Around Lake Titicaca

We´ve spent the last few days around Lake Titicaca, the lake famous for being the highest navigable lake in the world. (It´s almost true.) We´re at almost 13,000 ft in Cobacana, Bolivia now. Before Copacabana, we we´re in Puno, Peru on the Peruvian side of the lake. We didn´t have much time there but managed to squeeze in a short boat trip to the floating islands, a group of islands made of reeds. People live in reed houses on the islands. It is really quite incredible.

On a floating island.

Yesterday, we crossed the border to Bolivia. In all 3 countries we´ve been to, there´s been a big swine-flu fuss at the border. In each place you have to fill out a form and check off which symptoms you have (cough, temperature, runny nose, etc.). Of course, all of the travellers check off that they have no symptoms, so it isn´t terribly efficient. In Mexico they checked our body temperatures though.

Swine flu float. One of many at an art school (I think) in Cusco.

Anyways, we arrived in Copacabana in the afternoon and hiked up the hill to the hostel we had reserved. It was very nice-hammocks everywhere, beautiful architecture, great food, and nice extras like hot water bottles at night (it gets really cold up here!). For Bolivia though, it was very expensive at $28/ night.

Last night we watched the sun set over the lake from the top of a little mountain in town. The mountain is also a cemetery which made watching the sunset a little odd but I suppose it is a nice place to visit deceased relatives.

Sunset at the cemetery.

Today we walked around Copacabana, which is a small city and went to the lake. We rented a paddleboat and paddled around the lake a bit. That was really nice. The water is really calm so we could just sit out there and take in the lake and surroundings for a while. The sun is very strong here, due to the altitude so the paddle boats come with little optional cloth roofs. Nice! The lake is full of trout so a lot of restaurants have trout on the menu and we´ve been eating a lot of trout. We had it for lunch at the little lakeside shack and it was one of best meals of the trip! Mine had a tomato and onion sauce. Jeff´s had a lemon sauce. It came with rice and french fries (as does almost everything) and cost $2.50 each. I was in heaven! I almost ordered a second plate.

Jeff at Kiosko 2

After lunch we played foosball at some tables they rent out on the beach. Great day!
Tomorrow we´ll go to Isla del Sol, an island in Lake Titicaca. After that, we´ll go to La Paz, and after that we don´t know what we´ll do.

Everywhere we´ve been people love Michael Jackson. They play his songs in the restaurants, have posters up, and sell knock-off DVDs in the streets. In the places they sell the DVDs they usually have a TV showing the DVDs and a large group of people crowded around to watch the video of old MJ concerts and music videos. Today, we saw a little kid, maybe 5 years old, trying to teach himself the Thriller dance. So cute!

Run in with a llama at Machu Picchu

On the 5th day of our Andes trek, we visited Machu Picchu, which was spectacular. The quality of the structures, all the spiritual symbols, astronomical observatories, and complex social strucures all built into the city are amazing. And the surrounding mountains are breathtaking. It´s no wonder the Incas chose that location. When we arrived, early in the morning, there were low clouds hanging over the tops of the mountains and some of the ruins. As the day went on, the sun came out and lit up the ruins. We spent about half a day at the ruins, part on a tour with our guide and part on our own. When we went off on our own, I went to take pictures of the cute little llamas that wander around eating the grass on the agricultural terraces of the ruins. Here you can see how cute they look.

Well, they aren´t that cute when they are running up a trail in your direction.

Right after I took the picture above, that llama started to move from the terrace he was on. I thought he would cross the trail and go to another terrace, but no, he started running up the trail, right at me. You can see the action shot below. Scary, right? Jeff didn´t think so. He just laughed while I climbed up the side of a terrace to escape the crazy llama. But then the llama came up on the terrace after me. I was sure he was about to run me down so I ran accross the terrace and tried to scale the wall to the next terrace down. This didn´t work so well so I eventually went very quietly past the llama back to the path. Jeff thought this was all very funny and took lots of pictures, but you´ll notice, he is behind me when we decided to tiptoe past the llama.

The rest of our visit was thankfully less eventful. We had a great time wandering around and admiring the ruins. We had half a day to expore Aguas Calientes after that. The town is full of tourists and the restaurants compete for business by offering free drinks or all day happy hour. Or, our favorite offer: free nachus with wackamole (this was the English translation of "guacamole" on the menu). I love me some wack-a-mole with my chips.

On our way back we met some nice people on the train. They were visiting from Guatemala for a UNESCO conference. The lady sitting across from me on the train is the Minister of Culture for Guatemala. Sounds like we´ll have to put Guatemala on our adventure wish list.

Today, we spent the day in Cusco hanging out in the sun and relaxing. We went to the Bolivian consulate to get our visas. It must have been a slow day at the consulate because the Bolivian consul gave us a long rundown of all the things to do in all of Bolivia (which is quite a large country). When we left the consulate, he joined us for lunch around the corner then invited us back to the consulate after lunch so he could share more tips about Bolivia. I thought we were pretty set on travel tips. Just in case though, he asked for the name and phone number of our hostel so he could call us if he thought of anything else we should see in Bolivia.

We leave tomorrow morning for Bolivia but may spend one night in Puno, Peru depending on the bus connections. Adios Peru! Hola Bolivia!

Peru did it first!

As we had a nice day of rest today in Cuzco (including some much needed clothes washing) I thought I´d write a little about one of the odd things we´ve noticed. One phenomenon is apparently common throughout S. America. If people here are unsure of the origin of something, they assume it is from their country. (Sonya has good stories about how Chileans insisted that Doritos chips were from Chile.) Maybe in the US we´re so used to everything around us having been adopted from some other country or culture, we don´t automatically assume stuff is from the US. What´s more surprising, though, is that people here have elaborate stories to back up their assertion of inventing various things or practices. A couple examples just from our Salkantay tour guide...

Our guide, Guido, told us one day about how Obama had gotten his slogan from the Peruvians. He told us how a few years back (2004 or 2005), the Peruvian soccer team went on an amazing run, beating other S. American teams. He said that part way through one of the games, some fans started chanting ¨Si se puede!¨ over and over. He said it caught on and fans chanted it for all the soccer games since then. He pointed out that Obama stole this for his ¨Yes we can¨ slogan, which is a general translation of the phrase. I decided to let it go, but Sonya - with her minor in Latin American Studies - took on the issue. She tried to explain how that phrase had been a major part of a movement started by people like Cesar Chavez many decades ago who fought for Latino farm worker´s rights. Our guide calmly explained that the Mexicans at that time also had stolen "Si se peude" from the Peruvians (apparently retroactively).


Another example: Guido was talking about the Cuzco state flag, which includes a rainbow pattern as shown to the right. He talked about how gay people had seen the Cuzco flag and decided they liked it, so they took it for the gay rights movement. He said it became a problem a few years back when some foreign tourists did not want to stay at hotels flying the flag, because they thought they were gay Peruvian hotels. He told us how it had become such a problem, that Peru´s president at the time flew to the United States to meet with the ¨leader of the gays¨ to try to work out the issue...apparently to no avail. Being from San Francisco, we told Guido that the pride flag is a little bit different - it has fewer and slightly different colors than the Cuzco flag, though it does look very similar. Guido suggested that they must have changed their flag recently, since it was originally identical to the Cuzco flag. Neither Sonya nor I wanted to take on the idea of meeting a ¨leader of the gays¨ though it´s pretty funny imagine a meeting between such a person and the president of Peru!

None of these claims are made maliciously in any way. Guido wasn´t upset that those things had been ¨stolen.¨ He just wanted it to be known how they came about according to his history. Other similar stories could be added to this list, each with an elaborate history to back it up (ex. the giant famous redwood trees in California are actually from S. America). It seems we hear these stories at every turn, and then there´s also of course lots of fighting between Chileans, Peruvians, etc. about who really originated these things that none of them actually originated. It´s just a very different mindset than my own, where I generally assume most of what we have in California and the US owes its roots somewhere else. The S. American viewpoints are quite charming and fun to discuss, though!

I just finished my dinner of fried ¨cuy¨ (guinnea pig), and now we´re off to rest before heading on to Puno and, shortly thereafter, Copacabana Bolivia. BTW, the cuy was pretty tasty!

My Cuy Dinner

Lo Hicimos

Horses in Salkantay Range

For those of you who haven´t watched Dora the Explorer, Lo Hicimos = we did it (i.e. the most physically demanding part of our trip - our approx. 30 mile Andes trek). I should first note that Peruvians are obsessed with women´s volleyball. I expected to see lots of soccer pride, but the ¨Voley¨ craze was a bit surprising. They currently have 2 teams playing internationally - one for women and one for teenagers. The games are broadcast live (women from a tournament in Miami and girls from one in Thailand) and are on in every shop, restaurant, and business. Apparently Peru is quite good in voley and quite bad in soccer, which explains the craze. On the news they even interview the families of the girls and show where they live. Pretty fun to watch the games!

View from our tent at 1st campsite

We left at 5:30 a.m. on the 5th for our 5 day trek in the Andes. Sonya barely slept the night before because, 1) she was afraid we´d miss our alarm to wake up, and 2) she kept having crazy dreams that Christine and/or Cristina was planting drugs in her pirate board game, which then led her to be arrested by firefighters. Don´t ask me...

We drove about 5 hours out of Cusco, stopping for some supplies along the way. We were accompanied by our guide and our cook. Literally just OUR guide and cook, since we were the only 2 people in the tour group. The drive took us up up up, mostly on a slow dirt road. Sonya amazed me as usual with her sleeping abilities and slept in the van whilst her head bobbed back and forth with the giant potholes. We went to a small town (Mollepata) where Sonya bought a wood walking stick that was custom fit for her (cut to her height). Then we drove a bit more to our starting place.

At our starting point we met our horseman (Gomersindo - a soft spoken 67 year old man who never stopped smiling). He and the horses kindly took our packs so we could walk the 4-ish hours to our first camp. That camp was just at the base of some huge glaciers on Mt. Salkantay, with views of many other large Andes mountains. Sonya took a nap while I hiked up an additional few hundred feet with our cook. He literally ran up the hill of boulders while my lungs were on fire (not apparent in my king of the mountain pic to left). Every foot up there seemed to be less and less air to breathe! There were great views of Salkantay and our campsite from the top, though.

At night it got very very cold. We layered on almost all the clothes we had, including gloves, scarves, and alpaca wool hats, and we were still a bit chilly in our down sleeping bags. See our sleeping wardrobe gettup below. That made for some light sleep, and we were woken up by our cook with ¨wake up tea¨ (coca leaf tea in this case). The top of our tent was covered in a layer of ice when we got out. That next day, we hiked to the highest pass of our trek at 15,345 feet! The air was quite thin, but we felt pretty good and the views were amazing. We were above the clouds and surrounded by glaciers that seemed very close.

We then walked downhill into the rainforest, stripping off layers as we went. Unfortunately, with the more comfortable temperatures came biting bugs. Not the usual mosquitos, but smaller bugs that leave a tiny hole on your skin still bleeding when they finish their meal. Sonya´s 98% strength deet came in handy. To pass the time, we compared holidays with our guide with only a bit of confusion. He kept telling Sonya that they have lots of ¨Spanish Moses¨ around Christmas in Peru, and Sonya was trying to figure how Moses might be Spanish and what he has to do with Christmas. Later our guide pointed out the Spanish moSSes that hang from the trees in the rainforest, which Peruvians dress their houses with.

That night we camped up above the junction of 2 rivers that eventually drain into the Amazon and the Atlantic. We got to see the glacier ice melting into the streams, which then turned into rivers, and it´s crazy to think how far that melted water will travel and all the places it will go before getting to the Atlantic ocean. In the 3rd day we continued downhill through the rainforest with lots of nice flowers and butterflies along the path. We passed some tiny villages and also some ¨Shopping Centers¨ that consisted of tiny shacks along the trail that sell water, gatorade, and snacks.

Sunrise Over Mt. Salkantay

There was a bit of a kink in the plans when we got to our planned campsite. It turned out that the train workers were striking the following day, and we were relying on the train to take us part of our way that day. We decided with our guide to change our route to make it less intense, since in addition to whatever other hiking we did we would now have to walk the train tracks with our pack instead of taking the train. We were able, instead to go to the hot springs of Santa Teresa, though, which were very nice and relaxing.

That night we went out for some drinks with our guide and cook and learned the rules for drinking in Peru (they were very strict). You must clink your glasses before every sip, and no one person can refill their glass from the bottle until everyone has finished their glass. Apparently that´s supposed to make sure that everyone drinks the same amount or something. Sonya kept forgetting and would sip her drink casually, which would cause the guide and cook to force her to clink glasses so we all would drink!

We stayed in a huge congregation of tents with lots of other gringos from other tour groups. That was not the original plan for camping that night and was not ideal, but the strike had forced some changes. The campground also housed a couple pet monkeys that Sonya could take pictures of and try to feed.

The next day was less than spectacular. Walking on the train tracks was a bit annoying, especially with our big pack. We didn´t want to take all our stuff on the trek, so we compiled our two small packs into one medium sized pack. Unfortunately that pack was a bit heavier that we would prefer to carry and the weather on that section was very hot. T-shirts and shorts and we were still sweating - quite the change from Salkantay! We also realized that ¨casi¨ (almost) for our guide means about 1-3 hours. So when we were ¨almost there¨ at any point in our trek, we had learned to expect quite bit more time and exercise. This day had plenty of ¨almosts¨ and somewhat dubious time estimates, so it was a bit tough on the feet and blisters.

We made it to Aguas Calientes, though, where we stayed in a hostal and got a good sleep. We saw Machu Picchu today, so perhaps we can post some pictures from that as well soon. The trains are running again, so we leave Aguas Calientes this evening for Cusco and beyond. The trek was a real challenge, especially at high altitude, but it was fun!

Me hiking the tracks with our pack

Cancelled flight = bonus adventure, Good times in Cusco

Mexico City was great! Everything happens for a reason and turns out our flight trouble was worth it! We had about 24 hours to spend in Mexico City so we bought passes for a open roof double decker tourist bus that you can get off and on all day. $20 well spent! We saw quite a bit of an extremely large city (22 million people compared to SF´s 800 thousand) in a short amount of time. Here are some of the highlights.

• The Art Deco and Art Nuveau architecture of the Bellas Artes building. I don´t know much about architecture but I know that was absolutely amazing!
  
  
• El Zocalo- The main square which is just enormous with a giant flagpole and giant Mexican flag in the middle. It is surrounded by the presidential palace which is full of incredible Diego Rivera murals depicting the history of Mexico, old pretty government buildings, and a giant cathedral (conveniently located nearly on top of Aztec ruins- those Spanish colonizers were very thoughtful that way).

The presidential palace in el Zocalo.

• A tour of the bell tower at the cathedral. We got to see the giant bells (some weighing in excess of 2 tons), walk on the mini-domes that make up the cathedral´s roof, and see spectacular views of the city.



On top of the cathedral.


• The public art. It´s everywhere and it is wonderful. There is a long park (maybe a mile?) where every bench is also a piece of art. Some look like alligators, some like couches, some abstract, and all different from the next.


• Watching breakdancers including a mini-Michael Jackson impersonator. Next to the breakdancers was a woman offering traditional soul cleansings by rubbing oils on your neck and burning fragrant leaves all around you.


• Our meals! Lunch was at a taco stall with room for four people to sit inside. The tacos there were little tortillas filled with meat and then fried together into moon shapes. We tried the bean taco, a mole & mystery meat taco, adobo beef tacos and coke from a bottle. Everything was delicious. Total for both of us =$3. We had dinner at a nice restaurant with contemporary takes on traditional Mexican food. Garlic prawn and fried parsley tacos; zucchini flowers stuffed with goat cheese and walnuts, covered in a smooth, sweet chipotle sauce; tortilla soup, and tuna, avocado, and orange ceviche. Delicious!

Taco lunch. Yum!

• (This next one is not a good highlight.) From dinner we had to get back to the hotel, grab our bags (already packed), and go to the airport which was only a 10 minute train ride from the hotel. We had 90 minutes to do this. Easy, right? Wrong. We got bad directions to the metro. Turned out it was a very log walk which turned into a run when it started to rain. It took us almost 30 minutes to get to the metro stop. Then, the metro was super crowded and a trip that had taken us 45 minutes in the morning took us 75 (wet, standing and crowded) minutes. That is when I started to stress out. I know that´s not helpful but I do it anyways. Ugh. We ran from our Metro stop to the hotel. Elevator broken. No stairs anywhere close. Took the service elevator. Then the keycard to our room didn´t work. Aargh! Lucky for us, the story ends well. Even with a 30 minute wait to check in at LAN (no electronic check-in booths and quite possibly the slowest check in process EVER), we made it to our flight in time.
  

We had a red eye from Mexico City to Lima and a connection to Cusco. Someone from our hostel picked us up from the airport and things here are great. I did not pass out on the tarmac from altitude sickness as I had feared. In fact, we´ve had no real altitude problems so far at all. Everyone is SOO nice here. The weather is wonderful when the sun is out and freezing (actually freezing- I´m not exaggerating) when the sun goes down. I´m glad we invested in thermal underwear. I don´t remember it being this cold last time I was here but I´m sure it was. Cusco is as picturesque as I remember. The Plaza de Armas, the main square, is so beautiful. And the Incan architecture is amazing. The city is full of tourists and people selling things to tourists. It seems there is less severe poverty than last time I was here.

The Plaza de Armas.

Today we went on a hiking tour of the Inca structures outside of Cusco. The structures are phenomenal and have survived many earthquakes that more recent buildings have not. We hired a guide, Denis, who told us the history of each place. We put quite a few good miles on our hiking boots today and are ready to start our big trek tomorrow morning.

Jeff and I at Saskaywaman.

Tomorrow, we leave for a 5 day trek through the Andes. We´re really excited. No one else signed up for the tour on the same day as us so we´ll have a private tour. How lucky for us! We´ll check in again after the trek. Happy 4th of July! Also, Happy Dia del Amigo, Peru´s first annual "Friend Day".


XOXO
Sonya

Dimples

Yesterday I logged in to our cheaptickets itinerary to print out our itinerary for today's flights, and saw this:

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

United Airlines # 821
San Francisco International (SFO) to Mexico City Benito Juarez International (MEX)Departure (SFO): July 1, 11:26 AM PDT (morning)Arrival (MEX): July 1, 6:03 PM CDT (evening)

Mexico City Benito Juarez International (MEX) to Lima Jorge Chavez International (LIM)Departure (MEX): July 2, 11:55 PM CDT (evening)Arrival (LIM): July 3, 5:40 AM PET (morning)

Lima Jorge Chavez International (LIM) to Cuzco Velazco Astete (CUZ)Departure (LIM): July 2, 7:25 AM PET (morning)Arrival (CUZ): July 2, 8:40 AM PET (morning)

The slight problem with this, of course, is that the second of three flights departs a half day later than the last flight we were supposed to connect to. This is what led to my 1 hour 47 minute conversation with "Dimples" the customer service person at Cheap Tickets. Dimple's strangely porn-star-like pseudonym was the least of our worries. We previously had the same flight confirmed the day before, which would have worked just fine. It turns out that LAN cancelled our original flight, but did not notify either cheaptickets or us. I only discovered this problem by logging into the account, or we would still be at this time expecting to board a flight to Peru tonight.

My nearly two hour conversation included mostly a fight back and forth between LAN and United (who apparently also has had about enough of LAN's shannanigans). We could have connected through LA instead of Mex City and gotten into Peru on the same day as planned. However, United refused to reroute their portion of the ticket and apparently hung up on the poor Dimples. That left us to either postpone our flight from Mexico to Peru for a day, or get a refund. So, with that, Dimples hooked us up with the stayover in Mexico for the night, with the supposed promise that LAN would pick up the tabs for all our necessities in Mexico. Seeing as this is the second flight LAN has cancelled on us since we planned this trip, I did not have much hope there would be an agent to help us in Mexico, much less a place for us to stay.

With happy thoughts, we got on our flight to Mexico City, though, and arrived early! We took a bus over to LAN's terminal, where we found - surprise - no LAN agents. However, there was a promise for a LAN agent to show up at 7:00 "mas o menos." Amazingly, around 7:10 LAN did open up their line, and in the mean time, we got to chat with the friendly Argentinean, Roberto, who himself had been delayed by a LAN cancellation. He assured us that LAN had put him up, but also mentioned that he had intended to break or burn everything at the LAN counter if they did not comply with his needs (apparently he did not learn of his cancellation until trying to check in at the airport, and even after the new flight was arranged, they sent him to terminal 1 - note, terminal 1 is about 3 counties separated from terminal 2 at the airport).

Son waiting at the LAN counter in Mexico City Airport

Once we were served, the LAN attendant called hotels one-by-one from a handwritten book to find us a hotel, whilst disgruntled passangers waited behind us. BUT, we did get our hotel voucher, including meals at a restaurant with a band singing pop covers a la karaoke from the 70's and 80's. Strangely, it's probably the nicest place we'll stay at on the trip. Tomorrow we have a whirlwind tour of the city planned, before (hopefully) boarding our new flight to Lima at 11:55 p.m. Thanks Dimples!

Follow our South American adventure!

Hi Family and Friends-
Jeff's on summer break and I've taken three and a half weeks off of work (!) and we're ready for some fun on the other side of the equator. So, we're packing our backpacks for a trip to Peru and Bolivia. We're planning on trekking through the Andes, boating on Lake Titicaca, and biking in the rainforest. We'll also see Cuzco, Puno, Copacabana, Sorata, La Paz, and Coroico. Here's a map of where we're hoping to go (click on the blue dots for more detail).



I'm sure our trip will change along the way, but this is the plan we're starting with. If you've been to any of those places and have some tips, please send them our way. We'll use this blog to record parts of our journey and keep you posted with stories (and hopefully some pictures too). If you want to get an email each time we update the blog, enter your email address in the box on the right hand side of the page. We'd love to hear from you so please feel free to comment on our posts or email us.
Cheers,
Sonya