Benny Bolivia

Day 16: Sunday, April 20th, 2008 (Going Home – Dire Straits)

2008-05-26T14:58:00.001-04:00

9:49am (EST) – Sitting in Chicago airport waiting to board my final plane to Cleveland. I got in at 12:05am EST this morning. I decided to get a room at the Hilton. I checked in and went to their bar and had a delicious draught Guiness. When I got to my room I showered and attempted to wash my socks.

I got up this morning at 7:30am CST and got ready and checked out. I walked to my terminal and went through security. The lady made me take off my hat and glasses to confirm my identity. I got some Starbucks and went to my gate where I got my boarding pass. I’m now waiting by my gate. It will be another hour before we board.

I got in to Cleveland around 1pm. Mia met me down at the baggage claim and gave me a huge hug. It was great to be back. We drove her to Aurora where she had play practice, but we stopped at Wendy’s and got some lunch. I showed her the pictures I had on my blackberry and gave her the presents I had for her. Then I drove home took another shower and napped.

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 in

Bolivia

.’

Day 15: Saturday, April 19th, 2008 (Send Me On My Way – Rusted Root)

2008-05-26T14:57:00.003-04:00

4:33am – 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 8am bus to Oruro, so we said our goodbyes and I went through security towards the terminal.

7:53am – I’m sitting in La Paz airport waiting to board the place. It was supposed to leave at 6:45am, but we haven’t boarded yet. Ranz and I got here a little before 5am and spent over an hour waiting in line to check in. I then had to pay a $24 airport fee. We got Burger King for breakfast (tastes the same as in the US) and I bought some headphones. We said goodbye and I went through security.

12:32pm – I am on the plane to Miami now. The flight left La Paz around 9am and left Santa Cruz around 11am. We are supposed to get into Miami around 5:30pm. I got to move up to a different seat because there was an empty exit row seat and the guy next to me had a baby. The movie playing has Robin Williams and the girl from Felicity*. We just finished eating our meal. I had beef and it took forever to cut with the plastic fork and knife.

*I learned the movie was called August Rush.

4:50pm – Still on the plane. Watched P.S. I Love You. Slept a little. They just served us a snack. We’re about 45 minutes out still.

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 Chicago to Cleveland still).

7:37pm – Sitting in Miami airport. I got through customs fine. I got some Starbucks and Quiznos. Talked to Mia and Mom and Dad. Now waiting to go to Chicago at 8:55pm.

I got in to Chicago at 11pm local time and checked in to the Hilton at the airport. A hot shower felt so good and the bed was so comfortable. Not much longer before getting home now.

Day 14: Friday, April 18th, 2008 (Old Friends – Simon and Garfunkel)

2008-05-26T14:57:00.001-04:00

Around four in the morning the bus arrived in Oruro. It was sad to say goodbye to my new friends. It had been a fun four days with them. It’s amazing how quickly you can get to know people. We said goodbye and the bus continued on.

6:59am – We are on the bus (flota) from Uyuni. We stopped in Oruro around 4am and Sydney, Naya, Katie, and Kilo got off and said goodbye. We are now just outside La Paz.

We got in to La Paz around eight. From the bus terminal we taxied down to the area we had stayed when I first arrived. We looked for a place Ranz had read about in his travel book, but couldn’t find it and ended up at a nicer hostel called the Maya that was just around the street from the artisan shops where I would be buying my souvenirs.

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).

12:39pm – We arrived in La Paz around 8am. We found a hostel Maya, but couldn’t get into our room until after 11am. We went and got money from the ATM and ate a nice breakfast with quinua pancakes. We then used the internet in our hostel lobby.

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 Bolivia, there was a cost to use them. We had all agreed that if none of us showered, then we would all be gross together, so that’s what we had done and had saved our money.

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.

5:30pm –We successfully bought souvenirs, then got pizza for lunch. We tried to change my flight for tomorrow to go straight to Columbus or Cleveland from Miami, but it would have been another $700, so we didn’t do it. We had a huge ice cream, then went and saw Cloverfield in a theater. It was in English with Spanish subtitles.

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.

8:26pm – We got my bag and are now going to get food.

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.

Day 13: Thursday, April 17th, 2008 (Volcano – Jimmy Buffett)

2008-05-26T14:53:00.002-04:00

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 Bolivia (at least the ones I stayed in) have heat, so when it’s cold outside, it’s cold inside.

We got up early and drove to some hot springs. There were two locations with hot springs, and our driver suggested we go to a less visited one that was a little farther than the popular one, and we agreed. We had two beers left from the night before which we cracked open and drank in the jeep to keep ourselves warm.

When we got to the hot springs, we got into our suits in the freezing cold and got into the water, which felt so good. There was ice on the ground outside the hot springs, but the water was like a hot tub.

There were a group of French people in the springs with us, but then they left and we had the whole thing to ourselves.

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.

8:55am – Yesterday we told stories in our room and took a walk outside. We mostly stayed inside and talked. Our dinner came really late (like 8pm), we drank wine and went to bed early.

Today we got up at 5:15am and got in the car. We got to the hot springs around 7:30 and got in. There was ice around the pool but the water was warm. It was freezing when I got out. Sydney’s hair was forming ice cycles.

We just ate breakfast and are getting ready to head out.

Our next stop after a lot of driving was the volcanoes and lava pits. There were these pits that were steaming and bubbling and it smelled like sulfur. The steam was hot and felt good to walk through. Again, in

Bolivia

, you can get as close as you want. One of the pits was a red color.

1:22pm – After the hot springs, we drove to some lava pits that were bubbling and steaming. There was one that was all red. We’ve been driving since then. I’m in the front seat manning the music. We’re now in a little town waiting for lunch. Their claim to fame is that a plane crashed here like twenty years ago.

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 5pm, but it wasn’t looking like we were going to quite make that.

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 San Cristobal. It was kind of a neat looking town. It had a somewhat socialistic structure where all the townspeople shared the wealth of the town (which was based off mining). We basically just used it as a bathroom break before the final stretch of road to Uyuni.

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 6pm, we got dropped off near the bus terminal. Ranz (our jefe) gave a little speech to our guide and thanked him for being so accommodating and putting up with our shenanigans. We tipped him 200Bs.

Sydney, Kilo, and I ran to the train station to see if we could get tickets, but the train was delayed until 4am.

Ranz, Katie, and Naya had found bus tickets that left at 8pm to La Paz through Oruro. There were only supposedly five seats, though we bought six tickets and hoped that there would be room. We then went to try and find some pizza (there was supposed to be this awesome pizza place that Ranz heard about), but the wait ended up being too long and the pizza too expensive.

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 Sydney to get off in Oruro and for Ranz and I to ride all the way to La Paz. The four of them would try to send my bag to me the next day and Ranz would grab his stuff on his way back through Oruro after sending me home from La Paz.

8:19pm – We are sitting on the bus in Uyuni. We are going to go straight to La Paz. We drove pretty much all the way from the lunch town to Uyuni. We got in around 6pm. We got bus tickets and then ate food off a street vendor called Anticucho, a kebob with meat and potato.

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 Sydney sat in the back. This bus was much more comfortable than the bus to Uyuni. For one thing, the bus was heated. They also provided blankets and pillows for all the seats.

With these luxuries, it was easy to doze off and catch some sleep.

We stopped around 11pm for a bathroom break, and a guy tried to talk to me in Spanish while we were peeing in the middle of the road, but all I could say was “I don’t understand. I don’t speak Spanish,” but I was proud of myself for that.

Day 12: Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 (These Eyes – The Guess Who)

2008-05-26T14:46:00.002-04:00

7:42am – 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.” Sydney told about a dog she had and how the people in her village could remember the dog’s name easier than hers, so she became (and I’m using Spike because I can’t remember the real name) “Spike’s Mama”.

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.

After 8pm we finally got served our dinner, which wasn’t all that spectacular, so we didn’t know what the wait had been, but we were just happy to get food. We drank some wine but turned in pretty early. We had to get up at the crack of dawn the next day.

Day 11: Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 (All These Things That I’ve Done – The Killers)

2008-05-26T14:33:00.002-04:00

I set my alarm to go off around 6am to get up to watch the sunrise. I was in charge of getting anyone else up who wanted to go. Just Naya, Katie, and I went. It was a pretty sight.

6:57am – Just watched the sun rise over the mountains on the Salar. It’s pretty cold in the morning. Last night we sang a bunch of songs on the iPod and listened to music in our room. Sydney and Naya still have “di-di.” I’m still okay. We drank 2 bottles of wine last night.

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 8am. It is probably another hour to hike to the lip of the volcano. Soon we are going to go see mummies.

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 US, they would have been under a glass case with a velvet rope keeping people at least 10 feet away. Not in Bolivia, for better or worse.

After lunch we packed up the jeep and drove. Our next stop was the cactus island.

(Us on the cactus island)

3:10pm – We left our hostel and went to a cactus island for a while where supposedly some cactus are over 1300 years old. We had a beer at Mongo’s (yes, the same place as in La Paz) and chatted with an American who lives in Saudi Arabia (who we suspected of being a CIA agent). Then we drove off into the desert and are doing our “alone time” again.

My reflection time thought: Bolivia is like a little kid trying to sit at the grown-up table.

Our next hostel was a salt house. The floor was all salt, the walls were made from salt bricks, the table and chairs were salt. It was crazy.

9:45pm – After reflection time we drove for a while and got to our next hostel, which is made mostly out of salt. I locked our (Ranz and my) room accidentally. Naya, Kilo, and I went and looked at a “little people” village.

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.

After dinner we played Catch Phrase and now we’re going to bed. Still no cell service.

Day 10: Monday, April 14th, 2008 (Tiny Dancer – Elton John)

2008-05-26T14:16:00.003-04:00

I didn’t sleep much on the bus, partly because of the bumpiness, partly because it got super cold. We got to Uyuni around 4am and the driver let us stay on until around 6:30, but then he kicked everyone off.

6:42am – The bus arrived in Uyuni around 4am and we stayed on the bus until about 10 minutes ago. It was freezing cold and we had to stay on the bus and layer on clothes.

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 10:30, but 10:30 came and some other groups who were also supposed to leave at 10:30 showed up and they didn’t have a jeep or a driver yet either.

(the six of us waiting for our tour jeep. From left to right: Sydney, Kilo, me, Ranz, Naya, Katie).

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 noon.

12:02pm – We found a company and paid and after a long wait we are finally loading up a truck. We thought we got ripped off, but it appears to be okay.

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.

3:45pm – We are stopped in the middle of the salt flats. After taking a bunch of pictures, we all spread out for our own private reflection time. It is so serene and quiet and the landscape so vast. It is crazy. I have never seen anything like it. The wind is blowing softly and the sun beating down.

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.

9:52pm – We arrived at our first hostel on the salt flats. We dropped our stuff off then drove back out to watch the sunset. We had coffee and tea and then drove back and started drinking wine and singing. We talked with some Australians, too.

The singing pretty much continued the rest of the night until we turned in for bed as people dropped off one by one.

Day 9: Sunday, April 13th, 2008 (Road Trippin’ – Red Hot Chili Peppers)

2008-05-26T14:15:00.001-04:00

7:32am – Just woke up and we’re packing up and getting ready to leave Sorata for La Paz.

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 La Paz, then to Oruro, where we were meeting up with 4 of Ranz’s Peace Corps companions. The 6 of us where then going to take a train to Uyuni where we would start a 4-day tour of the Salar (salt flats).

We ran into New York and Maryland and decided to share a cab with them back to town.

All four of us got onto a van to La Paz (“La Paz! A la Paz!”). It was a pretty cramped van. Ranz and I were in the backseat.

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. New York and Maryland kept laughing and shaking their heads, not believing that they were letting more people onto the van.

They got off at Huarina, as they were heading to Copacabana.

11:20am – We are on a bus to La Paz. We just dropped of NY and Maryland in Huarina. We had breakfast at Altai Oasis and caught a taxi with NY and MD to Sorata where we immediately jumped on a minivan bus to La Paz.

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 US square napkins. In fact a lot of stuff is smaller. I feel like a giant, or an NBA player. 3) The soccer stadiums are often the nicest places in towns (besides the churches). Kind of like how a college kid has no money to eat but has a sweet stereo system.

One thing Ranz told me about La Paz which I thought was kind of cool was how they control traffic. Because there are a lot of cars trying to get into the city (a city where they are not expressways or 6 lane highways), they limit who can enter the city each day. Based on the number your license plate starts with, you can only enter the city on certain days. For example, if your license plate starts with a 1, you can’t go into the city on Mondays or Tuesdays. Seemed like kind of a neat rule, but like many rules, it’s blatantly disregarded by most.

We made it back to La Paz and got dropped off at the bus terminal. Here we purchased our tickets to Oruro. The bus to Oruro was leaving at 2pm and it was a little before 1pm. We dropped our bags off at the station and walked down the street to get some food. At an ATM we passed, we got some money. We found a fried chicken place for lunch and then headed back to the bus station.

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 Oruro.

We were supposed to meet Ranz’s friends at the bus stop in Oruro and join them on a train ride to Uyuni.

6:28pm – We made it to Oruro, but we weren’t able to get train tickets, so we are waiting until 9pm for a bus ride. We are hanging out at a guy named Jarrod’s apartment. We made it to La Paz, ate some chicken, then caught a bus to Oruro at 2pm.

We got off the bus in Oruro and got a taxi to Jarrod’s apartment. A bunch of Peace Corps volunteers were hanging out at this apartment, including the people we would be traveling with. Present were Jarrod, Brandon, Katie, Sydney, Kilo, and Naya. The gang was watching episodes of The Office and was pretty mellow. A bunch of them were sick with diarrhea.

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 US. It was an iPod and a bunch of accessories. Ranz transferred a bunch of songs from his computer onto it.

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.

10:58pm – We are sitting in a bus stopped for a bathroom break. We got on the bus at 9pm. It is me, Ranz, Sydney, Naya, Katie, and Kilo.

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.

Day 8: Saturday, April 12th, 2008 (Seek Up – Dave Matthews Band)

2008-05-26T14:13:00.002-04:00

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 New York and Maryland because that’s where they were from) the night before who were also staying at the Altai Oasis. We told them to meet us at 8am at the restaurant if they wanted to go along with us, but they didn’t show.

We found a guide in Sorata to take us up to this Lake. It was supposed to be an eight hour hike and we did it in about 5 hours. Our guide was flying. We stopped about halfway up on this plain and took a brief rest. My legs were really aching towards the end of the hike up. We had to take more frequent breaks to rest our legs. I really didn’t know if my legs were going to make it, but they came through for me. It was a lot easier coming down.

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.

6:37pm – After breakfast we hiked up to the town and contracted a guide to take us up to Lake Chillata. We went and bought some food to take with us (bananas, bread, apples, oranges) and took a taxi to the drop-off point outside of town. We walked from about 8000ft above sea level up to 13,500 feet. It was completely exhausting. We finally made it to the top in about 2.5 hours. We stopped and ate lunch and let our legs rest, then headed back down the mountain. It was tough on our knees going downhill, and it was tough not to slip with the steep slope of the ground. We had to walk all the way back to town (not just to the drop-off point), and about twenty minutes outside of town it started raining. We made it back to town and hung out at an internet café for about an hour while the rain died down. We had a huge dinner of pizza, lasagna, three tacos, and a bottle of Fanta between the two of us. Then we stumbled back to our hostel where we are currently playing Catch Phrase and talking on the phone to our families.

Day 7: Friday, April 11th, 2008 (Walk With Me - Dispatch)

2008-05-26T14:07:00.002-04:00

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!

9:36am – Just ate a tasty breakfast of pancakes, bread with butter and jelly, OJ and coffee. The Altai Oasis grounds are pretty amazing. We checked out the bridge to Sorata. It will be better to walk than taxi. Going to shave now and get ready to check out the town.

Before we left, we did some laundry by washing our socks in this sink outside.

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.

6:39pm – Ranz and I both shaved (well, trimmed) earlier. We hiked across the bridge into town (Sorata). We walked around the square and sat on a bench. We found a place for lunch called the Spider Bar. I had a traditional Bolivian dish called Pique Macho.

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 2:30pm. We were hoping to rent some bikes to ride to a cave, but the place to rent bikes was closed for like 2 weeks and they were having some party or something. So we tried to walk it, but after two hours we turned 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.

While we didn’t get to see the cave, the walk in itself was worth the spectacular mountain views.

8:43pm – Scratch that. We went up to the restaurant at our resort for dinner. I got an egg and cheese sandwich. Now we’re back in our room getting ready for bed.

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 ended up playing some two-person Catch Phrase and gave each other some pretty funny clues. Good times.

Day 6: Thursday, April 10th, 2008 (Stranded – Van Morrison)

2008-05-26T13:59:00.002-04:00

7:35am – Sitting in our hotel on the Isla del Sol (Inti Marka). Watched the sunrise again, did some stretching, and tried to call Mia. We will be going back to Copacabana today, then to Sorata.

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).

12:58pm – We are back in Copacabana. Our boat took about two hours and I finished reading Fargo Rock City. We just ate at our Hawaiian pizza place. So delicious. Ranz turned on the shower in the bathroom of the restaurant while trying to flush the toilet. We catch a bus at 3pm to Huarina, then to Sorata. We’ll probably lounge around town until we leave.

3:53pm – We’re on a bus from Copacabana. This is a real bus, like a Greyhound or Lakefront Lines for you Ohioans. They are playing Bolivian music overhead. Bolivian music is hard to describe. While there are a few varieties, this style uses some woodwind instrument accompanied by some opera-like singing. It almost sounds like traveling minstrels. It’s not very good.

We took the bus from Copacabana back to the ferry town. We got off at a halfway point between the ferry town and La Paz, a little town called Huarina. This place was hardly a stop on the map, and we were the only people in sight.

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 6pm our bus finally came rumbling into view. We flagged it down and hopped on with our bags. A Russian looking guy with really big eyes said to us, “How long were you waiting? You are lucky. This is the last bus!”

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 Bolivia. In my mind there are four types of roads. 1) Paved roads. These are fairly close to what we have in America. Cement and asphalt. You find these in and around the large cities, like La Paz. There are also stretches of this type of road between some of the big cities. 2) Brick or stone roads. These are like cobblestone roads. I think of German village in Columbus. This is what the roads are in a lot of the smaller towns, except the stones and rocks are put down in a pretty random manner with kind of a that-will-do attitude. 3) Gravel and/or dirt roads. These are basically what they sound like. These are found outside the towns and connect the towns. There has been little or no effort to construct these roads; they just form out of use. They are generally flat and navigable, though usually not much wider than one lane. 4) Almost a road. These are the low-end gravel/dirt roads, but so extreme that they are hardly travelable. They are generally bumpy and pothole-infested. They may be more mud than dirt, have streams or creeks flowing through them, and are hardly one car-length wide. The route to Sorata took us on all 4 types of road, but in the mountains, we were generally on types 3 and 4.

Luckily, Ranz had some Dane Cook to listen to, which took my mind off the road. We arrived in Sorata around 8pm.

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.

9:32pm – From the bus in Copacabana, we got dropped off outside Huarina in the rain around 5pm. We waited until 6pm for a bus to Sorata and caught the last one of the day. The bus took us through the mountains and it got foggy then the sun went down. The bus rides today were actually busses.

We arrived in Sorata around 8pm and got a taxi to our hotel, the Altai Oasis. We got here (which is pretty far from the town, at least by taxi) a little after 8pm and put our bags down at the front desk and went to the restaurant, which closed at 8:30pm. We got hamburgers and brownies, which were both delicious.

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.

Oh. I forgot to mention how I went to the bathroom while our bus was being ferried and the lady at the bathroom window took my money and gave me my toilet paper and then I almost walked into the ladies restroom. Silly Ben.

Day 5: Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 (Any Road – George Harrison)

2008-05-26T13:47:00.003-04:00

We got up early in the morning and packed a backpack. We met up with Phil and Vicki outside their hotel. They had bananas and we had some granola which we all ate for breakfast.

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 Yumani.

We tried to go off the main road to bypass a “toll booth,” but were unsuccessful. A guy stopped us and made us pay in order to pass.

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 Yumani a little before 5pm.

5:15pm – After waking up around 6:30am and watching the sunrise, we met up with Phil and Vicki up near their hostel. We hiked the length of the island along a dirt road. We stopped and had a snack on some rock and ate a tasty trout lunch in another town called Challapampa. Ranz and I then walked to some Incan ruins then walked back to our hostel on the other side of the island. I’d say we did at least eight miles total while carrying a bag the whole time and up and down hills. We saw a lot of sheep, pigs, cows, donkeys, etc. I asked a lady where the bathroom was in Spanish.

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.

8:23pm – Had dinner at Las Velas (The Candles) where we met up last night with Phil and Vicki. Had a pizza and some good conversation. Also, had some coca tea after eating. Walked back in the dark and were “chased” by a burro.

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.

Day 4: Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 (Island in the Sun - Weezer)

2008-05-26T13:36:00.003-04:00

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 Lake Titicaca was spectacular.

After hiking, we grabbed our bags and barely caught a boat to the Isla del Sol.

3:38pm – We are on the Isla del Sol. This morning we walked around Copacabana. We sat on a plaza in front of their main church and discussed my new house. I drew a diagram for Ranz and we talked shop for a while.

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 1:10pm, we found we missed the bus to the harbor, so we high-tailed it to the boat. We took a 2 hour boat ride that smelled like gas fumes and are now on the Isla del Sol. We had to hike up a good bit, but are now situated in our hotel.

On the boat ride to the Isla del Sol, this crazy American girl from Arkansas started asking us about the Bolivian visa and what stamps she needed in her passport to get home. She had apparently “snuck” into Bolivian with her Chilean friend. The girl used southern phrases that reminded me of my days in Memphis (she was “fixing to” do something, and “ya’ll”). She name-dropped like crazy (supposed celebrities she had met) and was pretty full of herself.

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 France also stayed at the same hotel and she decided to explore town with us. We walked up the road a little bit and found an internet café / restaurant where we got a beer. It was essentially an open roof patio where the guy set up four stools, one for each of us and one to use as the table for our beer.

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 France, saved up money, and had now quit her job and was taking a three-month tour of South America. This was a somewhat common theme among the tourist travelers we met, most of them European. It is a completely different mindset from in America. I can’t think of any Americans I know who would quit work and take their life savings and go tour the world for three or four months. I totally respected and envied this girl that she could do that.

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.

9:20pm – We met a French girl named Bertilla, but Ranz called her Elena. We sat on the roof of a house in a “restaurant” and had a cervaza and talked in English/French/Spanish. It was cold in the shade but okay in the sun.

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 Peru across Lake Titicaca and lots of stars were visible in the sky. We're now back in the room ready to hit it.

Day 3: Monday, April 7th, 2008 (Copacabana – Barry Manilow)

2008-05-26T13:30:00.002-04:00

8:03am – I’ve just awoken from a pretty good sleep. The bed is nice and comfy.

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 8pm and grabbed a taxi to a place called Mongo’s. It was a cool restaurant with wood floors, tables, and chairs, a fireplace, and candles on the tables.* The ambiance was very cool and they played American music (such as Tom Jones’s Sex Bomb). “And they’ve got a pool table, too.”

We ordered what Ranz claims to be the best cheeseburgers in Bolivia. They were tasty.

His friend Mike met us there and we drank Bolivian beer before heading back to the hostel and crashing.

*One good thing about Bolivia is that they are very conscious of energy usage and power consumption. I don’t know if this is by choice so much as necessity, but I like it. There were no outlets in our rooms in some of the places we stayed, so we had to be aware of when our electronic devices were running low on power. On the island and on the Salar, a lot of places ran on generator power (and the generators didn’t start until the sun went down and they were needed to produce light). It was an adjustment to not always be able to plug into the “grid” and have electricity.

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…

10:07am – One more thing: because of the altitude in La Paz, there are not many bugs, which is nice. Also, I feel a little sun burnt on my face and neck from yesterday. We are going to buy some sunscreen.

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 church of San Francisco that we went in and looked at. The architecture and woodwork were so old and ancient looking. It was pretty cool. There were lots of people praying and looking at the paintings and sculptures, yet it was almost completely silent.

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 Chile, but he does a lot of volunteer work in Bolivia. His natural language is Spanish, but he speaks pretty good English. As him and Ranz talk, they speak mostly English for my benefit, but revert to Spanish when they are misunderstanding each other in English (or when they can’t think of the English word).

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.

2:27pm – We walked around and did some window shopping this morning. We went and saw the Church of St. Francis. Then we caught a taxi to go back to where we were last night near Mongo’s. Armando, a friend of Ben’s, met us and took us to a restaurant for lunch (Quontero?). We had steaks, rice with cheese, salads, soup, and dessert. The steak was delicious. We got to see a park where some riots went down a couple weeks ago.

A few more things I’ve learned: the street lights are sideways (green, yellow, red are horizontal instead of vertical). The women in La Paz all wear funny derby hats.

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.

6:06pm – We are in Copacabana in a “matrimony” room at the Hotel Utuma. The ride here we took a “bus” and ferry and people got dropped off in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. We almost got left after the ferry because we had to pee. The driver was very speedy and tried to drive us off the edge of the road a few times. On the way here we drove through a lot of pretty barren wastelands. It reminded me of the movie Babel and the road the bus was on when the woman got shot.

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 La Paz.

9:42pm – We went to dinner at a place with fish on the menu and a fireplace. The fish was okay. It was a garlic trout. I have found a hair in pretty much every meal I’ve eaton here, which is kind of gross, but a man’s gotta eat.*

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.

* This trend pretty much continued throughout the whole trip. There were very few meals where I didn’t find a hair or a fly in my food.

Day 2: Sunday, April 6th, 2008 (Southern Cross – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young)

2008-05-26T13:29:00.002-04:00

I’ve only ridden first class once that I can remember, and it was because of an airline error, so I can’t really say if it is better or worse than coach. Some people swear by it for international flights, and they may be onto something. It was tough for me to sleep (and normally it’s not a problem). Maybe I was just revved up in anticipation. We were supposed to land at 5:30 in the morning.

5:51am* - Are there different languages of sign language? Is there Spanish sign language? If so, I find this interesting.

We are about 30 minutes from landing and about an hour late after our delayed departure. I didn’t get a lot of sleep, but I’m full of energy to arrive and see Ranz.

* I was in the same time zone as Eastern Time zone in the US during my whole trip. Also, there are different languages of sign language, including Spanish.

During the flight, the flight attendants passed out our entry forms. They spoke in both English and Spanish. I felt like one of the only people who didn’t know Spanish. The form was pretty easy to fill out, except that they wanted an address where you could be reached while in Bolivia. I left it blank and was going to ask how to put NOT APPLICABLE when I get to whoever was going to take the form, but it ended up not being an issue.

Weeks before I left, I had to file for an entry visa to get in to the country. As of Jan 1, 2008, they started charging Americans $100 for the visa, partly to get money, but also partly because the US charges them, which they don’t like.

I waited in line with everyone else, gave the guy my form, trying to speak as little Spanish as possible so as not to “give myself away.” I got my visa stamped and my entry form dated and signed and I went to find my bag.

I had originally hoped to just take a backpack for the whole trip. I had brought a package for a friend of Ranz’s, though, and it had pushed me over the edge and I had to take a second duffle bag, which I had checked. It made it (I really was expecting some lost luggage issues), and I was on my way. I had to wait in another line, show my form to a guy in a military uniform, then walk through a metal detector (not really sure what this was all about), and then I was off to where non-ticket-holders had to wait.

As soon as I approached the doorway I saw Ranz jumping up and down waving his hands in the crowd of people. It was too funny. While I was excited to see him, my first order of business was finding a restroom. Ranz directed me to el bano and handed me a roll of toilet paper. This was my first experience with Bolivian bathrooms, but more on those later.

I was in Bolivia.

7:46am – I’m in my (and Ranz’s) room at the hostel in La Paz. We took a taxi from the airport. We saw a couple guys peeing on the side of the road on the way.*

Observations: There are quite a few stay dogs roaming the street, a few of them wearing shirts. The city has lots of brick buildings that are red (Miss Lippy's car is green). So far I am not feeling the effects of the high altitude. I feel a little light-headed, but I could just be tired.

*People pee (and other bodily functions) any old place. Because it is not contained, it runs into the water system, the same system which people use for drinking, cleaning, etc.

Ranz is a sanitation engineer. His job is to provide clean water for people and isolate their waste. He does this through drilling wells and building outhouses. In addition, he educates people as to why these actions are necessary.

After settling in to our room (Ranz had stayed there the night before), we went out into the city to find some breakfast. It was pretty busy for a Sunday morning.

11:55am – We ate breakfast at a cool little café. We had papaya and other assorted fruit in a fruit salad, espresso, a croissant, and a chocolate muffin. Ranz looked through his Bolivia book and we talked through our plans for the trip.

We walked around and saw the capital square and some army men standing around with big guns.

The buildings here (at least the ones I’ve been in) do not have heat. Not sure if they have air conditioning.

You do not flush toilet paper down the toilets. It goes in a little TP waste basket. This makes the bathrooms a little stinky.

Some places do not provide toilet paper, so it’s good to carry your own. Other places charge you to use the bathroom, and when you pay they give you a little bit of toilet paper. A few bathrooms are co-ed with 2 guy stalls and 2 girl stalls. A lot of people don’t care about finding a bathroom and just go anywhere, like on the side of the street (this was less common in La Paz than some of the more rural places we visited).

We spent most of the afternoon walking around the city. We sat at this park area for a while and talked and played the movie game (I was way out of practice and Ranz was killing me). The sun started to feel hot and I ended up taking off my shirt. This was when I got burnt. Pretty much the rest of the trip I put on sun block every day.

It was neat to walk around and just see how people spent their Sunday. There were tons of people out, especially at this playground/park we walked to for a bathroom.

The city is at about 12,000 feet above sea level and is pretty hilly, so you are not only out of breath from the altitude, your legs can get tired from walking up and down hills.

5:46pm – It has been a long day of walking through a hilly city. Some more observations: Public displays of affection are quite common and acceptable, especially on street corners and in doorways. There are only Burger Kings, no Mcdonalds. There is a black market of electronic goods on the city streets.

We walked to a park and chilled after eating fried chicken for lunch. Coca Cola products are also pretty big here. We then walked in search of a bathroom (though it is generally acceptable to just go wherever you want) and eventually found a kiddie playground park with a bathroom.

On our way back we stopped at a ritzy tea garden / house and had some coca tea. It’s supposed to ease altitude sickness (taking deep breaths seems to work for me so far).

We also went to an internet café. We’re back at the hostel and it’s now siesta time.

There is a lot of coca plant in Bolivia. It is the plant that is used to make the drug cocaine. This is one reason the US is not a huge fan of Bolivia. The coca leaf itself acts like caffeine. People chew it or drink tea to give them an energy boost.

After talking a little bit, we each slept for a while. When we woke up we headed out to a place called Mongo’s for some dinner of some tasty burgers. After the restaurant as we were walking down the street to find a taxi, Ranz pointed out the Southern Cross constellation. It can only be seen in the southern hemisphere. We grabbed a taxi back and hit the sack.

Day 1: Saturday, April 5th, 2008 (Leaving On a Jet Plane – John Denver)

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The trip to Bolivia takes some time. My path to get there was Cleveland to Chicago to Miami to La Paz in over 18 hours of travel. In a way, the long trip is maybe the Calculus 101 for Bolivia College: it helps weed out the wary travelers and simultaneously sets the stage for things to come.

In general, Bolivia is a slow country. If you are in a rush, lack patience, or despise spontaneity, Bolivia is not for you. If you have the time and don’t mind playing things by ear and changing plans at the last minute, Bolivia is right up your alley.

The trip was actually not that bad, though it’s debatable whether a Chipotle burrito would have survived the journey (Ranz insists he would eat it in whatever state it arrived). I was hyped up on adrenaline and excitement, so I survived fine.

My flight left Cleveland just before 3 o’clock in the afternoon and got in to Chicago by 4:30. I grabbed some dinner at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant where they serve these delicious tomato pesto pizzas (which Sam’s Club used to sell but disappointingly no longer carry). I had my pizza and a Heineken and watched the other travelers. I carried with me a small pad of paper for making observations and taking notes. I’ve time stamped and italicized my musings.

4:33pm - It’s striking the assortment of attire you find people wearing at an airport. Depending on where they are going or from where they are coming, they could be wearing shorts and sandals or boots and a heavy jacket. I believe this is especially true of international airports. There really is no other place where people’s clothes are that varied.

After my first entry I was already bored with it, so I decided to take on the persona of Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks. Dan File will appreciate it if he’s reading this.

5:42pm – Diane, despite my best efforts at careful, all-inclusive planning, I overlooked the essential airport survival supplement: airborne. Please send some along promptly as coughing, sneezing, sniffling travelers are prevalent.

The pen I took died at this point, and I hadn’t even left the country yet. You would think you could get a regular Bic, but all they sell at the airport are touristy souvenir pens, so I had to pay for an overpriced Chicago pen filled with water and a boat that moves back and forth in front of the Chicago skyline. This pen broke in half when I sat on it in the plane, but I continued to use the bottom half throughout the trip. I also bought a Sudoku book to pass the time.

My plane left Chicago at 6:50pm (EST) and took three hours to get to Miami. I had bought Ranz a book, Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman, which I started reading on the flight.

We got in to Miami right around 10 o’clock. I had to take a monorail to another terminal to catch my connecting flight, but when I got to the gate, the plane was delayed. It was originally supposed to leave at 11:10pm, but was already delayed a half hour. This would become par for the course for a good part of the trip. I grabbed a spot on the floor against a wall and did some more reading. There were definitely noticeable amounts of Hispanic looking passengers. I was getting excited because it seemed like I was getting close.

11:43pm – We are leaving a little late from the gate. We were supposed to leave at 11:10 but it will probably be 11:55. There are a number of church and volunteer groups on the flight going to La Paz and other parts of Bolivia. They are all wearing matching T-shirts.

I talked to some of the volunteers on the walk to the gate, but most of them had never been before either. They were all scared of altitude sickness in La Paz. A lot of them were going to Sucre and Santa Cruz.

Prologue

2008-05-26T13:16:00.002-04:00

For those of you who are not aware, my friend and former college roommate, Ben Ranz, has been stationed in the South American country of Bolivia for nearly two years with the US Peace Corps. This is my blog about my two week visit to Ben and Bolivia.

Be forewarned: this could take some time to read. The entries are broken down by days.

I took a journal with me on the trip. Entries I wrote in the journal are timestamped and italicized.