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Machu Picchu

Wow!

It was everything I hoped it would be. Simply amazing. Humbling. Got some great pictures, shot some black and white too. Sally...you would have loved it!

Spent the night in the town of Aquas Caliente and soaked in some natural thermal springs. Very nice way to finish the trip.

Here, back in Cusco I´ve changed hotels and have a nice room, hot shower and...AND...cable television. That is a real treat. Although I´m pretty sick of 24 right about now.

I´ll be leaving Cusco Tuesday morning on a flight to Lima, in lieu of a 20 hour bus ride. In Lima I think I´m going to splash out and get a room at the Marriott. On Wednesday I catch my flight home.

I am ready to come home. The street vendors here in Cusco are particularily aggressive and will stalk you down the block to look at their wares. I offer one or two polite, ¨no gracias¨ before I completely ignore them. I am sick of it. I am minding my own business and if they choose to continue to hound me, well, to bad for them.

Am excited to see everyone again!!! Love to you all.

Cusco...the final countdown

I arrived last evening in Cusco, where I´ll spend my last week before heading home.
Cusco is magnificient. Gorgeous stone roads and footpaths. I´m staying at a hostel that requires lots o walking, up a pedestrian path and then a long staircase. It was recommended to me for it´s view of the Plaza del Armas, which is the center piece of the community. I was not disappointed.

Today I am walking around and seeing the various musuems and churches. I´m also going to book a one day tour into the Sacred Valley where I´ll see some local villages and Inca Ruins. I also need to book my train ticket to Aguas Calientes which is a village that serves as the launching site for Machu Picchu. I´ll probably stay a night or two in Aguas before heading back to Cusco. There are some kayaking tours available as well as river rafting. But it´s way, WAY chilly here...so I´m not sure about getting into a cold river.

I ended up staying in La Paz an extra 2 nights and hung out with my friends and skipping Lake Titicaca. They are a really cool group of people. One of the girls is the Spanish girl who was with me the day of the horrendous boarder crossing from Honduras into Nicaragua. The other folks are a really cool Australian girl and 3 guys from Switerland, two brothers and another guy. Except for the brothers, they´re all new friends and have been traveling together for a couple of months. I also ran into another guy I met while in Ecuador, he´s an older, retired guy. We had a really nice dinner one night too. Man, the gringo trail is full of old friends and aquaintences! I also ran into that woman I wrote about the other day who had her bag stolen off the bus I was on. Turns out, in addition to her medications, she had $2,300.00 US in travelers checks as well as 2 memory cards from previous trips to India and Thialand. OOF! She was bitter!!

Good Friday in La Paz was a quieter day than most, there was a procession of clergy with a glass casket of Jesus parading around.

I´m looking forward to returning home. I´ve had an amazing trip, a one of lifetime, for sure. But it will be nice to be home, I´m looking forward to seeing you all, everyone of you has been missed! Looking forward to driving my car, and yup..pizza ooh...sushi..that too. And....cleanliness. Mmmyeah cleanliness.

Okay, so this is where you guys can help make a smooth transition. Please keep your eyes and ears open for any apartments (but not apartment complexes..don´t like those) becoming available that are less than $1,000.00 monthly. I´m thinking the route 24 corridor, Bridgewater to Stoughton and the route 95 corridor, Wrentham to Dedham. Of course, good old Roslindale or West Roxbury are in the mix too.

Okay peeps... see yah soon! Love to everyone!

Return to La Paz

I arrived this morning back in La Paz at 7:00 am after an overnight bus from the dusty, remote town of Uyuni. It was there that I departed for my tour of the Uyuni Salt Flats and beyond. During the bus ride south on my way to Uyuni, an American woman got her bag stolen off the bus. I felt really bad for her. Her mistake was that she put her bag in the overhead container. When we stopped briefly in a random village for a bathroom break, we all exited the bus and she left her bag unattended. Another passagener swiped it.

Petty theft is rampant here. It´s mostly crimes of opportunity. I met a guy in Quito, Ecuador a couple of months ago who had his camera stolen and went to the second hand market to buy a new one. Imagine his suprise when his very own camera was there (memory card and all). He bought it again. I would have opened a can of whoop ass.

My salt flat tour consisted of 5 other tourists, plus our driver, Phille. My travel companions were really cool, everyone had a nice time together. There was a couple from Switzerland, two nice girls from Denmark and a cool guy from Holland. We drove across the vast salt flats for hours. It was blinding, but very, very cool to see. Lunch was at on an island set in the middle of the flats. We hiked around ancient coral and cool cactuses before sitting down to some lunch that our driver prepared. He was a better driver than cook.

There were probably 15 other 4X4s full of tourists doing the same tour. In fact, I ran into some friends I met back in January on Little Corn Island in Nicaragua. It´s so fun when that happens. The day after I left the island, the told me they got mugged coming back from dinner, walking through the jungle. Looks like I left just in time...

Our hotel the first evening was constructed entirely of blocks of salt. It was trippy. The floor was salt gravel, like what the plows back home spread to melt the snow. There was a gorgeous full moon that evening. It was incredible over the salt flats. There was a tiny village nearby. I and the guy from Holland went in search of some cervesas. Although we didn´t find any cold ones, I got to see a chopped off llama head. Then as I turned the corner, the llama wool, which I tried to convince myself it was just sheered wool, not the skin and wool. Not so fast, Missy. As I entered the store, there on the floor, was the llama carcus. It was then that I dry heaved before beating it out of there.

The next morning we departed shortly after sunrise. We drove for hours and hours through the desert high plains. We were far enough south that we could see some snow capped mountains of Chile. We stopped at some more salt lakes, where oddly enough pink flamingos live happily. Our second night was in even a more basic accomodation of crappy beds and little heat. We still had a nice time.

We left before sunrise the next morning and stopped first at some geisers. In the darkness we saw and heard the raging steam before carrying onto a natural thermal pool. Everyone soaked in the bath, except me. I couldn´t face getting out, all wet, and into the frigid air. After driving again through more and more desert and seeing llamas and alpacas roaming (they are so cool to see). We actually saw some wild ostreges too. I´m sorry about my shitty spelling.

Anyway when we arrived back in Uyuni, before some of us caught the overnight bus to La Paz we went to a pizza place I had been to, before starting the salt flat tour. It´s owned by a guy from Amherst, Mass. He went to UMASS where he met his Bolivian wife. I had read about the restaurant last year while researching my trip. I was glad to be able to find it. We chatted a while about life back home. That was neat.

Tomorrow morning I´m booked on a bus heading northwest, back towards Peru. I will get off in the town of Copacabana, on the shores of Lake Titicaca http://www.peru-explorer.com/titicaca.htm. Lake Titicaca sits on the Peruvian, Bolivian border. There are some islands on the lake that I plan on seeing. I hope to stay the night on one in particular, the Isla del Sol. Apparently there are also some floating islands, made entirely of reeds that some indigenous people live on. Should be interesting.

That´s all for now folks. I ran into some other friends I´d spent a week or so traveling with, so I´ll see them tonight for a bit. After the Lago Titicaca, I´ll be venturing back, across the border into Peru where I´ll make my way to Cusco and Machu Picchu. Then...home sweet home!

Ciao for now! Love to everyone. Well...everyone who writes me, that is. You know who you are!

Potosi, Bolivia

Here in south central Bolivia...high in the Andes. My South America leg seems to have a recurring Andes theme, no? Apparently the town I'm in one of the highest towns in the world. I´m staying in an old monestary. The walls didn't shake upon my arrival, so I think I'm good to go.

Today, I visited a working silver mine. Holy smokes. The working conditions are mid-evil!! The tour company gave us jump suits and helmuts (good thing) and flash lights. Our first stop was a store the miners visit daily before their shifts begin. They supply their own dynomite, and fuses. Some of them are lucky enough to have air compressed power drills, but those are the chosen few. We climbed and crawled around for two hours. Working in the mines is one of the more high paying jobs here, so people disregard the lung damage to put food on their tables. At one point I thought I was going to have a panic attack. We climbed some loose rubble and crawled into where they were drilling some newly discovered silver viens. I couldn´t see or breath (the high altitude didn´t help with the breathing) and thought I might pass out. Then I thought, how are they going to drag me out of here if I do, that thought did not help my situation. *WAIL* I quickly left my gift (we all brought small gifts to the workers. I brought alcohol...TGIF, baby) and shimmied back down where it wasn't as dusty and I could see a little better. Plus I could stand up, after I put my head between my knees. I can not imagine having to do that everyday. One of the guys, a lovely Irish chap, in my tour gave me coca leaves (and nooo...the leaves are nothing like the by-product) to help with the altitude. You stick a wad of them in your cheek, like chew. It tasted nasty, but I was desperate. I spit it out shortly thereafter, yuck. One of the girls in the tour, from Switerland, took about 3 steps into the mine at the start and turned around and waited outside for us. I think she had the right idea.

Tomorrow, I head out for a 7 hour bus ride to the town of Uyuni where I'll book a 4 day tour to the Uyuni salt flats. http://bolivia.gotolatin.com/eng/Attr/htm/Bolivia-SalarUyuni.asp
Everyone says it´s sureal when there is rain water on it. It reflects the sky like a mirror and is amazing. I´m not sure there will be connectivity there, so I might be 5 days or so before I post again.

This evening I watched a parade. I love parades. Not sure what it was about, but there was a band and lots of folks with banners and whatnot.

Love to everyone!

Bolivia

Made it across the border with no problems and bussed it to the capital city of La Paz the same day. La Paz is HUGE. It's set high in the Andes and is well built up on the hillsides. There are beautiful snow capped mountains in the distance. It's a busy, busy city with lots of people watching to do. Spent a few hours at a market. Everywhere I´ve been, I keep expecting to find big thick wool sweaters, but what they have (which are quite nice) are thin alpaca and baby alpaca sweaters. I´ve been holding out on doing any real shopping, as the last thing I want is to haul more stuff around. I did some some Cape Cod baseball caps that made me wish I'd brought my camera along. A couple of weeks ago I saw a Filene´s Basement shopping bag. That was wierd too. Stuff that doesn´t sell back home gets shipped down here. They LOVE American clothes.

Everywhere I´ve been, without exception, there are shoe shine people. Some are old men, most are little kids...6 or 7 years old..covered in shoe polish. But here in Bolivia, the shoe shine guys are outright creepy. They were ski masks so all you can see is their eyes. My Lonely Planet travel book comments on it. They think it´s because the shoe shine guys are ashamed to be doing that kind of work. Which doesn´t make sense. Here, I think, most people are just grateful to be earning some money. Dunno.

Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. I believe it. The bus ride through the city...where some of the roads aren´t even paved, makes Colombia Road look like Newbury Street. In La Paz there are tours offered to bike Bolivia's Death Road. Uhh...no thanks, I passed on that one. Mama didn´t raise no foo! I saw the History Channel documentary on the Death Road before I left and there is a reason it's called that. It's a single lane, dirt road, along the winding peaks of the Andes. There is NO room for error.

I met some people who while out in the sun, for 2-3 hours got some nasty second degree burns. They were all blisted up. People forget that even though it´s cool (because of the altitude) you really must where sun block. Ouch!

I did get nervous last night, on my way back to my hostel I ran smack into the middle of a political rally. Bush is coming (or already here..don´t know) to South America. I don´t even know if that´s what it was about. Regardless there were hundreds of people and many, many cops in riot gear. This gringa kept her head down and RAN back to my hostel. My knees were knocking for a bit thereafter.

Today I flew south to the city of Sucre. I'll be here a day or so before moving along.

Man, these computers are soooo slow. I certainly miss do my Comcast high speed internet, that´s for sure, not to mention my super cool boss and work peeps.

Well mi familia y mi amigos..gotta run. Hope all is well. Love to everyone.

Arequipa, Peru

I´m here in Arequipa today, having returned from a two tour of the Canyon del Colca where I saw some condors flying this morning. We were way high up in the Andies, snow capped mountains and a volcano were in the scenery. Here you are served coca tea to help with the altitude. Llamas and alpacas abounded. We got to pet some alpaca(the Quechua Indians have them at their craft stands) the fur was amazingly soft. They tie red or pink bow onto their animals. Usually on their ears or necks. It's funny to see them grazing in the fields with little bows on them.

Arequipa is pretty cool. I met up with some friends again for a few days, but we´ve since gone our own ways. Visited a cloistered convent from the 1500´s a few days ago. A portion of it is still in use today. Traditionally, the second daughters born to wealthy, aristrocratic families would be sent, at the age of 12, to begin training to become a nun. There she would remain for life, cloistered away, like it or not.

Okay, so I´m getting down to crunch time now and I´m going to try to fit Bolivia in. I can probably dedicate 10 days to Bolivia while still allowing time to see Cusco and Machu Picchu back in Peru. And, I fly home from Lima, Peru. Tomorrow, I´ll head to the Peruvian town of Puno where I´ll stay one night. The next day I´ll bus it to the capital city of La Paz, Bolivia. From La Paz I´ll catch a flight to my next destination, which is looking like Sucre at this point. I´m getting excited about Bolivia. Everyone I talk to says it´s amazing.

There is an issue though, the Bolivian government is about to require US residents obtain a visa before entering the country. We require visas of Bolivian residents, so fair enough. The problem is no one in the Bolivian government can agree on a start date. The latest I´ve read is April 1st, which would be fine, because I´ll beat that date. They aren´t difficult to get, I´d need to go the the Bolvian consulate in Puno and complete the paperwork pay some money (probably $30-$50 US) and wait a few days. But if they change that date to sometime this week, I´m in trouble. I don´t have a few days to wait.

I flew over the Nazca lines earlier in the week. Very cool! They were smaller than I imagined.

Ciao for now!