianos). So Mike tried the one ATM and it didn't work. So I proceeded to the other one, tried to take out 1100 bolivianos and the machine told me that was not possible at the time, asked if i wanted to do another transaction so I said yes and proceeded to successfully take out 500 bolivianos. Well, successful until the machine started to shut down immediately after I got my cash and my card was stuck in the machine! It slowly rebooted and then displayed a "machine out of service" screen! Smashing buttons didn't work so I got Mike to wait at the machine while I went across the street to see if I could use our hotels phone to call the number on the ATM. The owner took his cell phone out - guess they didn't have a land line?, and called the number where I proceeded to explain to the rep what the machine had done. They informed me nothing could be done for me at that time and I would have to call back the next morning. So I called Royal Bank right away and explained my situation so they put a note on my account that my debit was lost but may be recoverable. Instead of calling the next morning, I went down to the bank of the ATM where I explained the situation and the bank informed me there was nothing they could do - my card was gone. Very helpful I thought! So I called Royal Bank again and cancelled my card after looking at my accounts online. I discovered a discrepancy on a withdrawal which worked out to be the 1100 bolivianos I had originally tried to take out but never got! Yeah - I still got charged that amount! So I told Royal Bank but they said there was nothing they could do for me until I was back in a Royal Bank!!! I explained to them that I would be gone for another 4 months but that didn't matter - they needed my signature in order to start the investigation...that makes absolutely no sense to me and certainly doesn't make me feel protected by my bank while overseas!!!! Then I asked if there was any way of waiving the cash advance fees associated with visa since that is my only option left for getting cash at the moment and the woman was quite rude as I explained that I was going to be gone for 4 months! She just said - "well can't you just pay for everything with your visa or why do you need cash?". She also said "4 months of cancelling fees isn't a solution!". Well no it's not I thought but I'm kind of stuck! And obviously she's never left Canada because for some silly reason all the little shops down here, and the lack of electricity in some places means visa isn't generally accepted and cash is a necessity! Well, Chris Klassen will be bringing down my new debit card so I won't need the visa for cash advances after that and the bank has said that the charges for cash advances can be reversed at that point if I call in again...I really hope that is the truth!!! A big thanks to Chris though - that works out really well!!!!!
All in all, the banking incident wasn't really a huge headache - a learning experience for sure!!! It does lead to a funny story though! When my card first got stuck - a guy from Spain asked if everything was alright and I explained how my card was stuck in the machine. He offered his condolences and wished me all the best! Well the next day at supper we ran into him at a restaurant and he asked how everything went so I briefly told him the situation. We started small talk and I asked where he was from, where he was traveling, etc. and he explained that he was from Spain but living in Caracas, Venezuela and was working there. I asked him what he did for work and he said he was an electrician. I found that slightly amusing as he was dressed in fairly typical "hippie" attire and he proceeded to explain that he connected electricity everywhere - in people, through people and the cosmos, etc, etc... yup - he was certainly a very interesting individual but extremely friendly!
My battery is about to die and I don't have a charger so I will quickly sum up the last few days. We left La Paz November 23 on a bus that broke down 15 minutes into the drive so again we got transferred to a smaller, much more uncomfortable bus!!! We got to Oruro and I have been sick since so not much has happened! Mike hasn't been feeling the hottest either although he is getting quite a bit better now! Yesterday we managed to bus to Potosi which is one of the highest elevation cities in the world at over 4,000 meters and it is a city full of rich history! More so the rich part because of extensive silver mining where over 8 million african and bolivian slaves died under Spanish control of the mines!
Ok, now my battery is really going to die so I'll try sending this before that happens! Will add more pictures when we get better internet! Hope you are all doing well!!!!!
Alright so...while in Puno we did a day trip to two different islands on Lake Titicaca - Islas Uros which is actually a group of floating islands made of 2 meter thick reeds, and Isla Taquile. The floating islands are extremely touristy with welcome signs and the locals trying to sell handcrafts and such but it was still a really neat experience. The islands last for 11 - 12 years before they rot out and a new one has to be built. The first one we visited was 5 years old and felt quite solid! The second island housed a school, restaurant and a fish farm which apparently housed Canadian salmon which was kind of interesting! We then took the very slow boat ride to Isla Taquile which is a farming island and the locals are very traditional! Their clothing identified there relationship status' which was quite interesting! The males wear long toques which are red and white if they are single and more solid red if they were married. The single guys wear the tail of the toque to the left of their head if they have a girlfriend and to the right if they are looking for a girlfriend. Wearing it straight back meant they were single and not looking. The women were similar in the fact that married women wore solid red tops while single women wore other colored tops. If a single woman was interested in a man - she would twirl the pom poms on the edge of her head covering in the direction of the man looking for a girlfriend! What a system! So we had lunch on that island...no I did not buy a red and white toque and wear it on the right side of my head to see if I would get any pom poms twirled in my direction, and we headed back to the boat for the slow ride back to Puno.
After Puno we headed to Arequipa to hopefully catch a good glimpse of El Misti volcano looming just outside of town and to see Canon Del Colca which is over twice as deep as Grand Canyon! Well we didn't get to enjoy a great view of El Misti as the clouds kept her hidden and the few clear glimpses we got were on the bus with no chance of getting a good picture but thats ok! A quick side not, it seems every city and town in Peru had the main plaza named Plaza de Armas which means Plaza of Arms. It was a military strategy as this would be the center of refuge upon an attack and the place to distribute arms to defend the city. We had been wondering why the name repeated so many times and this makes sense! Anyways, Arequipa was a fairly ritzy city and had one street running off of the Plaza de Armas which made us thought we were back in North America. It was full of fancy stores and restaurants including a Starbucks of which we did partake in some Christmas blends! This street also had a 4 ft wide "sandwich restaurant" that served shawarma style chicken (vertical spit of chicken) sandwiches which were quite excellent!!! We tried hiking north through the town to get a better view of El Misti but the views were continuously blocked by buildings but it was a good hike outside of the more touristy area! Although the "touristy" area was filled with way more locals than tourists so that was good!
From Arequipa we did a two day trek into Canon del Colca. We saw condor's which are an endangered vulture which grows to over a 1 meter tall with a 3 meter wide wing span! There was a Cruz del Condor lookout location which is supposed to have regular Condor sitings and as we were piling back into the van after not seeing a condor - someone yelled out that they spotted a condor so out of the van we jumped! It was an amazing graceful bird that glided through the air effortlessly!!! After the condor lookout, we were dropped off at the start of our 18 km hike which brought us to our Oasis hotel which really was an Oasis! Pools, concrete huts with reed windows and roofs, dirt floors, volleyball and a wide variety of plants made it stick out from the more deserty surroundings! When we got dropped off for the hike - 4 of us were told that we actually had a different guide that we would wait for once we hiked down to the bottom of the canyon since groups were only supposed to be 8 and we were 12. So we made our way down to the bridge crossing the river at the bottom and there we waited....for 1.5 hours until our guide showed up with the 3 women he had with him. After they had a short break - we took the short 20 minute climb up to our lunch restaurant. Us 4 original guys got to the restaurant first and were almost finished our soup by the time the women got there. We just finished up the last few bites of the main course when our new guide informed us that they would take too long to get to Oasis and the rain was starting to fall so he suggested we go with one of the groups that was just leaving which happened to be our original group! We did get a little wet but it was refreshing and luckily didn't come down too hard! The climb back up out of the canon the next morning was certainly tiring! We got moving around 5:20 a.m. and climbed 1100 meters over 7 kms of switchbacks! It was a constant uphill climb which was easier where the path was "smooth" but the stair sections got difficult by the end! It made sense by the end why a bottle of coke was 5 soles at Oasis since this was the only path down! (although 5 soles is only like $2 so it really wasn't unreasonable - especially by North American standards!) I did the hike in 2 hours which I was happy with - really didn't stop to take breaks - just wanted to complete the task! We then walked 20 - 30 minutes to our breakfast spot where we relaxed for a while. On the trip back to Arequipa I was sitting beside an atheist from England and we had a good conversation about religion! One of the women from "our group" was sitting in front of us on the bus and she started listening in as she was intrigued by our conversation. It was good to hear his questions and responses to my answers.
So the next day we headed back to Puno in order to cross into Bolivia the day after that. So we took the bus to Bolivia on November 21. We booked tickets all the way to La Paz which is the capital city. It was supposed to be approximately 6 hours total but was closer to 7 by the time we had a lunch break and went through border crossing transitions. It was the easiest border to cross! Started by a quick stop in the Peruvian police station where they simply looked at our papers, then to migration where we were stamped out of Peru. We were asked no questions in either location. Then a quick walk up the street through an arch and after 10 seconds in the Bolivian migration office where they again asked no questions but simply handed us our tourist papers, we were officially in Bolivia! Well the bus took us to Copacabana where we had an hour break to find some lunch and wander around before we would transfer to a smaller bus which I understood was necessary in order to get over a bridge (some people were staying in Copacabana so the big bus wasn't necessary either!). After lunch down by the water where I got a western burger which had 2 big beef patties, ham and bacon (yes i was quite impressed by the burger!) we boarded the smaller bus and headed out of town. Oh yeah - to enter Copacabana - all of a sudden the bus stopped and we were told we need to pay 1 boliviano in order to proceed...wasn't too impressed at the surprise cost but in reality it was only like 15 cents. So 10 minutes outside of Copacabana, we pulled up to a docking location where i realized we weren't taking a bridge across the sliver of Lake Titicaca - the bus was going on a ferry! Well the bus stops and we are told to get out because we would have to pay 1.50 bolivianos in order to take a different boat across. Now i wasn't too impressed - I know - 1.50 bolivianos again wasn't much money but to me it's the principle of the matter - I had already paid to get all the way to La Paz, that should include any mandatory expenditures on route! Plus the guy at the ticket window gipped me 0.50 which he quite rudely waved me on and i simply walked off - it wasn't worth fighting for.
So we got to La Paz without anymore surprise expenditures and after finding a hotel we walked around for a while exploring. We eventually made it back to the hotel and there were ATM's right across the street which was perfect because Mike and I didn't have a lot of Bolivianos (we exchanged the few Peruvian soles we had left at the border into Bolivianos). So Mike tried the one ATM and it didn't work. So I proceeded to the other one, tried to take out 1100 bolivianos and the machine told me that was not possible at the time, asked if i wanted to do another transaction so I said yes and proceeded to successfully take out 500 bolivianos. Well, successful until the machine started to shut down immediately after I got my cash and my card was stuck in the machine! It slowly rebooted and then displayed a "machine out of service" screen! Smashing buttons didn't work so I got Mike to wait at the machine while I went across the street to see if I could use our hotels phone to call the number on the ATM. The owner took his cell phone out - guess they didn't have a land line?, and called the number where I proceeded to explain to the rep what the machine had done. They informed me nothing could be done for me at that time and I would have to call back the next morning. So I called Royal Bank right away and explained my situation so they put a note on my account that my debit was lost but may be recoverable. Instead of calling the next morning, I went down to the bank of the ATM where I explained the situation and the bank informed me there was nothing they could do - my card was gone. Very helpful I thought! So I called Royal Bank again and cancelled my card after looking at my accounts online. I discovered a discrepancy on a withdrawal which worked out to be the 1100 bolivianos I had originally tried to take out but never got! Yeah - I still got charged that amount! So I told Royal Bank but they said there was nothing they could do for me until I was back in a Royal Bank!!! I explained to them that I would be gone for another 4 months but that didn't matter - they needed my signature in order to start the investigation...that makes absolutely no sense to me and certainly doesn't make me feel protected by my bank while overseas!!!! Then I asked if there was any way of waiving the cash advance fees associated with visa since that is my only option left for getting cash at the moment and the woman was quite rude as I explained that I was going to be gone for 4 months! She just said - "well can't you just pay for everything with your visa or why do you need cash?". She also said "4 months of cancelling fees isn't a solution!". Well no it's not I thought but I'm kind of stuck! And obviously she's never left Canada because for some silly reason all the little shops down here, and the lack of electricity in some places means visa isn't generally accepted and cash is a necessity! Well, Chris Klassen will be bringing down my new debit card so I won't need the visa for cash advances after that and the bank has said that the charges for cash advances can be reversed at that point if I call in again...I really hope that is the truth!!! A big thanks to Chris though - that works out really well!!!!!
All in all, the banking incident wasn't really a huge headache - a learning experience for sure!!! It does lead to a funny story though! When my card first got stuck - a guy from Spain asked if everything was alright and I explained how my card was stuck in the machine. He offered his condolences and wished me all the best! Well the next day at supper we ran into him at a restaurant and he asked how everything went so I briefly told him the situation. We started small talk and I asked where he was from, where he was traveling, etc. and he explained that he was from Spain but living in Caracas, Venezuela and was working there. I asked him what he did for work and he said he was an electrician. I found that slightly amusing as he was dressed in fairly typical "hippie" attire and he proceeded to explain that he connected electricity everywhere - in people, through people and the cosmos, etc, etc... yup - he was certainly a very interesting individual but extremely friendly!
My battery is about to die and I don't have a charger so I will quickly sum up the last few days. We left La Paz November 23 on a bus that broke down 15 minutes into the drive so again we got transferred to a smaller, much more uncomfortable bus!!! We got to Oruro and I have been sick since so not much has happened! Mike hasn't been feeling the hottest either although he is getting quite a bit better now! Yesterday we managed to bus to Potosi which is one of the highest elevation cities in the world at over 4,000 meters and it is a city full of rich history! More so the rich part because of extensive silver mining where over 8 million african and bolivian slaves died under Spanish control of the mines!
Ok, now my battery is really going to die so I'll try sending this before that happens! Will add more pictures when we get better internet! Hope you are all doing well!!!!!
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