A guest post from my friend Leah currently travelling in Bolivia
Hi all! I´ve made it to Bolivia! I´m now officially travelling on my own, although since Michael headed back to the old US of A I really haven´t done much travelling alone at all. Yesterday in Cusco I was adopted by my grandfatherly taxi driver, Victor, who took me to meet the extended family. I had tea and mango pie and cheese sandwiches with them, watched some soccer, and had a place to dump my pack until my bus to Bolivia left that evening. Victor then firmly scolded me to never trust strangers again and sent me on my way.
I just spent the last three days in Copacabana, which is actually quite a laid back little town. I´m now tagging along with two American sisters from Colorado. They´re both quite the adventure types (one is a ski instructor, one is a trek guide) so we went sailing on Lake Tititcaca (we had no wind and rowed an awful lot), and hiked to the Temple of the Sun (I am now officially sick of Inca ruins). Does anyone remember the Lake Titicaca song from Animaniacs?
There´s large scale strikes in Bolivia at the moment demanding the nationalization of the gas and petroleum industry, which really hasn´t affected me at all, except that the main roads in and out of La Paz have been closed, so we had to take and infrequent, more expensive, roundabout bus into the city today... but it was totally uneventful and fine.
I survived the Inca trail and a mini-expedition into the Amazon basin of Peru with only about 3.2 million mosquito bites to show for it. The Inca trail was the poshest hiking I´ve ever done... the porters carry all the big stuff, set up everything, including a dining tent complete with dining table, camp stools and hot four course meals. The porters-- mostly local quechua farmers making some money on the side-- are amazing. They run up and down the steep trails, at about 3000 meters altitude, wearing little leather sandals and carrying these giant packs, and still always beat us tourist hikers to camp by at least an hour. Our group was a crazy pack of Brits, Aussies and Irish. Apparently everything us ignorant Americans would say meant something dirty in British or Aussie slang, for everyone´s entetainment. But I learned my share of slang, and wanker and root have now been incorporated into my vocabulary.
Our jungle excursion was mostly a nice leisurely motorized canoe ride down the Pariamanu and Madre de Dios rivers for two and a half days... but we saw macaws and lots of river birds, a bunch of monkeys, tons of lizards, millions of mosquitos, giant metallic blue butterflies, tarantulas, we caught a baby caiman (adn then let it go), and saw giant river otters from quite a distance. Not bad at all. I also saw the biggest pig I´ve ever seen being walked on a leash, and saw a sunbathing turtle with a butterfly perched on his head, which I found quite delightful.
Tonight I ate alpaca (llama) steak for dinner... it´s pretty common here and supposedly like a third the fat of beef... check it out at your local neighborhood grocery store.
On that note, I will say adios, and I will do my very best to be good at keeping in touch.
Love,
Leah
I just spent the last three days in Copacabana, which is actually quite a laid back little town. I´m now tagging along with two American sisters from Colorado. They´re both quite the adventure types (one is a ski instructor, one is a trek guide) so we went sailing on Lake Tititcaca (we had no wind and rowed an awful lot), and hiked to the Temple of the Sun (I am now officially sick of Inca ruins). Does anyone remember the Lake Titicaca song from Animaniacs?
There´s large scale strikes in Bolivia at the moment demanding the nationalization of the gas and petroleum industry, which really hasn´t affected me at all, except that the main roads in and out of La Paz have been closed, so we had to take and infrequent, more expensive, roundabout bus into the city today... but it was totally uneventful and fine.
I survived the Inca trail and a mini-expedition into the Amazon basin of Peru with only about 3.2 million mosquito bites to show for it. The Inca trail was the poshest hiking I´ve ever done... the porters carry all the big stuff, set up everything, including a dining tent complete with dining table, camp stools and hot four course meals. The porters-- mostly local quechua farmers making some money on the side-- are amazing. They run up and down the steep trails, at about 3000 meters altitude, wearing little leather sandals and carrying these giant packs, and still always beat us tourist hikers to camp by at least an hour. Our group was a crazy pack of Brits, Aussies and Irish. Apparently everything us ignorant Americans would say meant something dirty in British or Aussie slang, for everyone´s entetainment. But I learned my share of slang, and wanker and root have now been incorporated into my vocabulary.
Our jungle excursion was mostly a nice leisurely motorized canoe ride down the Pariamanu and Madre de Dios rivers for two and a half days... but we saw macaws and lots of river birds, a bunch of monkeys, tons of lizards, millions of mosquitos, giant metallic blue butterflies, tarantulas, we caught a baby caiman (adn then let it go), and saw giant river otters from quite a distance. Not bad at all. I also saw the biggest pig I´ve ever seen being walked on a leash, and saw a sunbathing turtle with a butterfly perched on his head, which I found quite delightful.
Tonight I ate alpaca (llama) steak for dinner... it´s pretty common here and supposedly like a third the fat of beef... check it out at your local neighborhood grocery store.
On that note, I will say adios, and I will do my very best to be good at keeping in touch.
Love,
Leah
posted by springmeus at 10:17 PM
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