Jungle Fun and Livin Large in La Paz

In Coroico, the rainforest town we spent some time in, during the evening all of the young people from town hang out in the main square. Kids play soccer (which looked a little difficult in the round plaza full of sculptures, benches and people, but they manage to make it into a full field game). Teens and 20 somethings bring beer and wine and just sit and hang out with friends. You can buy ice cream and donuts (I tried both) from street vendors to have with your beer. While I was in the internet cafe working on my previous blog post, Jeff was hanging out in the square. When I came out, he was sitting with 2 young teenage girls helping them with their English homework. Apparently the was in high demand. Before those girls, a few 6th graders had approached him and asked him to translate their names and all of their friends names into English. He could have been there all day helping. The older girls had him working on their homework for half an hour.

Jeff helping with English homework.

Pretty street in Coroico.

Pool we spent a day in Coroico.

Our last day in Coroico, we went for a horseback ride through the mountains. We went up to Reynaldo's house, the home of a small older man with lots of horses. He took us on a two hour tour throught the mointains. We went by little towns and lots of coca leaf farms. The coca leaf is chewed and made boiled for tea by many Bolivians and Peruvians. We had plenty of coca tea on our trip as it helps with altitutde sickness, and increases endurance/ time tolerance for physical work. My favorite coca product was Trimate, a tea made with anis, chamomile, and coca leaves. Unfortunately, since importing coca leaf to the US is banned for individuals, I couldn't bring any home with me. The company that produces Coca Cola however, is allowed to legally import and process coca leaves in the US. It suposedly imports around 100 metric tons per year to flavor the world's most famous soft drink. (While they're at it, they also extract cocaine. The cocaine doesn't go in the soda anymore but instead they process it for legal medicinal use.)

But I digress. Back to the horses. My horse was very bad and kept stopping for grass snacks then galloping to catch up with Jeff and Reynaldo's horses. He also wanted to be in front of Jeff's horse so we often passed Jeff on a trail that really only fits one horse at a time. So, we'd go off the trail into some bushes (often with thorns) to get around. I had a great time but ended up with more than a few splinters. The views over the mountains and little towns were great. It was really hot but we both stayed bundled up for fear of more sand fly bites. (And, since so many people asked me for a bug bite update- they are healing. A couple of them still itch and my leg looks slightly diseased but they do seem to be on the mend. )

Horseback riding.

After the horseback ride it was time to head back to La Paz. After some amount of trouble and confusion, we finally go on a "mini-bus" (a 15 person van with tiny seats and more than 15 people) back to La Paz. We went up the new road which, in contrast to the World's Most Dangerous Road that we had biked down, was mostly paved, usually pretty wide, and generally a smooth ride. This road was in the works for over 20 years and just opened 2 or 3 years ago. There were lots of signs on the road that said "Evo cumple" (translation: Evo did it). I'm not sure if the signs meant that Evo Morales, Bolivia's president did the road work or won the election.

We got back to La Paz around 5PM and realized we had just over 24 hours left in our vacation. We decided after 3 weeks of travelling on about $30 a day (total for the two of us), that we would splurge for our last day. We got a room at a nice hotel that had all kinds of things we take for granted in the US- hot showers, a heater in the room, free internet, free coffee and tea, TV in the room, and a restaurant in the hotel. Our room was on the 5th floor and had a nice view of the city.

View of the city from our room. Houses and buildings cover all the hillsides in La Paz.

After taking hot showers, we decided to go get a nice meal. In Cusco, after getting our Bolivian visas, we went to lunch with Cusco's Bolivian consul. He gave us lots of tips on things to do and see in Bolivia (almost 2 hours worth of tips to be exact). One of the things he suggested was a fancy Argentine steak house in La Paz. We went there for dinner on our last night. Everything was great! We both had beef soup to start (because what better way is there to prepare for a beef entree?) For dinner I had steak with chorizo, heart of palm and pickled carrot salad, beets, and potatoes. I don't eat meat very often at home so it was quite a lot of steak for me. But it was delicious! Jeff had mozzarella covered steak (also delicious), a lentil and ham salad, potatoes and yucca root. We both had flan and alfajores for dessert and plenty of drinks. Our total bill was around $30. We certainly couldn't have spent the whole trip like this but it was fun to do it for a day.

Dinner at the restarurant at El Camino Real.

The next day we walked around La Paz, saw the government buildings, some old colonial style streets, the museum of musical insturments, and got some home made ice cream. Yum!

Crazy looking Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) outside of La Paz.

Colonial street in La Paz.

Plaza surrounded by government buildings, and lots of pigeons.

We also went to the witches market where they sell soaps, potions, pills, and powders to cure illnesses, help you find a job, attract more clients, be lucky in love, protect your family, etc. Among the more interesting items in the store were dried cut up cactuses and dried llama fetuses. (Jeff read somewhere that the fetuses aren't harvested for this purpose. If a llama is killed for it's meat or leather and there is a fetus inside, it goes to the witches market). We didn't buy any of those but I did pick up some soap for attracting clients. We'll see if it works.

Witches market potions.
Dried llama fetuses hanging above the doorway.

We headed to the airport that night and had a long, somewhat turbulent and delayed, series of flights home. Door to door it took us about 24 hours. After weeks in cities full of honking cars, and bustling sidewalks full of people, vendors, and dogs, our quiet little neighborhood felt like a ghost town. We're getting adjusted to being home though and life is good. I feel like we live in a 5 star hotel. We have hot showers with great water presure whenever we want, water we can drink straight from the tap, a warm house, the world's most comfortable bed, snuggly kitties, and wonderful family and friends just a phone call or a short drive away.

Our cats are usually pretty naughty and they were extra misbehaved in our absense. We had great house/catsitters taking care of them while we were gone and Mochi and Loo really put them to the test. They ate somebody's blueberry muffin breakfast, dug up some plants in the house and broke into the childproof cabinets to feed themselves a little extra food from the kibble bag.

They look sweet and innocent but it's a ruse.

After weeks of not being able to eat fresh vegetables (in Bolivia the tap water is so bad you aren't even supposed to eat veggies because they've been washed in the water) I spent yesterday morning at Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building and may have gone overboard. Tomatoes and stone fruits came in to season while we were gone so I bought lots of those, including the most delicious nectarines from Frog Hollow. I bought four bunches of beets and made golden beet rissoto with beet greens last night. Strawberries, green beans, chard, melons... I could barely contain my excitement at the market. So we've been eating well since we got back and I am so happy to be rinsing, slicing, and sauteeing in my kitchen again!

I'm trying to retain a little bit of our more relaxed vacation pace in our regular life here. We'll see how long that lasts when I start back to work tomorrow.

Thanks for following along on our trip. Here's to more adventures to come! Any suggesions as to where? Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, Chile, Brazil, and Guatemala all made their way onto the wish list in the last month. Anywhere else we should add?

Pics & Video from the Most Dangerous Road

A section of the road clinging to the side of a mountain in the fog.

As always, Sonya succeeded in convincing me to do something involving death defying heights during our vacation. Our guides for the trip down the 40 miles of the world's most dangerous road took pictures and video during the ride. That was nice, since it allowed us to leave our camera on the bus and just concentrate on not flying off the edge! It's sufficiently freaky starting the ride when they tell you they send approximately one rider per week to the hospital due to accidents, and one person died a few months ago from a fall (and we went with by far the safest company in the land!). Our guides were great - very competent and cautious but also fun. Here are some pic/video highlights!

It's a little hard to ID us in pictures, since the gear makes us all look alike. Here are some tips:
Sonya: The only person in the group with both an orange helmet and a white bike.
Jeff: At the beginning when it's cold, you can see my gray hood from my sweatshirt behind my head. At the end when it's warm, I have a brown T-shirt and blue long pants.

Beginning of the ride in the snowy mountains above La Paz at altitude of 15,400 feet. Me on left and Sonya - looking sufficiently bundled up - on right.

Traditional consumption of a little hard liquor for us and for the bikes for good luck (Sonya in front, me in background). Strong stuff at 8:30 in the morning! The local bus drivers always pour a little alcohol on their vehicles as a sacrifice before driving the road.

Sonya coming around a bend in the paved section at the beginning.

Sonya gets a nice close-up in the video clip below - easy to ID her with her big grin. She's the last person in the group to go past, starting at around the 36 second mark. (play button in lower left corner)





Video of riding next to a big cliff. I think I'm the 5th person and Sonya's the 7th person to pass.

Break for lunch. Sonya's sitting and I'm standing on left of pic.

Group photo at a rest point.

Our whole group taking a few turns on a beautiful stretch of road (video taken just after the pic above).

Sonya speeding down the road like a pro!

Video of the most-photographed part of the ride going around a huge, shear cliff. Notice how nice and slow people are going here. See if you can find us! I definitely found Sonya, but I'm not sure which one is me.

The crazy road winding into the distance.

Me splashing through a puddle with Sonya following close behind.

Video of riding through a small stream on some nice, warm, wide road close to the end. I'm the 5th person and Sonya's the 8th person to pass.

Sonya riding into Yolosa at 3,600 feet. That completes a drop of 11,800 feet in altitude over 40 miles of road!



Taking off gear and cleaning up at the animal refuge (both of us in middle).

And from there straight on to the monkeys and parrots!

World´s most dangerous road

Two days ago we woke up early in La Paz to meet up with a guide and a group to go mountain biking down the "World´s Most Dangerous Road". This lovely moniker was given by the Inter-American Development Bank due to the narrowness of the road, it´s proximity to sheer cliffs, and it´s not being paved. Until recently (when a safer road was constructed) 100s of people per year died on the road, mostly in cars and buses but a few on bikes as well- in spanish, the road is called "Camino de la Muerte". The bikes still go down the old road while most, but not all, auto traffic takes the safer new road. We took a bus to the top of the of the mountains and mountain biked down the old road. Luckily, we survived the ride down and had a great time. Besides being the most dangerous, it is also arguably the most beautiful. The ride is about 40 miles long through lush green rainforest and under waterfalls, mostly downhill, on cliffs that have up to a 2,000 ft drop. Jeff´s not a big fan of heights so it took a little convincing to get him to go. We picked the safest company we could find, tested the brakes on the bikes and set out for some fun. We had great guides that gave us lots of tips on the terrain and once we got over the initial fear of biking on an unpaved cliff road, we had a blast.

Stopping for a snack part way down the road.

I think I had my mouth in a goofy grin almost the whole 4 hours. I must have swallowed at least half a dozen bugs and my fair share of dust as well. On the few uphill parts, our altitude training came in handy. Since we were now much lower in altitude, having descended about a mile in elevation on the ride, it was much easier to breath. Jeff passed up everyone in our group and I wasn´t far behind.

This is one of the few pics from our camera. The guides took lots of pictures and we don´t have them yet. I´ll post more later.

The ride concluded at an animal shelter and Jeff and I decided to stay there for the night.

The one downside to staying there was the sand fly bites. We thought they were bad in Aguas Calientes but the sand flies in Yolosa put the AC fleas to shame. Since the place we were staying was an animal shelter, we weren´t allowed to use repellent with DEET becuase it´s poisonous. They sold us some non-deet repelent which I think was just a placebo. Placebo repellents don´t work on sand flies. Within an hour my legs were covered in bleeding bites which later blossomed into giant nastry red lumps, some twice the size of a quarter, some bleeding, some oozing. NASTY and so so itchy!

This photo is on day 2 of 4 in the rainforest. My legs look even worse now.

Everything else about the shelter was great! There were 3 kinds of monkeys (squirrel, spider, and capuchin), parrots and lots of other birds, an Andean spotted bear, dogs, cats, spotted hens, geese, and coatis. Besides the bear and a few of the adult monkeys all the other animals roam freely around the grounds and interact with the guests and volunteers. The young capuchin monkeys are especially friendly and if they like you they´ll climb all over you. They liked me. Well, maybe they liked my sarong skirt which they seemed to think was a fort.

My skirt turned fort.

3 or 4 of them that were climbing on my lap shoulders and head, and running under my skirt. At one point things got a little wild and one of them was swinging from my hair. It was pretty painful and I was afraid I´d be coming home with a bald spot. Lucky for me, the monkey eventually let go and didn´t take any of my hair with him. Later one of the capuchins, Kimbo, was playing with my skirt and decided to start eating my flip flop. I thought that probably was a bad idea so I tried to take it away. Kimbo got pretty feisty about then and climbed onto my lap and slapped me on the chest. Then he started to eat my shirt. When I tried to stop him he smacked me again. It was pretty funny but also a little scary so I tried to walk away. He grabbed onto my shoe and wouldn´t let me go. I took off my shoe and held it in the air and he just hung there eating it. One of the volunteers helped me get him loose and Jeff and I went back to our little cabana. The next day when we visited the monkeys again they were obsessed with getting our Bolivia travel book out of Jeff´s pocket.

Now we´re in Coroico, a small, quiet mountain town with gorgeous jungle mountain views everywhere you turn. We´ve been taking it easy, walking around, swimming, and enjoying the warmth of the lower altitude here.

Tommorrow we are hoping to ride horses then head back to La Paz. One night in La Paz then we fly to Lima, LA, then home. I´m sad our trip is coming to an end but it has been a lot of fun and I do miss my family, friends, kitties, and food from home. Jeff is the best travel companion- always game for almost anything, puts up with my whining about my bug bites, has an almost endless tolerance for 20 questions, crossword puzzles and gin rummy, and enjoys Simpsons in Spanish as much as I do.

See you soon!

La Paz Parties and Politics

Strangely enough, it was exactly eight years ago - on the anniversary of the revolution - when Sonya got to La Paz during her time in S. America through UCLA. By her own account, though, that was not nearly as wild and crazy as getting in on the bicentennial of that day in this trip! Some locals in Copacabana had told us they were envious of us being in La Paz on such an exciting day. Copacabana is also in the La Paz Department, but their celebration was going to be much smaller.

Our Bus Stops for Gas on Way to La Paz - note painting of angry attack dog with ¨beware of dog¨ in background contrasting with the cute pup asleep by the pump

We first experienced the craziness while riding on the bus through El Alto, the gigantic burrough on the hills in the outskirts of La Paz. The main road was shut down in one direction, and both directions of traffic (buses, cars, micro-buses, people) had to share just a couple lanes in the busy city. The other lanes were occupied by a GIANT parade lined with people in bleachers. From the bus, we could get a good view over the people to see the hoards of marching bands, floats, and dancers in all types of amazing costumes and dresses.

Glimpse of El Alto Parade from Bus - colorful things sticking up were parts of costumes

When we got into La Paz proper, our bus had to drop us off on a tiny random street instead of the bus stop, which was closed due to La Paz´s evening parade. The streets were jam packed with people and vehicles. All the little sidewalk stores were selling flags (Bolivia flags, La Paz Department flags, Indigenous Revolution flags - the coolest looking of them all), and other paraphanalia for the events. We grabbed our stuff, oriented ourselves with some street signs, and made our way on foot to our hotel.

Points if you can easily interpret the English translation of the sign on our hotel room door...good luck

Once checked in, we headed down only a few blocks to the main Prado. As we arrived, the parade was just beginning. It was an insane environment. People were everywhere. Every side street was full of vendors with open barbecue ovens selling anticuchos (kind of meat skewers). Cotton candy vendors roamed back and forth (and I did partake). Some enterprising locals had set up plastic chairs along the route and were charging 5 Bolivianos for a seat. Luckily for us, even Sonya is quite tall by Bolivian standards, so we could easily see over the crowd.

A little girl is held up by her dad to see the parade in La Paz.

This parade was a little less dramatic than the one in El Alto, but no less enthusiastic and long (about 6 hours in total - we did not stay for the whole thing). Every city manager and city municipal department marched by - department of health, environmental corps, army, navy. Plus it seemed like every high school had a marching band - some amazingly good and others...not quite so much.

Zebras marching in parade...more on that to come

We took a break from the craziness to rest at our hotel for a bit and get some food. We ate at a ¨Mexican¨ place. Note that Mexico is about as far away from here as the US, so ¨Mexican¨ food is not always what you think. My quesadilla lacked anything we might call a tortilla and also lacked cheese altogether. I thought this was interesting, since quesadilla is a Spanish word combination of queso (cheese) and tortilla - and they do speak Spanish here! In addition, they had a 2008 calendar showing Ms. Ketchup and Mustard 2008 right next to a 2009 calendar with Jesus. Sonya wondered what must have happened between 08 and 09 that caused this shift in calendar content choice.

Note the difference in photo content between ´08 and ´09 calendars in this restaurant

We headed back out to see what other excitement we could find. We walked down the Prado to the end of the parade route and found a live band playing Andean music, and they were amazing! We´d heard a lot of little groups playing indigenous music in restaurants, etc., but this was way better. Sonya made friends with a friendly man standing near us and he told us that the band was made up of music teachers. He also told us about the local alcoholic drink that was being sold on the street. It´s called Sacumbe (or something like that) and includes hot Bolivian hard liquor, foamed milk, cinnamon, and coconut. We got one for about 50 cents and it was quite tasty and warm in the cold night. Everyone was as nice as could be. Locals were buying tasty sweet bread from street vendors and sharing it with us. La Paz is a somewhat intimidating place to visit given its giant size, cultural differences from the US, and reputation for having some amount of crime. I was amazed to find some of the nicest and friendliest people we´ve met in any city so far! Of course it was a celebratory time, so everyone had a reason to be happy, but those good attitudes seem to have held up in the days after the festivities as well. At midnight there were fireworks in a different part of the city that we could see some of while we sipped another Sacumbe.

Got me some cotton candy! Just as tasty in Bolivia!

The next day the festivities continued, and we got a bit more of a view of the political culture of the area. During breakfast we watched the generally well-meaning but sometimes extreme president, Evo Morales, give a speech on TV to the citizens. He was joined by the presidents of Ecuador, Paraguay, and most importantly of Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) - Nicaragua, Argentina, and Cuba also sent representatives. Notably, Chile, Peru, and certainly the US did NOT send any representatives. It was a bit odd to listen to Evo when he got to talking about the US, which he always does. He talked about some terrible things the US has done in Latin America and Bolivia (unfortunately, much of it true). He also more specifically said that any Latin American country that permits a US base on its soil is basically terrible and is dishonoring its people. He pointed out the ¨victory¨ of how one of the regions in Bolivia recently voted to eliminate a US base. This was no doubt aimed at Columbia, who that same day made an agreement with the US to support additional bases to help fight drug cartels in their country (notebaly, Columbia also did not have a representative at the festivities).

Traditional Cholita woman (in formal dress) walking to festivities alongside modern-dressed folks

This is basically in line with the current rhetoric in the country over the US federal government, and also explains why we haven´t encountered hardly any other US citizens traveling here - doesn´t exactly make you feel welcome. As we rode the bus through El Alto, we saw numerous large signs reading ¨US AID = terrorismo.¨ When Evo first ran for president, he apparently refused to debate his opponents, saying that he would rather debate the ring leader - the US ambassador (who has since been forced out of the country). It´s been harder to land a punch against the US more recently, as Obama is generally quite popular here. Also, the rhetoric doesn´t seem to trickle down to US citizens. Like I said, I think we´ve met some of the friendliest people of our entire trip here in La Paz! All the same, I generally tell people I´m from California rather than the Estados Unidos. People here love film (ex. Hollywood) and they also love Arnold, so California tends to bring up a different image for them than the US in general. We could tell people we´re from another country, but as Sonya points out you can´t change peoples´ minds about you if you lie about where you´re from!

Crazy crazy crowds and traffic at the stadium - we decided not to fight the crowds in for the free all night long traditional dance and music (watched live on TV instead)

It´s strange to notice some of the ironies of the political situation as well. The night of the 2nd day of festivities, we went to dinner in a very nice part of town. There we saw a huge hubbub around the Radisson hotel. There were security guards everywhere, security cameras were setup all around the hotel, and there were tons of people dressed up as zebras in the plaza (zebras became a local symbol a few years back when the city employed young adults in zebra suits as crossing guards). The zebras didn´t mind taking a picture with Sonya. We were trying to figure out what was going on when we saw a huge Venezuelan flag flying in front of the hotel entrance. We then figured out that Hugo must be staying there and was about to be treated to a Zebra show of some sort. Earlier that day, the presidential luncheon was also held at the Radisson.

Sonya with Venz. President Hugo Chavez´s zebras - see above

It´s a bit funny to think of Hugo - the left wing anti-US, anti-global capitalist - sitting comfortably in his Radisson hotel (whose parent international corporation is based in Minnesota) while likely also drinking his coca cola and enjoying his zebra show. In that same area there are a range of other 5 star, Latin American hotels that could have hosted the luncheon and the dignitaries. It´s funny that those leaders can spend their days verbally jabbing at US capitalist policies and then go give their money to a US corporation instead of locally across the street. I certainly don´t deny that there are huge ironies in US policy as well, but it´s still pretty funny to see the extraordinarilly obvious discontinuity here.

The local newspaper we bought on 16 July - check out all the full color special sections and free fold out poster

We also saw a lot of (basically) state propoganda about how great Evo is and all the great things he´s done for the city/country (ex. the dinosaur below). There are billboards on almost every other street around La Paz proclaiming some aspect of his greatness. Pretty strange environment, but I´ve loved the city and the people here! Also, I suppose the fact that I can sit here writing this in central La Paz shows that Bolivia still shares some important similarities with the US (at least in terms of freedoms - though Sonya would perhaps somewhat rather I post this from CA rather than here). It´s pretty amazing that (by luck) we got to see such an exciting time in the history of the city with so many fun events and so many friendly people!

Throngs of people and a news crew (in foreground) crowding the new dinosaur in the park (one of a few public works projects opened up for the holiday). Seriously people...it´s just a plastic dinosaur right?

Street Food!

Jeff and I love to eat and some of the best food we´ve had in Peru and Bolivia has been from street vendors. Below is a list of some of the goodies we´ve tried so far (and what country we found the treat in).

• Emoliente (Peru)- A hot digestive herbal drink. You can choose the sweet flavors that the vendor adds to this herbal drink. Ladies sell this at night to help with digestion after a big or greasy meal. Digestion in high altitudes is supposedly very slow.

Me having emoliente. The small bottles on the side of the cart hold the flavored syrups. The metal pot in the middle is where the boling water and herbs/ leaves are kept.

• Anticuchos (Both)- cow heart and potato skewers. These are grilled up on small mobile coal barbecues and served with a spicy sauce. You can also find regular beef and occasionally alpaca meat instead of "corazon".
  
  
• Salchipapa (Both)- Diced potatoes grilled in oil (similar to large french fries) topped with sauteed pieces of a hot-dog like sausage. Then the whole pile of carbs/ fat is covered in mayo, mustard, ketchup, and hot sauce and served with a toothpick.
  


• Cake of all varieties (Both)- plain chocolate bundt cake, vanilla cake with frosting, etc., is sold from little carts or just from plates that women carry around. Jeff´s in heaven and wishes their were people selling cake on the street and at the BART stations at home. It usually costs less than a quarter so he´s been getting his fill while we´re here.
  


• Popcorn (Both)- There are so many varieties of popcorn (due to the many varieties of corn grown here)! Some are giant soft puffs swetened with sugar, some are indentical to our popcorn, and there are plenty of others in between. We also tried popped noodles (giant tube shaped pastas dried and puffed/ popped then coated with a light sugar topping). Jeff liked the popped noodles, I thought they were pretty dry. I tried roasted fava beans and didn´t like those as much as I expected I would. All of thos things can usually be found from one vendor who has a table with heaping piles of all of the above plus roasted nuts, seeds, and other popped/ puffed things we haven´t tried yet.

A street that we dubbed "P0pcorn Alley", Copacabana, Peru

• Conos (Peru)- cone shapped puff pastry filled with manjar (dulce de leche) and coverd in powdered sugar. Jeff has also had his fair share of these and may son be a cono expert.
  
  
• Alfajores (Peru)- cookies (some varieties are thick and buttery, others are thin and crispy) stacked on top of each other with manjar in between.
  
• Salteñas (Bolivia)- baked pastries usuallly filled with chicken, cinnamon, and raisins for a mid morning snack.
  
• Tucumanas (Bolivia)- Similar to salteñas but they are fried. The stand we got ours at had six different sauces and a cabbage salad for topping the pastry.


• Sacumbe (Bolivia)- A bolivian drink made with hot milk, cinnamon, and singani, a local alcohol distiled from grapes.
  
• Sopaipillas (Bolivia)- fried whole wheat dough, cooled then dipped in sweet syrup.
  
• Fresh squeezed OJ (Both)- I´ve had more than my fair share of this! It is good and they squeeze the juice straight from the oranges into your cup. Delish!


• Corn on the cob with cheese (Peru)- The varieties of corn are different here and the kernels on the cob we tried were giant, not very sweet and very starch. It was almost more like little tiny potato kernels than what we think of as corn. It´s served with a little piece of hard cheese and you are supposed to take a small bite of each and the flavors mix in your mouth.

Titicaca to La Paz

Sonya failed to mention in a previous post that we had to pay an extra 5 Bolivianos so she could have a paddle boat with a duck head. They had boats with and without duck/goose heads, and really what´s the point of getting a paddle boat if it doesn´t have a head?

Duck Boating

We stayed one more night in Copacabana, then we took a boat out to Isla del Sol on the lake. This is the place where many cultures (from pre-Inca to modern indigenous people) believe the sun and first people came from. There´s a large rock on the island shaped like a puma (sorta) that supposedly has scars on it indicating the places the sun, moon, etc. came from. It´s a beautiful island. From the trail at the top you can see lake views over both sides with giant snow capped mountains in the distance.

Posing Like a Puma in Front of Rock (rock puma facing away with ears pointing back)

Our boat dropped us off at a different place than we were told, though, which caused a bit of confusion. We were supposed to hike about 3 hours to the other side of the island where we would stay the night. Being dropped at an unusual place made it difficult to orient ourselves, which made for a longer than expected trek. Such is life in Bolivia where you just have to go with the flow. We met some nice folks from Britain, though and had lunch with them at a small village. The village was right on the water with great beaches, strangely filled with farm animals (beach pigs, beach sheep, etc.).

Beach Pig on Isla del Sol

After lunch we got pretty turned around looking for the trail we wanted, but made plenty of Bolivian friends working on the island. One group of men really wanted to see our Lonely Planet book to see what it said about their island. They took a good 10 minutes to peruse the map of Isla del Sol and try to see if it looked good to them. They also wanted to know if we knew the archeologists from the US that had worked on the island (certainly we know them if they´re from the US!). They also gave me a hard time, since Sonya was carrying our pack. I tried to explain that she wouldn´t let me take a turn (true at the time), but they found it odd and told us about how women don´t do any work in Bolivia...only the men work. In fact this is quite untrue as evidenced by every woman on the island carrying huge amounts of weigh t around the island in a blanket on her back (either firewood, food, livestock, or children). The men were extremely friendly and nice, though, and they pointed us in the right direction for the trail. They also gladly accepted our gifts of San Francisco pens and sparkly headbands for their daughters.

Our local friends who pointed us in the right direction and examined our Lonely Planet (note SF pens hanging from their shirts)

Though Sonya was sure she couldn´t make it one more step a few times when going uphill at such altitude, we did find the main trail and made it to the village we were going to stay at. This also involved passing by multiple ¨ticket booths¨ on the island to buy very cheap passes to the island´s regions and archeological sites. The ticket booths consisted of a single person standing on the trail in the middle of nowhere and asking if you´ve gotten your ticket yet. No doubt they get commission for selling tickets and so there´s an incentive to set up your operation way out in front of the villages to catch the hikers at the first chance!

Isla del Sol ¨Ticket Booth¨ (i.e. the guy on the hill)

Our hotel for the night was amazing! Up on a hill overlooking the lake with a very friendly family working there. We hiked up to the top of the hill to see the sunset over the island and over the lake. Even though we´ve been here a while, it´s still tough to climb up mountains at 4,000 meters!

Made it to the Top and Waiting Sunset Over Isla del Sol

Dinner was very tasty and we were the only ones in the restaurant with windows looking out toward Copacabana. The only disadvantage was the CD of Andean-style covers of classic rock tunes playing (synth-heavy with pan-pipes playing the melody). At one point the CD ended and automatically switched to a Daddy Yankee (Reggaeton/modern latin rap). We much preferred this. A teenage boy came rushing out from the kitchen to save our delicate ears from such harsh music, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw us bobbing along to the music. He slowly retreated to the kitchen, where there ensued a family argument in Spanish about h im letting that music play for us. We heard him trying to explain to his family that ¨the tourists were dancing to it! they like it!¨ When he came out later we told him that Daddy Yankee was very popular in the US (some might remember John McCain doing a somewhat baffling and less-than-effective campaign stop with him last fall) and the music was fine with us!

On the trail atop Isla del Sol (lake and snow covered mountains in background)

The next day we saw a couple more ruins on the island and then took the slowest boat in history back to Copacabana to catch a bus to La Paz. The bus (named ¨Swift Wolf¨) was super cramped and filled mostly with stinky, porn-stache wearing, European travelers, but it got the job done. At one point we had to take a ferry across the lake, which was a little wild to watch. The bus had to get on its own ferry, which was a far cry from the vehicle ferries you might see in Seattle or BC. It looked for sure like the buses would tip into the water at any moment.

Our Bus Forging the Lake

On the other side, we also found a funny statue commemorating Bolivia regaining its coastline on the Pacific (note - this is an imaginary historical event). Bolivia has been land locked ever since Chile stole (won in a war) it´s slim bit of Pacific coast in the 1880´s. This is still the biggest gripe of any Bolivian, and they still religiously celebrate the Dia del Mar holiday every year where they lament the loss of their ocean. Every presidential candidate here runs at least partly on a platform of reclaiming the land. Note that this loss happened BACK IN THE 1880´s, and they have not gotten back (and likely never will get back) their coast. Just in case, though, Bolivia maintains a Naval fleet, which as far as we can tell mostly drives around in trucks. This is also the reason that Chile is so terribly despised by Bolivians (hence Sonya is doubly troublesome as a US citizen who has lived in Chile - both characteristics somewhat offensive to the Bolivian palate).

Statue Showing Bolivia Reclaiming their Ocean from Chile

We found out that (by chance, not by plan) we would be arriving in La Paz on the 200th anniversary of their revolution and founding of the state. This caused for some pretty wild and amazing sites, so hopefully Bolivian internet will cooperate and allow us to post some pics!