Bolivia!

Sorry it been awhile since the last post but we haven't had much excitement or much internet...We spent last week working at our hostel in Cusco which turned out to be a lot of fun, by weeks end we had probably 50 new friends and knew Cusco like the back of our hands. Last Sunday night we took the over night bus from Cusco to Puno, which is a town bordering lake Titicaca about six hours south of Cusco. Our bus ended up arriving late and our seats were up against the rear stairs on the bus so they didn't recline at all. What's worse is our seats were also above some part of the engine compartment so we spent an entire bus ride sitting straight up and drenched in sweat while every passenger around us was fully reclined, snuggled under a blanket fast asleep.
We arrived in Puno around 4am and had to wait until 7:30 for our tour company to open. When they finally did the took us down to the lake and we jumped into a boat for our lake Titicaca adventure to begin. The boat went out about an hour from the harbor before reaching the famous floating islands. Supposedly some of the Incas lived in the middle of the lake surrounded by reeds on floating islands also made of reeds to escape the Spanish. Some families consisting of over three hundred people still reside on similar floating islands as a tourist attraction. The islands were much larger than we were expecting, probably fifty yards long and almost as wide and housing probably 25 family members.

As our boat pulled up along the islands and we began to disembark, the locals on the island broke into song and we noticed there were some reed benches set up for us...we quickly realized we had just pulled up to the equivalent of Germaine's Luau or Disneyland or some other horrible tourist trap. The locals showed us all the typical stuff, how the islands were constructed, what they ate, how the houses were made and of course where the Guinea Pigs lived.

They did not explain how they had satellite TV inside of their reed houses or why most of the handy crafts they tried to sell us looked like they were made in China. They after our lessons and tours every single local instantly transformed their little area into a bazaar. They had all sorts of stuff to sell and no shame in looking like they were going to cry if we didn´t buy something. Luckily Lyndz and I have been training for this moment for the last seven weeks and had no problem watching them try to whip up some tears without us giving in. They were nice enough to take us out for a boat ride on one of the traditional reed boats, where when we got into the middle of the lake they requested we pay five Soles (about $2) each. No one dared to find out what would happen if you didn´t pay because the lake is freezing cold, and the locals didn´t look to friendly when they weren´t dancing and singing.

After departing from the floating international marketplace, we headed to the island Taquile about three hours boat ride away. Upon arrival we were again greeted by a mob of locals that would divide up our group and take us home for an overnight home stay in what was suppose to be a traditional house. Our family walked us up the hill to their house and it looked pretty much like any low income apartment building...We had our own room with a regular bed, carpet, electricity, and a locking door, not what we were imagining a ¨traditional home stay¨ to look like! We put down our bags and headed to the middle of the island where we were to meet the rest of our group and hike to the mountain in the center of the island. There were suppose to be ancient Inca ruins at the top of the island but when we got there it looked like someone had spend a few days casually throwing rocks into a pile. It was hard to believe these were the same Incas that built the trail and Machu Picchu. But it did make for a nice sunset.

We headed back down to our houses and were greeted by our families who had costumes ready for us to put on for the big dance! Keep in mind at this point in the evening we had not slept in almost 48 hours, the LAST thing that sounded like a good time was putting on these costumes and walking to the other side of the island for Inca prom.

Arriving at the dance we noticed pretty much everyone had the same look on their face as we did, everyone was there against their will. The Peruvian flute band began to play all the local women ran over and grabbed us and pretty much forced us to dance...let me clarify, by dance I mean join hands with the 50 other unwilling tourists and run in a huge circle. Thats it. Run in a circle. No dance skills required. Oh did I mention the average Peruvian flute band song lasts like 15 minutes? It was awesome, I highly recommend it along with sitting in bus seats that dont recline.
Needless to say we slept well that night and woke up around 8am to board our boat again. They took us to another island called Amanti where we again climbed to the top of the mountain in the middle of the island. This one had no cultural significance, just a ton of locals selling the same crap as everyone else. We figured they must pay the guides to take us there or something because there was NOTHING to do on the island. Two hours later our boat arrived back in Puno and we headed off to a hostel to catch up on sleep. The next morning we had to be at the bus station at 5:30am for our bus accross the boarder into Bolivia. We woke up, checked out and got to the bus station right on time, but no one had shown up to work at our bus companies office. At about 6am we started getting really worried and found someone who told us they thought the bus was just really late but we couldn´t understand why. Another half hour or so later we finally saw the bus company representative who explained to us that our bus would not be coming that morning. In a panic we asked why and he told us that there was a water dispute between Cusco and another town and so all the locals in Cusco had blocked every street with huge boulders bringing traffic to a stand still and no one had been able to get in or out for several days! We realized how lucky we were to have gotten out of Cusco when we did, which was about twelve hours before the roads were blocked off. We asked the rep what our options were and he told us that in another hour there would be a bus that could take us across the boarder to Copacabana, Bolivia and then the bus company would have a ¨small bus¨ to take us the rest of the way to La Paz which was our original destination. We were pretty relieved to know that we were still going to get to La Paz the same day, and we were really only going to be delayed by about five hours.
The first bus ride was great, it was a huge double decker bus that showed up and left on time, and got us to the boarder in no time. Crossing the boarder was a lot of fun because turns out that some time ago the Bolivian President came to the US and he was charged almost $200 dollars for his visa into our country. So like a mature guy, when he returned to Bolivia he put in place a $150 visa charge for Americans only. Its a really awesome experience watching 70 other people from other countries snicker at you while you pay a small fortune and they pay NOTHING. Lynz and I had also got yellow fever shots before heading to South America because Brazil requires it to enter their country. Little did we know that Bolivia also requires AMERICANS ONLY to have yellow fever shots, so needless to say we got lucky there...or so we thought. Half way through filling out our paperwork some American kid comes up to us and is freaking out asking us if we have our yellow fever, we tell him we do and he tell us he doesn´t. We tell him good luck and thought to ourselves ¨sucks to be him¨. Well five minutes later we see him on the Bolivian side of the boarder and we ask in amazement how he got across without documentation for the shot. He replies ¨the fee for not having the shot is five bucks¨, laughs and walks away....We paid almost $150 for those shots!!!! Oh well at least spreading yellow fever around Bolivia is one less thing we had to worry about, we were now in Bolivia!

A few miles after crossing the boarder we got to the town of Copacabana where we were to change to the ¨Small bus¨. ¨Small Bus¨ in español apparently means van.

We packed in like sardines and took off on the remaining three hour ride to La Paz. The ride was beautiful, almost the entire trip was right along the shore of Lake Titicaca, and at one point we even had to jump out of the van and watch it and all of our bags get ferried across the lake while we took a separate boat.

After arriving La Paz, even as tired as we were, Lynz could not wait to go shopping with the Bolivian currency called Bolivianos. The reason being we get a 7 to 1 exchange rate on the dollar, so basically she thought we were suddenly rich! We had heard from a bunch of other travelers about the ¨Witches Market¨ where you can get potions and spell making ingredients so we were intrigued and headed that way. Turns out they are not messing around, the most popular item for sale are the Llama fetus´, frogs, snakes and other reptile bodies, voodoo dolls, and of course what witch can go a day with out glitter.

Also Bolivians are extremely fond of popcorn they literally have entire streets lined with bags of popcorn for sale, and every bag is the size of a fridge!

What Bolivians are not so fond of is having their picture taken so sorry for the lack of good photos. La Paz is an awesome city, its the highest capital city in the world, our altitude is over 12,000 feet! The locals seem to be the most friendly out of anywhere we have visited so far, and no one hassles you to buy this or that, which is a welcome change. But best of all everything is dirt cheap! Today was dedicated entirely to shopping (lucky me) and we spent the day at the ¨Black Market¨ where you could find any knock off ever made, pretty exciting if you are in need of a pair of ¨Niky¨shoes!
Well tomorrow morning we board a 20 hour bus to the town of Rurrenabaque that is famous for its jungle. We are going to go on a two night three day tour of the Pampus where we should see just about every animal that lives in the Amazon. The weather is suppose to hit almost 100 degrees every day and we will only be a few hundred feet above sea level for the first time in more then a month! With transportation to and from La Paz taking 20 hours each way, we dont expect to be back here for about a week. We hear Rurrenabaque has nice hostels but no guarantee of internet so dont be surprised if you dont hear from us for a while! Adios!

Sean & Lynz