I got up this morning at
I got in to
It had been a great trip, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was totally worth it. I can see why Ben is doing what he’s doing.
I don’t know if it was a life-changing experience, but it definitely gave me some things to think about.
Maybe I’ll go back someday, maybe I won’t. Either way I’ve at least got the memories of these 2 weeks of ‘Ben and Ben in4:33am – We ate last night in an all-natural restaurant next to our hostel. I had soup and a “green dream” sandwich. We talked about the trip. After that we came back here and watched the end of “The Matrix” before falling asleep.
I’m up now and packed to go. We’re going to catch a taxi to the airport.
We got to the taxi a little after five and found out my plane was delayed. We had to wait in line to check in for over an hour, then wait in another line to pay an airport fee. We got some breakfast at Burger King. It was tough to say goodbye. We were both sad the trip was ending. It had been a good time. Ranz had to get back to the bus terminal, though, to catch an
7:53am – I’m sitting in
*I learned the movie was called August Rush.
Back on US soil! I got my bags and went through customs, then checked in for my next flight (I had to get my boarding pass for
I got in to
Around four in the morning the bus arrived in
6:59am – We are on the bus (flota) from Uyuni. We stopped in
We got in to
We couldn’t check in right away, so we left our bags and went and got some breakfast and took care of some errands (like getting money). The breakfast place was delicious. I had some quinua-filled pancakes which were so good. The place even played some American music (Guns ‘N Roses’ Sweet Child O’Mine).
Once we got in our room, we used the bathroom and took hot showers (first time since last Saturday night*). We’re now heading out to grab lunch and buy souvenirs.
*Many of the hostels we stayed in on the tour had showers, but like lots of touristy things in
We did our shopping and I got all the things I wanted. I bought some new headphones, but when I got back to the room I realized they were the wrong size adapter for the iPod.
We just got back to our hostel and are going to go grab my bag from the bus terminal.
We walked back to near the bus terminal where the deliver post packages. After checking at a couple different desks under both of our names, we finally located the package and signed for it. Yippee! I wouldn’t have to leave anything behind.
We then walked back towards our hostel, but detoured through a bunch of street vendors and night activities that were going on. There was a lot of hustle and bustle as it was Friday night.
Although we had planned on having a “fancy” last meal, neither of us were really hungry because of our big pizza lunch and oversized ice cream (which we ended up giving what we couldn’t finish to a boy standing outside the ice cream shop), so we just went to a little café next to our hostel.
We talked about the trip and had some good conversation, but we were both pretty exhausted and went back to the hotel room and crashed.It was ridiculously cold during the night. I had put on long johns, and a pair of pants, and I had like 3 shirts on plus a sweatshirt. I also had my hat and coat on and was under my 3-blankets. We were all still freezing. I will again point out that none of the buildings in
We got up early and drove to some
When we got to the
Getting out was the hard part. It was so cold, and we didn’t have towels to dry off. I used some of my clothes to dry off. Our guide had made us some coffee while we were in the springs, and holding the warm cup felt great.
Today we got up at
We just ate breakfast and are getting ready to head out.
We had lunch in a town called Mallcu (Villa Mar). Lunch took longer than we hoped. We were running a little behind schedule. We wanted to get back to Uyuni by
After lunch, it was almost straight driving back to Uyuni. I was in the front in charge of the music. At one point I played a game where the first person to guess the song was the winner. That was pretty fun.
On the road back to Uyuni, we passed some llama crossing signs. There were actually some llamas crossing at one point.
We did stop at a couple rock formations, but just to jump out, take some photos, and jump back into the jeep. We also had to drive through at least three little streams, one of which had to be almost two feet deep. Luckily the jeep did not get stuck.
Our last stop before Uyuni was a little town called
On the outskirts of Uyuni, we did stop to look at a “train cemetery.” It was basically a bunch of old trains used for mining that had rusted out and been left here. It reminded me of the book Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel.
When we got back to town a little after
Ranz, Katie, and Naya had found bus tickets that left at
In the interest of time, we decided to just get some food off some street vendors. Ranz was worried about my stomach, but we chanced it. We got these things called Anticucho, which were like kebobs with different types of meat, a hot dog, and a potato wedge all covered in some tasty sauce. They were delicious. I had two. Ranz and Kilo probably went through six apiece.
While we were eating, I called Mia. She told me she had some bad news, that Fifi had died on Tuesday. I couldn’t believe it. There wasn’t much I could say or do, though.
We all went to the bathroom and went back to our bus stop to pile onto the bus. The plan was for Kilo, Katie, Naya, and
I called Mia and she told me Fifi died.
This bus ride four of us were up front and two of our seats were at the back of the bus. Ranz and I were in the first two seats on the right side of the bus with Katie and Naya behind us. Kilo and
With these luxuries, it was easy to doze off and catch some sleep.
We stopped around7:42am – We got up around 6:30, had egg sandwiches and coffee and are now loading up the car. Day three of our Salar tour. I’m still healthy with solid bowel movements.
A lot of the morning was spent driving. We saw other tour groups jeeps again. A lot of the tours do a circle, but some go one way and others go the reverse way. We saw a lot of European tourists and a lot of Israeli tourists. We left the actual salt flats at this point, and it was now just dirt that we were driving on. We were south of the salt flats.
11:40am – We have been driving around to different volcanoes and lagoons this morning. There are tons of mountains and volcanoes to see. The lagoons have borax in them.
We’ve stopped now for lunch near a volcano. I’ve been riding in the backseat with Ranz. The ride is pretty dusty and the bumps make me have to pee a lot. It’s so peaceful and quiet wherever we stop.
In the afternoon we stopped at these rock formations that were supposed to look like trees, so they called it a petrified forest. We climbed up the rocks, which was probably a little unsafe, especially because when we got to the top it was really windy. No one got hurt, though.
The whole time we were on our tour our guide had this headwarmer thing over his face. We didn’t know why he did it, if it was just to keep the dust out of his face, or if it was a class thing. In the city, the shoe shiners wear these types of cloths over their faces because they don’t want to show their face, almost like they are embarrassed by their work.
We drove to the entrance to this national park, where a worker had to open a gate for us (and of course we had to pay a toll). Inside the national park, there are a bunch of lagoons, many of which are homes to flamingos.
The first lagoon we stopped at was red. Apparently this was because of the microorganisms that live in the water. We had to walk down a pretty steep hill to get right up to the edge of the lake.
Ranz and I raced back up the hill to our jeep. This was one of many times we thought it would be fun to race. At the high altitudes, you get out of breath quickly. I won, but Ranz was always wearing sandals when we raced, so I don’t think it was completely fair. We got to our hostel for that night pretty early in the afternoon. It was more like a big complex of hostels.
3:37pm – We did a lot more driving and saw a “petrified” rock forest, red lagoon and are in a national park. We’re at our hostel now and are chilling on our beds.
We were all in one room for this hostel. The room was a long room with 7 beds. Back in Uyuni when the company owner was describing the trip, he told us where we would stay and how many blankets were provided each night. I thought this was interesting, but tonight was a 3-blanket hostel, and they would prove necessary.
With nothing else to do, all of us except Ranz decided to take a little walk around the complex. We were in the middle of nowhere, really, and there wasn’t much to walk to or see except mountains in the distance. It was really windy and bitterly cold, so we pretty much just circled the complex and called it quits. While we were walking I chewed some coca leaves, which made me spit green and numbed my tongue.
In our exploration, we did find a small supply shop which sold alcohol. We bought some beer and wine for later that night.
When we got back to our room, Ranz was out in the common area smoking a pipe. We all sat down at the table and he passed the pipe around. We played the movie game, and went to some unexplored territory of actors/movies with which Ranz and I had little familiarity. It was a good time.
I asked the group to tell me about their Peace Corp experiences and they told some good stories. I then started asking for specific times, such as “Tell me a story at your Peace Corps site that involves an animal.”
Kilo told a story about his horse running away from some bees.
Naya told a story about how her kids showed her the trash they were throwing away (because she had taught them with puppets about how it is important to throw trash away).
We eventually moved into our room and continued talking there. Ranz and I told a bunch of funny stories of pranks from college. Other people told their stories, too. We passed a lot of time talking.
AfterI set my alarm to go off around
We ate breakfast, then drove part way up the volcano. We then got out and hiked up the mountain a bit.
9:36am – We are up near the volcano. We hiked up after leaving around
Ranz had pretty much organized the trip and was acting like the leader and the spokesperson to the guide. Kilo and Katie were talking with our guide, and they told him that Ranz was our leader and that we would have to check with him before making decisions. After that we started calling Ranz “jefe.”
11:35am – We hung out on the rocks and sang songs. Then we hiked to the mummy cave. We drove back to the hostel Maya where we are waiting for lunch.
The weird thing about seeing the mummy cave was that it was completely open. I could have touched the mummy had I wanted. There were no efforts taken to preserve them or keep people from messing them up. In the
After lunch we packed up the jeep and drove. Our next stop was the cactus island.
(Us on the cactus island)
My reflection time thought:
I told our engagement story to everyone before dinner and everyone got all excited.
We ate soup for dinner and spaghetti. Some local kids played music (poorly) and we gave them bread and cookies, which they scarfed down.
I didn’t sleep much on the bus, partly because of the bumpiness, partly because it got super cold. We got to Uyuni around
6:42am – The bus arrived in Uyuni around
We found a lady who agreed to open her restaurant/hostel for us and we ordered some breakfast.
Another observation: Bolivians don’t take good care of their teeth. While I have seen at least one dentist’s office, I imagine most rural folks don’t go to one. A lot of them have gold fillings, or gold teeth.
8:30am – We ate an egg sandwich and coffee at a restaurant that a lady opened for us. We are now checking out tour companies.
Ranz had made arrangements with a tour group over the phone a few days before we had arrived; however, on our walk to find our tour group, another guy persuaded us to come and check out his tour company, so we decided to give him a chance. He talked us through the route he would take us (in English) and explained how it was better than the other companies. It did seem like a good deal, but Ranz wanted to go at least price compare with the other company. We split up with Ranz going to check out the other company and some of us staying at the new company.
After a little debate we decided the new company seemed like a better deal, so we told the guy we would do it, but that we wanted to check out one of his jeeps before we left. He told us to take care of paying while he went and got a jeep. He disappeared and we worked with this assistant lady to each pay separately, but she didn’t have change for some of us, so she left to go and get change. The office was now deserted except for us. No workers to be found. Those of us who needed change waited while the others went to get some food.
It got to be a half hour, then 45 minutes, then almost an hour and neither worker had returned. The guy had originally told us we would be leaving at
(the six of us waiting for our tour jeep. From left to right:
Ranz was starting to be convinced that we had been ripped off, and I was feeling like something shady was going on, too, but finally the guy showed up with a jeep.
Ranz started to give it an inspection to make sure it looked all right. Just basics, like did it have a spare tire, was there anything noticeably wrong with it like a muffler falling off, etc. He asked the guy to pop the hood and he looked at the engine. Everything seemed in order, but when Ranz reached to check the oil dipstick the driver got really upset and started yelling at him, saying things like (and I’m relaying this secondhand as this was in Spanish) “You are insulting me! You disrespect me! You come here and you treat me poorly! This is not how you treat me!”
Ranz tried to say that he meant no harm, he just wanted to make sure the car was okay, but the driver would have none of it and drove off angrily.
Then the tour company guy said he would find us a new driver but asked us not to check the truck out next time. We were a little upset by all this, Ranz especially.
Eventually another jeep was found, the driver seemed cool, everything was in order, the jeep was loaded with supplies and our bags, and we were all set to go. We got squared away (for the most part) with getting our change and we were finally off a little after
We headed out from Uyuni in our jeep. We agreed that we would change seating positions every half day. Our first stop was on the edge of town where a lot of the salt is mined and packaged. A guy explained how they prepare the salt for the consumer market. It is piled out on the salt flats, then they bring it in to the “factory” where they heat it from beneath in this oven thing to dry the water out of it. Then they iodize it and bag it. He then wanted money for having explained the process.
We stopped a little bit out onto the salt flats and took some pictures, but our guide told us there would be a better spot with less people later.
We stopped at this “rest stop” in the middle of the flats and our guide made us lunch: llama meat, tomatoes, cucumbers, and Coca Cola. The running meal-time joke during the tour was, “Does anyone have any salt?”
While we were eating lunch, we noticed the car that Ranz had tried to check the oil on. It was broken down and the guy was working on it. We then felt a lot better about not taking that car.
After lunch we headed north towards the northern edge of the salt flats. This is supposedly an area that most of the other tours don’t cover. We stopped and took a bunch of perspective shots.
Back in the jeep we drove towards the base of a volcano on the northern edge of the flats. The jeep had an input for an mp3 player, so we were listening to songs the whole time. We got really into it and were singing along with a lot of them. It was a good time.
When we finally arrived at our hostel, we put our stuff in our rooms and snacked on some cookies. There wasn’t much time until we set out to go watch the sunset. We drove back out onto the flats a little bit, watched the sunset, and were ready to head back because of the wind and cold.
Back at the hostel, we sat in our room and started drinking some wine. An Australian couple who were shaken up by what they perceived as a dangerous hike joined us in our room.
Eventually our dinner was served, and we went back out into the common room to eat it. It was an awkward dinner because the Australian couple was fighting at another table with an English couple they were traveling with. It was hard to pretend we weren’t listening or aware of what was going on.
We headed back to our rooms. The guys’ room was the hangout. We drank more wine and sang along to more songs on the iPods.
We had another tasty breakfast at our resort’s restaurant and took care of paying for our room. The owner (Johnny) said goodbye to us and wished us well. He was a really nice guy.
The plan for the day was to head back to
We ran into
All four of us got onto a van to
On the road from Sorata to Huarina, the bus kept stopping when people were on the side of the road waiting for a ride, even though there really wasn’t any room.
They got off at Huarina, as they were heading to Copacabana.
11:20am – We are on a bus to
More observations: 1) The Bolivian music today is sort of like a cross between Billy Joel’s The Downeaster “Alexa” and Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Tearjerker. 2)The napkins here are tiny. They are like ¾ the size of
One thing Ranz told me about
We made it back to
Our seats on the bus were numbers one and two. We were kind of on a second level sitting above the driver with nothing but the windshield in front of us. They showed Commando on the ride (Ranz said they always play combat movies with Van Damme, Jackie Chan, or Arnold), which took just under four hours to get to
We were supposed to meet Ranz’s friends at the bus stop in
We got off the bus in
Ranz, Kilo, and I ordered some Chinese takeout (hilarious, I know!). I gave Katie her package which I had been carrying all the way from the
Ranz and I decided to leave some of our stuff at Jarrod’s apartment and grab it on our way back through on Thursday. That way we each would only need to take one bag on our trip.
Ranz and I told everyone they could call us Ranz and Coleman. They called me Coleman, but they also started calling me Ben #1 because I was out the door and ready to leave before Ranz.
The 6 of us who were going to the salt flats (myself, Ranz, Kilo, Katie, Sydney, and Naya) piled into a single taxi and rode to the bus depot.
We got on the bus with little time to spare, especially since a couple of the girls had to run to the bathroom right before the bus left.
This was what I consider a regular bus (Greyhound style), except the overhead reading lights and the heat didn’t work.
When we stopped I put on all the layers of clothes that I had, which wasn’t much since most of it was in a bag under the bus. Ranz was kind enough to share one of his ear buds with me while we tried to sleep on what proved to be an intolerably bumpy ride.
8:37am – We had a big breakfast (2 Americanos) with eggs, bread, coffee, and OJ. Now we are about to leave for an all day hike. We played Catch Phrase before bed last night and this morning before breakfast.
We had met an American couple (I called them
We found a guide in Sorata to take us up to this
The lake at the top wasn’t anything too amazing. We were disappointed that it was a somewhat cloudy and foggy day, so we didn’t get many good views of the higher portions of the mountain, the areas the longer treks continued up.
7:23am – We just woke up in our “room” in Sorata. We can hear a waterfall or running water. I slept for eight hours straight without waking up. I feel refreshed!
We decided we were going to rent some bikes and ride to this cave, but when we got into town we discovered it was actually in the direction on the other side of our hostel, so we headed back to our hostel and left from there.
It had meat, sausage, hot dog bits, peppers, onions, eggs, cheese, fries, and a sauce. It was tasty.
We bought some apples off the street (4 for 10Bs). We then hiked back to our resort and changed clothes.
We headed down the road from our hotel around
Ranz gave a pen to some kids we passed who wanted it to do their English homework and they all started counting in English. He told them he wanted it back on his way back, but we didn’t get it when we went back and he called them a bunch of liars. It was funny (except that we were out a pen).
The road was pretty dusty and muddy in places. We swatted at insects at times because of the standing water. Our feet definitely got dirty because we were both wearing sandals. It was a good walk, though.
We played a lot of the movie game, as well as some other games (name the college mascot, our version of the pyramid game). Now I just showered and we ate our apples as our dinner.
A spider got into our room and when we tried to kick it out the door, its egg sack exploded and tons of little baby spiders started running around. We stomped most of them and got the mom spider out. There are still a lot of bugs in our room.
We packed up and headed out. We said goodbye to Elena (the French girl) and wished her safe travels.
9:24am – We had a nice little bread and coffee breakfast out on a patio and gave some Pringles to a little boy. There were two dogs playing and some donkeys kept humping. We walked back down the path we took up to the town (next to the little waterfall). We’re now sitting on a bench in the harbor waiting for a boat to come take us back to Copacabana. The water is crashing and it’s very peaceful. We’ve had great weather the whole trip so far. (See Ranz’s blog).
We took the bus from Copacabana back to the ferry town. We got off at a halfway point between the ferry town and
This was one of the points where our journey could potentially fall apart. There was a road heading out of town that went to Sorata, so we were hoping a bus would come along going to Sorata that would pick us up. Ranz called some travel number and the lady assured him that there was a bus on the way that we could jump on. We flagged a few vans down as they passed, but none were going to Sorata. On top of a somewhat desperate situation, it started to rain. We got under an awning up near a building, but every time a bus or van came into view on the horizon, Ranz would run to the road to try and flag it down if it was going to Sorata.
There was a town called Achacachi on the way to Sorata that some of the buses were going to, so we made up our mind that if we didn’t get a bus by 6:30 to Sorata, we would get a bus to Achacachi and try to get a bus to Sorata once we got there.
Just a little after
We were happy to be on our way to Sorata.
The ride to Sorata wound through the mountains on some roads that looked pretty perilous to me. I’m not going to lie, there were a few times when I was a little scared that the bus was going to go tumbling off the side of the road and down the mountainside.
This is probably a good time to describe the roads in
Luckily, Ranz had some Dane Cook to listen to, which took my mind off the road. We arrived in Sorata around
We got a taxi to our hotel, the Altai Oasis, which was a good fifteen minutes out of town. The taxi driver looked about 19, had a friend who looked maybe a year older, and his friend had a baby with him. There were also about four things hanging in the taxi from the ceiling and rearview mirror that were swinging all around as the driver took us down some muddy, bumpy roads. Strange.
We arrived in Sorata around
We were then led down to our room by a worker. It’s like a little hut, but it has hot water and a private bathroom. It was nice to take a hot shower. Looks like we’re turning in now.
The plan was to hike the “low” road near the beach the whole length of the island. Phil and Vicki were staying in a town called Chiapampa that night, but Ranz and I were coming back to our end of the island in the town of
We walked along the dirt road which was lined with stones. There were lots of walls made of stones piled up. The countryside was beautiful and the atmosphere serene. We passed some locals herding their sheep down the road. Ranz told me that a lot of the locals don’t like to have their picture taken because they believe the camera sucks their soul out, so I tried to sneak some shots when they were farther down the road.
We stopped for a snack in a small town (I think it was called Cha’lla). We sat on some rocks, looked out at the lake, and ate some cheese and bread.
Another observation about Bolivians is that they are creative. They use any odd or end to get a job done. It may not look good, but at least it will be functional. For instance, on this hike we passed a house that had used a pair of old flip-flops as hinges for their gate to their yard.
After another hour or two of hiking we reached Cha’llapampa (this is pronounced with a neat “ch” sound at the beginning), where Phil and Vicki were staying that night. They found a room at a hostel and we dropped our bags off and went and got some lunch (more trout for me). Ranz and I grabbed our stuff after lunch and parted with Phil and Vicki heading for the Incan (I think) ruins.
The ruins were kind of neat, but there wasn’t much to do except look at them. There wasn’t even a plaque or anything with information. Oh well.
After a brief break at the ruins and a round or two of the movie game, we headed back towards the other end of the island, this time taking the “high” road which runs on the ridge of the island. This was pretty cool because you could look out over both sides of the island and see the lake and mountains in the distance. We played a bunch of rounds of the movie game, the majority of which Ranz won, but I steadily improved. We got back to our town of
The walk was pretty. The countryside reminded me of Hobitton from the Lord of the Rings movies.
We had to pay a “toll” to use the road. They tried to charge us a number of different places, but luckily we had our two passes which seemed to get us through most “checkpoints.”
Eucalyptus trees are common on the island. Also, there are a lot of tourists on the island.
This night when we left Las Velas, we did not have a flashlight, so we were completely in the dark walking back to our hostel through the woods. We had passed three donkeys on the way there, so when we approached the place where they were I tried to see if they were still there. They were. At some point we had started saying “Donkey?” like Shrek whenever we saw a donkey, so we of course did this when we passed these three donkeys. One of the donkeys started following us. After a while we thought it had stopped following, then we heard a loud noise and it came running down this hill towards us. It was really funny. It eventually stopped following us.
We got back to our hostel and climbed into bed, exhausted from a full day of hiking.7:52am – We are sitting in our room listening to music. I brought Ranz a cd with some mp3s on it. My head hurts a little bit.
Another observation: A lot of houses are “open air” in the center, so people put shattered glass and broken bottles on the top of their outer walls to keep people from climbing over them.
8:54am – The hotel had an excellent full spread complimentary breakfast, including a pancake, a cup of cereal, yogurt, a peach, eggs to order, bread, OJ, and the blackest coffee I’ve ever seen (“Blacker than a moonless midnight,” I told Ranz). The milk was served warm in a kettle. It was all very tasty.
After breakfast we walked around the town down by the harbor and up into the main square of town. Because Copacabana draws a lot of tourists, there are restaurants that cater to them, such as pizzerias. Another thing that was true of Copacabana and La Paz: there were little vendor stands that sold all kinds of candy and snacks, such as Pringles, Snickers, M&Ms, Skittles, and Twix, to name a few.
We hiked up this mountain that was used for religious ceremonies. The stations of the cross were represented as you got higher and higher up the mountain, and then at the top were a bunch of pits for lighting fires and candles. From the top, the view of the harbor and
After hiking, we grabbed our bags and barely caught a boat to the Isla del Sol.
We again left our bags at the hotel and hiked up a religious mountain to a height of over 4000 meters (13,000 ft). On the way down I stood next to a sheep.
We then ate some fantastic Hawaiian pizza. Ranz almost freaked when he thought I was going to drink an already-opened bottle of water. It was awesome. I was impressed he even noticed that the cap didn’t crack when I opened it. I had opened it previously when he was in the bathroom, so everything was okay.
When we got back to our hotel around
On the boat ride to the Isla del Sol, this crazy American girl from
The boat captain/ticket-collector told Ranz he had a nice hostel we could stay at for twenty Bolivianos a night where we could see both the sunrise and sunset. He told Ranz his daughter would take us up to it when we arrived on the island.
When we got to the island, we were mobbed with locals trying to sell us stuff or get us to stay at their hostel. The captain took us off the dock and said his daughter wasn’t there but these two boys would take us up. We followed these two boys up this trail (we learned they were both five years old) which was exhausting but a beautiful trail.
The locals didn’t speak true Spanish completely fluently, so they seemed to misunderstand Ranz. For instance, he asked the boys how many times a day they went up and down the trail, and they replied that it would take us 20 more minutes. When we were about halfway up we reached the first hostel, and the lady told Ranz it was the place we were looking for, but it clearly wasn’t, so we kept going.
We finally found the place and got a room (two beds) and settled in. The bathroom was a little gross. The bathroom was like a basement closet and the toilet didn’t flush on its own. You had to dump a bucket of rainwater into it.
The set up of the hotel was cool because it was built into the hillside and had a couple different levels.
A girl from
It was pretty cool sitting on the rooftop talking in three different languages about life, basking in the sun with the sounds of laughing children and braying donkeys in the background. It was a moment I can honestly say will never be recreated in my life.
This girl had worked for two years in
After our beer we decided to go get some dinner. The French girl went off her own way and Ranz and I put some warmer clothes on and went and found a place where we could watch the sunset and eat our dinner. The French girl ended up joining us shortly into our meal. We also ran into two friends of Ben’s (Phil and Vicki), who we joined for some drinks after finishing our dinner.
We went to this cottage in the woods that had candles and no electricity but made delicious food. We then had to walk back to our hostel in the dark, though Ranz had a tiny flashlight to guide us. We agreed to meet Phil and Vicki in the morning to hike the length of the island with them.
We went to dinner and I had spaghetti. We ran into Phil and Vicki, two Peace Corps volunteers in the same class as Ranz. Elena joined us for dinner. Afterwards, we went and joined Phil and Vicki at a little cottage that had no electricity and drank some cervezas. We could see
After the internet café yesterday, we laid down in/on our beds for a little siesta. We ended up talking a bit, but eventually fell asleep. We got up after
We ordered what Ranz claims to be the best cheeseburgers in
His friend Mike met us there and we drank Bolivian beer before heading back to the hostel and crashing.
*One good thing about
One contrasting bad thing is that they seem to not care about garbage. People just throw their trash in the street. This contributes to the presence of the stray dogs, who basically scrounge through the discarded waste for food. There are piles of trash in the middle of the street in places. It’s kind of sad that they just don’t care.
Monday we got up pretty early and packed our bags up. We checked out of our room and left our bags at the “reception” desk while we headed out. The first stop was some breakfast, Bolivian style.
9:23am – We are sitting in a corner café on Monday. I just had a Bolivian salteña, a breakfast item kind of like a hot pocket. There is a precise technique to eating these without slopping juices all over, which I totally botched.
The city is bustling with people. It doesn’t look much different from any city I’ve ever seen.
I forgot to write yesterday that Bolivians love ice cream. We saw so many people eating it, and every ice cream shop we passed had long lines out the door. We are planning to leave to go to Copacabana later this afternoon. More then…
After breakfast we walked around some of the artisan shops that lined the streets. I scoped out some souvenirs to buy on my last day before heading home. One thing they sell that I found interesting was dead baby llamas. They had baskets full of these baby llama bones, most of them between a foot and a foot and a half tall. Ranz explained to me that they somewhat revere the llama since it is a very useful animal for them (it is one of the few that lives and thrives at high altitudes). They put the dead baby llama remains in their houses for good luck, kind of like to ward off bad spirits. I felt safe enough without one, so I saved my money for other mementos.
There was a big
We walked back to our hostel, grabbed our bags, and got a taxi to go and meet Ranz’s friend Armando.
I believe Armando is originally from
We drop our bags off at Armando’s apartment and head to a restaurant called Paladar. It is Armando’s birthday, so he got to pick the restaurant. Unfortunately, when we get there, they are closed on Mondays, so we head back to the square we started from and find a different place that he likes.
A few more things I’ve learned: the street lights are sideways (green, yellow, red are horizontal instead of vertical). The women in
We are now on a bus on our way to Copacabana for this evening.
After eating our nice lunch with Armando, we went back to his apartment, grabbed our bags, and caught a cab to where the busses leave for Copacabana. I say “to where the busses leave,” because it was not a station. It was just a place near a cemetery that apparently seemed like a good spot to leave from. These busses are actually more like glorified vans. The one we find holds maybe 10-15 people. There are “buses” loading people up, and we get 2 of the few remaining seats on a “bus.” They grab our bags and put them on top of the “bus,” and we inch our way to the back seat.
The first leg of the ride takes about an hour and a half. At that point we reach a river town where we have to take a ferry across the river to the other side. We have to get out of the van and meet it on the other side. It takes one ferry for vehicles, while we take a boat for people. We get to the other side at a different spot from our van. While walking to try and find our van, we also have to pee. We can’t find a bathroom anywhere and finally just go down a dirt “ally” in some bushes. Meanwhile, we hear honking and assume it must be our driver giving us our last warning. I get to the street and see the van and wave to it. The driver pulls up to where we are and we hop in. Ranz makes a joke in Spanish to the driver (something about us not being fast) and everyone laughs.
The second leg of the trip from the ferry town to Copacabana only takes about an hour. The funniest part of this trip to me is when someone yells for the driver to stop, and then they get out where there is no civilization in sight. I don’t understand where they can possibly be going.
When we arrive in town, we had plans to stay in this higher-end place. We check at one hotel, but they only have 1 room left with a single bed. We checked at the higher-end place, but they are out of rooms, so we go back to the first place. The lady looked at Ranz kind of funny when he said we would take the room with one bed, especially since it was called a “matrimonial” room.
The shower in our room has an electric current running to it that heats the water as it comes out of the shower head.
The shower was new to me. Ranz explained that you have to choose your water temperature on the heater before turning on the water because if you reach up to do it while the water is running, you are liable to get shocked.
Not having showered since Saturday before I left the US (and it now being Monday evening), I was anxious to try out the shower. It worked pretty well, and I survived without getting a shock.
The room also had outlets, so we charged a bunch of our stuff (cell phones, batteries, computer, etc.). I realized I must have left my headphones for the iPod in our hostel in
There was a soccer game tonight, so a lot of people were watching it and they kept setting off fireworks. Some guys also set up some huge speakers in the street and were blasting music and trying to get a street party going.
We’re back in our room now, reading, blogging, and organizing photos.
