Subscribe

RSS Feed (xml)

Powered By

Skin Design:
Free Blogger Skins

Powered by Blogger

Monday, May 26, 2008

Trains, planes, & automobiles

The night ride from Oruro to Uyuni is one for the ages. There were only two buses that were going to Uyuni and I was going back and forth pitting one against the other price-wise and finally we decided on the one that said "we have heat". So we got on the bus late that night and met three Argentines who were traveling together throughout Bolivia. It was really good for Rachael because two of them spoke perfect English. They of course found out for us that there was in fact NO heat on the bus and basically said we were going to freeze. At this point we had already packed our bags and we were only wearing light jackets. We figured we could take our sleeping pills and not even notice the cold. Did I mention this has been a learning process for the both of us?? Four hours into the trip we were dying from the cold and for some reason there was at least one person who kept opening the window, guess it wasn't cold enough for them. The three Argentines had compassion for us and let us borrow one of their sleeping bags, pretty much saving our lives.

We finally got to the grand ol' dump of Uyuni at 4am only to find that NOTHING was open and nothing would until 8am. Since we weren't going to stay there more than just that day, we couldn't go into any hotel, so we were lucky to find that the train station doors were unlocked. Of course, there was no heat, the bathrooms were locked and there wasn't anybody there besides us. We kept warm by standing up by a small florescent light and by doing jumping jacks and laps around the small station.

Finally, the town came to life and the five of us (Me, Rachael, Fernando, Fernanda, and Marina) had a small breakfast and got a tour to see the biggest salt flat in the world.

Just to give you a frame of reference, there are about 15 different tour companies that do the same exact tour; they all leave at the same time and they all go in SUVs. Now, when our driver pulled up I knew we were in for a long day. He had to have been at least 70 years old, but I guess you never can tell in Bolivia, and his Toyota had seen better days. The shocks were completely blown and he never went faster than 20 MPH but after we were passed up by everyone else, we finally got to the middle of the salt flat and an "island" where everybody stopped to have lunch. Once again, they surprised us: to go to the top of the island you have to pay...again! Needless to say we weren't compelled to pay another few dollars just to hike to the top of a little hill and go to the bathroom. Our lunch was prepared by our driver and it consisted of quinua (some sort of wheat that grows only in Bolivia, supposed to be very rich in nutrients), tomatoes, cucumbers, and the very special mystery meat which he described as llama but tasted a lot like lamb.

We spent the rest of the day with our new friends and for some reason me and Fernando suffered from stomach aches. I didn't eat anything that night but at least I took comfort in knowing that our trip south to Tupiza would be in the "executive" class on the train, and this time there would be heat for sure. We got on the train late that night and had the best travel-sleep of our whole trip.

Again, we arrived in our destination at 4am, and I decided that we would wait a little bit before knocking on the door of one of my friends. Luckily, we found a hotel that would let us stay in their foyer and watch TV for a few hours. At 6am, we left to go and knock the door of my dear friend. We knocked three separate times and finally someone poked his head out of the second floor; I was informed that my dear friend no longer lived there nor did he even know such a person. Tired and a little sick, we decided to go back to the hotel where we watched TV and get a room for the day. We slept for a few hours, watched some TV and then went walking around the "jewel of Bolivia". The best description I can give of how Tupiza looks is a small little town in a valley with red rocks much like St. George.

We walked by the chapel and found out that the branch was going to have a Talent Show and everyone from the ward was going to be there. Of course, they told us it would start at 6 or 6:30 but in reality it wouldn't start until 8pm, the same time that our bus was leaving for Tarija. Some people did get there early and we talked a bit, but with little hope of seeing people that I knew, I wrote out a few notes and gave it to the branch president and we were off again!

I had sufficiently prepared Rachael for what I deemed the worst bus ride in all of Bolivia, and weren't disappointed. After 11 hours of being catapulted from our seats several times, and having one of the bus windows break in half, we arrived in Tarija. By this time my cold/cough had climaxed and Rachael started to feel a little of the same. I called the Contreras family and they came and picked us up. We only had a little over an hour to get ready for church and I finally got to see the inside of the chapel that they were building eight years ago. I hardly recognized anyone but we felt welcome anyway. We were both pretty tired and now very sick and decided not to stay past Sacrament Meeting. We ate the best food yet of the whole trip and talked for a good long time with my favorite family in all of Tarija and then went to bed at 8pm. Twelve hours later we woke up, took a much needed shower and hand-washed our clothes. Never before had we hand-washed ANYTHING, so this was quite the venture.

We then went into the center of town and bought plane tickets for our trip to Cochabamba and since it is Mother's Day tomorrow, there was a lot of different things for sell in the plazas. We bought a little dress for a future Lippmannita and a real pearl bracelet for the mother of the Contreras family (authenticity verified by Rachael's infallible "scratch test"). The weather here has been great, I even unzipped the bottom portion of my pants and got into my super-tourist mode. Tarija "la linda" has been great for us and now we're rested a ready to tackle the last leg of our journey.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

On the road again

Following up on the last post...we got our money back from the tour that we didn't want anymore and then promptly and gladly turned that money over to the guy who fixed our digital camera. Rachael has a theory that the guy just pressed a reset button and everything went back to normal, but if he can figure that out before me, he deserves the $40 it cost to get our precious memory-maker back in working order. We enjoyed our last day in Cuzco by seeing the rest of the museums that we had paid for already and then went to a traditional dance festival in the evening. All in all, a very good day.

We awoke early on Tuesday to start heading down to Puno. We met some very nice people: an Asian couple from San Francisco (Mike and Shirley), a couple from England who were traveling for a FULL year, and a very seasoned traveler from England named Dave. We really weren't sure what to do in Puno, and we were tossing around the idea of staying there for the night then continuing on to Bolivia. The moment we got to Puno, however, it became quite apparent what we weren't going to do, that is stay in Puno. Everything I had read about this Peruvian town on the shores of Lake Titicaca basically was summed up in four words: It's a dump.

So, without waiting more than a few minutes we decided to try our luck and get to the Bolivian border that night. With Dave as our inspiration and encourager, we found a cheap bus to the border (although we found out that we had overpaid by 15 Soles each - it was still cheap). The only reason why we took the chance to get to the border that night was the assurance of the driver that we could get there on time. Of course, while we were in route, Dave read in his "Lost Planet" book that the border shut down at 7:30pm. They again assured us that we would get there before then but of course they weren't taking into account that Bolivia was one hour ahead of Peru. When we got off the bus Rachael went with Dave to get our bags and I went to get a taxi to the border. As I went around the bus I ran into both of them and noticed horrified looks on the faces, our bags were missing! No more than a few seconds passed when I realized that the driver had already taken off our bags and put them in a taxi without telling us. {BIG sigh of relief} We got to the Peruvian border and got our exit stamps and then we had to hike up hill, bags in hand, the quarter mile to the Bolivian immigration office. Literally, we got to the office at 7:29pm. It took a bit to fill out all the visa info and then we reluctantly handed over $200 in cash for the visa. (Quick side note, apparently US citizens are the only people in the world who have to pay this amount when entering Bolivia. A product of the close relationship the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, and the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.)

We finally got everything filled out and got a ride into the lovely little town of Copacabana. Dave lead the way, refusing to pay more than $2 per person and finally we got to a place whose owner was hesitant at first but then caved when I explained that he could be a whole $6 richer if he let us have two rooms for the night. We didn't sleep that great, probably because of the altitude (12,000 ft) and the rock-hard bed, but we got up and got going immediately for La Paz. We decided en route to go to Uyuni instead of Cochabamba just to have the bigger travel days at the front end of the trip and after a four hour trip we got to the VERY polluted city of La Paz. We then hopped on a small bus to go and visit the ruins at Tiwanaku. My plan was to get there, take a few photos, get back to La Paz, and continue on towards Uyuni. The plan was great in theory, since the trip to Tiwanaku should only take one hour, but of course I wasn't figuring in Bolivian-standard-time. A three hour adventure turned into five and by then we couldn't find a bus to go directly to Uyuni.

We did have a very helpful bus driver who volunteered to help us find a route at the bus terminal. I stupidly left Rachael in the bus, after we locked the doors and rolled up the windows and me and Urban, the bus driver, went to find a good bus. We found something cheap after a quick search and went back to find a much-flustered Rachael, who detailed the events that went on while we were gone. We had been gone for no more than five minutes when a group of five punks started pounding on the windows and rocking the van. Of course, Rachael didn't know what they were saying but understood that they were pointing under the bus and motioning for Rachael to get out. She had just cracked the door open when her little guardian angel, a cholita who barely spoke any Spanish, came to the rescue and made her shut the door and then chased off the delinquents. I've since promised never to leave Rachael's side.

Again, en route, we learned that we would be getting to Oruro too late to catch the next bus to Uyuni and that we would have to stay there for the night and the next day since the buses don't leave until around 8pm. So, after a short search of less than adequate hostels we decided on paying the big bucks ($30) and got a really nice hotel. We've enjoyed a restful day doing mostly nothing, highlighted by a couple hours of feeding the pigeons in the main plaza, and we can't wait to see the great Salar de Uyuni!

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Commencing Travel Madness

Three in the morning, alarm goes off and Rachael and I jump out of bed after getting a fresh three hours of sleep (t'was our fault...well NBC & ABC have a part in that too). My gracious mother took us to the airport, of course she had forgotten her glasses and drove home blind (bless her little heart as a true Texan would say), next came the American Airlines melee. No lines, no order, 300 people trying to get on the same flight and two attendants at the counter. Needless to say we were pushing our time limits a little bit, but we eventually got to our gate and the flight left on time.

Bienvenido a Miami, and welcome to your two-hour-delayed flight, which in time turned into three hours. We walked to both ends of the airport looking for the quintessential Cuban restaurant only to be told we had to go past security to find anything worth while. So we got our Cuban sandwiches and croquetas and the cashier thought I was asking about cashews when I asked if it was "cash only". We finally boarded and we were off to the wonderful, yet dirty city of Lima. We had planned to have a friend pick us up at 9pm to sleep at his place until 4am, but of course there was no way I could tell him that we would be late. We figured he would get the airport, see that it was delayed for three hours and then come back later. Well five hours later my dear friend, Nender Aguilar, told us that he did come at 9pm and did try to see if our flight was in but airport authorities couldn't tell him that until 10:30, by which time he thought it was best just to stay and wait. Good man, not sure I would have waited more than two hours. We got to his house at around 1-something, we talked for a little bit, he gave us a huge avocado and we slept for two hours on a mattress he had put out for us and we were off again at 4am.

The flight to Cuzco was pleasantly much less eventful. Although, Rachael did get reprimanded for taking a photo as we were boarding the plane; apparently, it is a matter of national security or something. We saw the sun rise over the Andes, saw some huge snow-capped mountains, and landed safely in the center of the Inca world.

We were told by our travel agency that we would have someone pick us up and take us to our hostel. We waited, and waited, and watched all the gringos go with the people who had signs with their name on it and we waited still. A very nice, yet savvy business man, helped us out. He called around the tour groups, none of which opened their doors until 9am (it was 7am at the time), and he eventually found out where we were staying (shame on me for not knowing the name of our hostel BEFORE we took off). We got a taxi over there and then in our sleep-deprived states he sold us on a couple tours that were just too good to be true. We got another valuable two hours of rest and we were off again to see the town on one of the tours we had just purchased.

First stop, the Templo del Sol, the main cathedral in the center of town, and surprise, what you paid for already didn't include the entrance into that place. So Rachael and I defiantly stayed outside on the grounds and took a bunch of photos and even used the tripod that Jenn gave us for Christmas. Another fateful decision (also my fault)...while handling the camera with one hand and taking one of those lame self pictures and trying to turn it around with that same one hand, our precious digital camera fell from my hands at an astonishingly movie-slow pace and hit the ground. At first, the heart dropping moment was nearly adverted when it looked like everything was still working. Of course, that was before we tried to take a photo and then see the results: all white...digital camera #2 of 2 had of all intents and purposes bit the proverbial dust, or in this case, Inca stones. We did manage to get pictures that day by befriending a fellow gringa from Washington named Lilly. We hung out with her and swapped out SD cards and got our fill of pictures. Of course, the next day, our trip to one of the modern seven wonders of the world would be a different story. Hurriedly, I went out to by a film camera to be able to use for the next day. It was expensive, and I immediately had buyers remorse for the extra tour that we had scheduled in our sleep-deprived state.

Long story short, the film camera worked beautifully at Machu Picchu, of course, pending the results of development to fully validate that statement....we're going to get our money back from that tour that we now have decided was way too much money AND we found a guy who said he could fix our digital camera for $40...we'll let you all know how that one turns out. But through all the fiascoes and fateful decisions, we've enjoyed our time immensely and can't wait to get over the border to my old stomping grounds!