22 January 2007

Bolivia - Yungas, the mountain jungles

After our crazy mountain bike ride, we stopped in the town of Yolosa. My uncle Carlos has a small ranch in Yolosa, well technically it's another town, but just up the mountainside. Yolosa is now a sleepy town that only mountain bikers stop in, since the new paved road to Coroico doesn't stop here anymore. In truth, the bikers only stop to rest, grab a drink, and load the bikes onto the chase vans before heading up to Coroico, where they shower up in a hotel and have a nice meal.

At my uncle's ranch, we picked maracuyas (passionfruit?), mangos, and avocados. We foundso much that I carried a huge canvas back down the mountain to He's got a respectable amount of mountainside that's his ranch, and plants are growing everywhere due to the year-round warm weather and current rains. Despite so much fruit & vegetable growing, he doesn't bother to pick it and transport back to La Paz, as we learned no one can sell the produce profitably.

Our first night, we ate a delicious lechon, roasted small pig! That was the first time my uncle's mud/brick oven was used. Gerard is inspired to build one in our new home (yes that's a recent update). Also, Julie functioned as fairly effective mosquito attractant - they loved her! And fortunately lightened up on me, but I still left the Yungas with a lot of little red welts.

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20 January 2007

Bolivia - death bike ride to Coroico

Since Julie is a mountain bike enthusiast, I thought it would be fun to do a mountain bike ride in Bolivia. Shortly after Gerard, my brother, moved to Bolivia, he told us about the bike ride to Coroico. This ride takes you down what is billed as the world's deadliest road. Well, after some indecision we decided to go on the bike ride.

I would not be surprised if this label was true. I recall as a child sitting in the back of my uncle's 20-year old jeep, driving down a single lane dirt road from La Paz to Chulumani, in the Yungas region, and looking just 3 feet past the car to a 1000-foot or longer drop down a steep mountainside to a rocky river below. At the time I thought it was really cool to watch as we would stop on a narrow pull-out as a truck or bus drove the opposite direction, just inches from my uncle's jeep.

I can assure you the dirt road to Coroico looks just like the road to Chulumani. There is no guardrail, it's single-lane, and the downhill side of the road is dirt covered by grass and occasionally some of it collapses down the mountainside during the rainy season. At some points you can stop and look down to see the mangled remains of a car, bus or truck that drove just a little too close to the edge and fell down.

Fortunately, nowadays the bike ride is relatively safe. There is now a separate paved road from La Paz to Coroico, and most buses and trucks go on this road. I think we only saw 1 or 2 cars that drove uphill as we biked down the dirt road.

The morning of our bike trip, we had lunch at the hostel in La Paz where the buses leave to take us up to La Cumbre. Julie and I were pleasantly surprised to see 2 of our friends there, Graeme and Sarah from Australia, whom we met hiking on the Inca Trail! We quickly caught up and learned they were delayed into Bolivia a few days due to the stomach virus they caught the night we finished the Inca Trail hike.

The tour starts with a 30-minute drive up to La Cumbre pass at 4000 meters altitude. Even in the summer it's cold up there! This is the start of the ride, about an hour's ride on asphalt towards Coroico.

We had a few brief stops for pictures, snacks and to ensure the group stayed together. We also had 2 narcotics stops along the road. I don't know why you have to stop for a drug check going into the Yungas, since they grow the coca leaves there, and not in La Paz...

So at nearly noon we arrived at the start of the dirt road. We had already had a dropout, a young girl who went too fast on the street and lost control of her bike, flew off and needed stitches on her chin. There is about another 2 hours left to go, and it's all downhill dirt!

The dirt road is quite rocky, and I found myself nearly sliding a bit on all the curves as I got used to the bike and the road. Luckily there is no one but bicyclists on the road, so it's not really that scary anymore. We had a few more photo and food stops to admire the scenery. It was neat to feel the change in temperature as we biked downhill into mountain jungle, and see the change from alpine scrub to tropical forest. We had fun biking through a rainy-season waterfall on the road, and biking across 2 small rivers!

At mid-afternoon we finally arrived at the bottom, at a town called Yolosa at 1100 meters altitude, or 3600 feet. Here Julie and I left the group to meet my uncle Carlos and my dad, who were staying at my uncle's ranch just above Yolosa, so that we could also spend the weekend in the Yungas. We were quite glad to make it safely to the bottom!

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19 January 2007

Bolivia - Sucre

After only 1 1/2 days in Potosi, we took yet another bus to Sucre, a beautiful colonial town which used to be the capital of Bolivia. We took a pleasant afternoon bus to the town - no more night trips! It was great to see some of the mountainous countryside into Sucre, and to get a feel for this historically rich city.

We thought about getting a hostel near the main market area, but after poking around 2 places, we decided we wanted some luxury. So we went to the main plaza and booked a room in one of the nicest hotels in the city. 24x7 hot running water, a TV, a giant queen bed, and a full breakfast was ours for only $50! Gotta love exchange rates :)

That night, we met up with Gerard's old coworker and friend Andres. They used to work together at Aid to Artisans. Andres took us up to a wonderful lookout spot where we met some of his friends and enjoyed some delicious hot cocoa & coffee while watching the sun go down over the city.

Sucre is a beautiful city and worth a visit if you're in Bolivia. It's nestled in-between the mountains, and used to be the home of the rich Spaniards who owned mines in Potosi. As it was the former capital, there is also many universities in Sucre who lay claim to some of South America's most famous students, like Simon Bolivar. The universities are still quite prestigious even after Sucre's fade from prominence.

The following day, we visited the textile museum - definitely a must-see! Both my brother Gerard and Andres highly recommended it as the textiles are world-class. The museum was started so that the local weaving traditions and patterns could be preserved. The various tribes in the area all weave different patterns into their work so it's fascinating to see the differences. Julie took tons of pictures which you should see on flickr!

Later in the day we walked around the town a bit. We hung out in the plaza, which was quite fun. Sucre feels like it's got a lot of energy because there are so many college students there. We definitely felt the difference compared to so many other towns in Bolivia.

Our other activity was a tour of the old government meeting hall. Here we got to see photo of all the past & present Bolivian presidents, the original congress room, and saw a copy of the Declaration of Independence! It was great to learn about Bolivia's independence and hear about South America's struggle for independence from Spain. I honestly didn't know much, since I didn't grow up in south america, nor did I ever think to ask my parents, so to learn about the history of my parent's native countries was quite a moving experience for me.

Well, unfortunately our visit to Sucre was brief. We took a flight early in our 3rd day in Sucre back to La Paz. But we left feeling quite refreshed from the city's energy and the 2 high-class hotels we stayed at! Now we were ready for new adventures!

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17 January 2007

Bolivia - Potosi

Immediately after our adventure in Uyuni, we boarded a bus to Potosi. At first we thought it would be only a 5-7 hour drive, putting us in Potosi around midnight to 2, but the bus company said we'd arrive at 3 am! We finally made it to Potosi at 5 am!

Lesson learned - be very careful travelling in Bolivia during the rainy season, and don't make travel plans that rely on tight timing - it's not like in the US!

Potosi used to be the most important city in South America. The Incas revered the mountain of silver and the Spaniards were astonished to find silver literally busting out of the mountain. Thereafter began centuries of mining and exporting of silver - I think it's impossible to calculate the $$ that came out of the mountain!

Today, Potosi is now a ghost of its former self. There is still substantial mining going on which pulls out miniscule amounts of minerals by hand. Most of the rock is now shipped out of the country for processing. Unfortunately mining seems to be one of the few professions in this high-altitude, mountain-desert town.

Some enterprising miners have given up their work to provide tours in the mine, which is one of the reasons we went to Potosi. We toured one of the coop mines, and even bought dynamite in the town's "miner" market to give to the miners as a gift! It's customary to bring drinks or coca leaves for the miners. It is really hard work in hot & dusty conditions; they are underground 8-10 hours a day, only coming out at the end of their shift. Our tour guide is a part-time miner now and even had us participate in the work a little bit to understand how hard the conditions are.

We also walked around town a little bit, to see the historical sights. We did the tour of the mint, Casa de Moneda, and saw the old coins that were made in Potosi. The mint is definitely worth seeing how they used to make old coins, the semi-precious stones mined in the area, and artifacts recovered from pre-Inca sites around the area - the child mummies are a little creepy!

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16 January 2007

Bolivia - Salar de Uyuni

Once back in La Paz from our Inca Trail hike to Macchu Picchu, we started making plans for our next visit to see the salt flats in Uyuni. We were lucky to get train tickets to Uyuni as we decided to try to leave right away, having learned that my father was coming to Bolivia the following week! Ignoring the advice of most of my family, we decided to book the 3-day Uyuni tour in La Paz as we didn't want to potentially lose a day checking around in Uyuni.

A visit to Uyuni starts with a 3 hour bus to Oruro, which is an old mining town and now famous for its Carnival celebrations. From there, we took a 10 hour train ride to Uyuni. We managed to get some naptime in and even saw flamingoes on some of the lagoons on the way!

We arrived in Uyuni around 10 pm, about on time, and were met by a representative from Colque tours since our original hotel they booked for us was not available, so we moved to another hotel nearby. Fortunately Uyuni is a small town, so all the agencies, hotels, and bus companies are near each other, which made it easy for us to book our bus from Uyuni to Potosi in a few days.

The next day we started our Salar de Uyuni tour. We ended up with a Brazilian hippie chick, the funny-speaking Spanish/Chilean college student, and 2 Japanese tourists. Fortunately we all spoke spanish or english! Our tour started at the train graveyard near Uyuni. It merits this 1-sentence comment but that's really all there is to it. Next, we headed off to the Salar - yeah! Oh, but first is the requisite tourist souvenir stop in the next town to gawk at salt rock statuettes, salt-brick buildings, and a few llamas.

Ah, finally we arrived at the Salar de Uyuni. We were told that due to recent rains we wouldn't go all the way through the salt flats to the lagoons, but only to the salt hotel. Well, when we arrived I didn't think we'd go anywhere! The salt flat was a flat, huge mirror due to recent rains. However, this didn't faze our driver - he drove right onto the Salar and away we went! Wow! You have to see the pictures to believe it. Imagine the ground being a perfect, smooth mirror reflecting everything above it. The salt was still hard-packed, so the jeeps could drive on the Salar, and we got out and walked around a little. We didn't have any wind, and it was incredible to see the mountains in the distance and the clouds perfectly reflected off the water. It seemed like we were in another world. We also looked at the little salt mounds that grew from salt bubbling up from underground - it reminded me a lot of the tufas at Mono Lake in California's Sierra Nevadas.
Next, we drove to the Salt Hotel, which is not far into the Salar de Uyuni. Interesting place as it is completely made out of salt except for the doors and roof. Really! They have bed platforms, benches, seats and tables all made out of salt.

After this interesting stop, we went back to the neighboring town for a lunch of llama meat, salad and quinoa. After lunch, we swung by Uyuni to pick up our luggage and head off to our evening accomodations southwest from Uyuni. This was about a 3 hour drive, coupled with a drive through 2 towns because all the other jeeps had gotten the better accomodations. Well, I guess you can call it accomodation - they had little beds, a common room to eat in, and a pay shower. We were told the next night's accomodation didn't have a shower!

Day 2 included a variety of sightseeing stops. We stopped at Laguna Herionda, which was full of flamingoes. Apparently 3 of the world's 6 species of flamingoes lives in Bolivia! We also visited the stone tree, an area full of wierd rock formations. I rock-climbed (bouldering, really) a few monuments, which was really hard work at 4500 meters above sea level! Whew! Our final destination was Laguna Colorada, which appears as a pink-red lake when the sun is shining, has a good number of flamingoes hanging, and we also spotted a few llamas and viscachas (rabbit species) around the lagoon. This was the nicest spot of the day, and we had all the time we wanted around the lagoon as we stayed at the hostel beside the lake! Our night was quite interesting - we met a group of Brazilians with another tour agency and also a small group of guys doing a South American motorcycle tour!!! Very cool - there was even an American travelling through the Americas on a little Japanese dual-sport; I dunno how he was doing it because his seat didn't look all that comfortable...

Our last day proved to be the most interesting, and tiresome. We woke up at 4 am in order to see the sights and reach the Chilean border by 9 am. We saw some geysers and mud pools, and then drove to another lagoon with a hot mineral water pool where we relaxed before breakfast.

On our way to the border with Chile our jeep had a flat. This was not unusual as we and many other jeeps had flats during the 3-day trip. This time, however, our driver decided to tie the flat tire to the roof with the other luggage, but as he was finishing, he fell off the roof! We rushed over to see how he was. We were definitely worried when he mentioned he was in some pain and took a closer look at his wrist - it was certainly bent in an odd way. Strangely, our driver insisted he was OK and wanted to keep driving. Luckily all 6 of us protested to the contrary, and we finally convinced him not to drive - I think he would have passed out from trying to manage the stickshift and steering wheel... Only 2 of us could drive, myself and the Chilean college student... can you guess who drove that day???

Well, I felt kinda ready since I've done some off-road driving, but the Salar de Uyuni trip is all dirt roads. I was facing 9 hours of dirt road driving, ranging from a dirt "highway" to true off-road including 2 river crossings. During the drive we also had to drive through a lot of big water puddles and a few very muddy sections 1 to 2 feet deep! What an adventure. Not only did we have to contend the roads, but we also had to deal with a gate placed across the highway by a neighboring town, and then the town along the highway decided to blockade their section of highway to protest the illegal gate. Go figure... Unfortunately this all too often is the norm in Bolivia, with people protesting a situation they don't like and not at all thinking about the negative consequences of their actions. It is amazing how narrow-minded the Bolivian mindset can sometimes be, and it was particularly disconcerting to me considering that most of my dad's family is born & raised there, including my dad.

To cap off our day, we took a bus from Uyuni to Potosi that night, which is normally a 5 to 7 hour trip. They told us that the 7 pm bus would arrive at 3 am (that's 8 hours) due to the rains and it actually arrived at 5 am. Our bus was a local's bus, which meant every seat was full, along with every square inch of the aisle taken up by additional passengers. Thank goodness there were no fire hazards!

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11 January 2007

Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu

Our first day on the Inca Trail had an interesting start. First, we waited over half an hour for SAS Travel to pick us up from the hostal. I walked down to the office to see if anyone was there; of course not, being it was only 6 am! Luckily an SAS bus happened to drive by, so I flagged it down and they took me back to the hostal. There I found Julie getting onto our bus. Apparently they forgot to come pick us up! We were lucky there was another SAS travel group leaving for the Inca Trail too!

Our drive out of Cusco to Ollantaytambo was uneventful. From the town of Ollantaytambo we drove another 15 minutes to the start of the Inca Trail. Well, it should've been 15 minutes, except another bus was trying to drive the opposite direction on the road, which was a dirt road only about 1.5 lanes wide! This episode took about 15-20 minutes as we inched closer and closer to an adobe house, and the other bus tried to inch closer and closer to the other side of the road, which dropped down to a cornfield. Amazingly both buses managed to pass each other with only 1 or 2 inches to spare!

We finally arrived at the trail head, and were each given a grocery bag full of snacks! This was unexpected! We quickly learned we always had plenty to eat. Hiking the Inca Trail with a reputable tour agency is kinda like trekking with hobbits in Lord of the Rings; we had breakfast before starting the day's hike, mid-morning snacks, lunch, afternoon tea and then dinner each day!

The first day's hike isn't all that exciting. Basically we hiked partly up a mountain, passing a few villages before arriving at our designated camping area. But it gave us a chance to get to know our fellow travelers; Neil and Graeme from a little town in UK; 3 recent UK grads, Neal, John and ??; 2 Ozzies, Graeme and Sarah whose families are close friends; "Gringo" Bill, the military media consultant; a Russian couple; and Alex, a recent US college grad. We learned few South Americans are now found on the trail, since they have to pay the same prices as other tourists - $300 to $400 per person on average!

Day two proved to be more challenging. Each group hikes up 4 hours from their campsites (ours at 3100 meters / 10200 feet) through Dead Woman's pass at 4200 meters (13800 feet). From here, it's 600 meters elevation down to the first campsites, another 2 hour hike. While it's quite tiring to hike up to the pass, it is beautiful to hike through temperate forest, beech forest, and alpine scrub filled with tiny orchids and flowers. Even though I stopped a lot to catch my breath, I ended up taking lots of photos on the way up because there was so much flora to look at!

After stopping for lunch at the campsite, our main guide Saul asked if we wanted to continue. We had the option to hike 3 more hours to the next camp area, which would save us 3 hours the following day, and allow more time to visit the many Inca ruins that we would see on Day 3. Most of us opted to keep going, so a democratic vote in favor meant we hiked 3 more hours on Day 2. I could tell a few people in the group were getting really tired, but I think they were happy to know we could sleep in an extra hour on day 3. I know I was!

Day 3 was exciting. We hiked through 2 small tunnels the Incas carved, and saw more spectacular valleys and mountains. Not only was the panorama beautiful, but we also stopped to see and learn about several Inca ruins. Many of these included outposts and connection points between several major Inca trails, as well as some religious sites and agricultural research areas. Pretty interesting to learn the Incas did a lot of research on astronomy, architecture, and agriculture! (A side note - I learned from reading 'Guns, Germs and Steel' during our travels that the Incas & Aztecs took several centuries to cultivate corn from a small thumb-sized cob to today's edible cobs)

Our campsite on Day 3 was quite luxurious. It included a restaurant and hot showers. Yay! We ate inside the restaurant, although the food was prepared by our porters and cook. However, this dinner was accompanied by beer & wine, unlike our other meals on the trip ;)

Day 4 was an early start to make it to the Sun Gate just after dawn, to get an early morning look at Macchu Picchu (MP). And what a beautiful view it was! We had a phenomenal sunrise to usher in a sunny morning hike to MP. Upon arriving at MP, we stopped for a break and for half the group to check-in their backpacks, which are not allowed into MP. Only day-backpacks are allowed into the ruins.

We had a 1-hour tour of the ruins with our guides, learning about the various religious and key architectural details of MP. After the tour, several of us decided to hike up Wayna Picchu, one of the mountains on the side of MP, which also has some ruins. We hiked up and had great panoramic views of MP and the valley surrounding us.

After hiking back down to MP, we picked up our belongings and got onto one of the many buses that take people down the mountain to the town of Aguas Calientes. We couldn't have timed it better - it started to rain as we waited for the bus! Also, this is a nice benefit of booking the Inca Trail with a reputable agency - some of them also provide tickets for the bus ride down the mountain & lunch afterwards, rather than having to hike down another hour to Aguas Calientes.

After another tasty meal and hot shower, we headed back to Cusco and picked up our belongings we had stored in town at a hotel next to SAS Travel. Julie and I tried to get a quick dinner so that we could make our return bus to La Paz, but the hotel took a long time, getting our food just in time for us to wolf it down and race over to the bus terminal in a taxi. We arrived only 10 minutes before the bus left town - and it actually left on time!

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10 January 2007

To Cusco and prep for the Inca Trail

One of our goals on our honeymoon trip was to hike the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu. Even though we planned it at the last minute, we were fortunate to be traveling during the low season, so it was easy to arrange transportation from La Paz, accommodation in Cusco, and the tour. We actually took a bus from La Paz to Cusco for 2 reasons. First, we thought it might be nice to see the altiplano scenery in Bolivia and Peru, and second, we learned there are no reliable, cheap flights from La Paz to Cusco. It would have cost $400-500 each to take 2 connecting flights, while the bus was USD$40 round-trip and 2-3 more hours each way, so it was a no-brainer. Plus, with the money we saved by not flying, we could buy more artisan crafts from my brother's friends!

Generally, you spend 2-3 days in Cusco before starting the Inca Trail, to acclimate to the altitude. Cusco is 3500 meters above sea level, which is about 2 miles. Since we had been in La Paz for a week, we didn't have to spend the time in Cusco, but we did arrive early to finalize our tour booking and arrange for a return bus ride.

In Cusco we stayed at the Hostal de Ninos. This hotel was started by a Scandinavian lady who wanted to stay and help some of the poorer kids in Cusco. She started the hostel and several other small enterprises to fund schooling and food to some of the children in the city.

After arriving from a long day's journey across the Bolivian and Peruvian high plains, we had a great night's sleep and breakfast at the hotel. The next day we took care of administrative stuff like paying for our Inca Trail tour and finding bus tickets back to Cusco, and then took a taxi to go see one of the famous ruins near Cusco, called Sacsayhuaman. It's pronounced kinda like "sexy woman" - it's quite fun to talk about it!

We learned you have to buy a tour pass to see the ruins. Well, I knew that already, having visited Cusco a few years ago, but we thought we could sneak in or maybe pay to see just one of the ruins. The park ranger would have none of it, but after a lot of negotiation they let us in to see the ruins for the price of only 1 partial tour pass at 40 soles, or $13. The full tour pass for all 10 ruins is now 70 soles, compared to 30 soles only 3 years ago!

No one is exactly sure what Sacsayhuaman was. Most believe it was a fortress/castle due to the layout and location. There are massive rock walls with carved stones over 10 feet high and some of them have multiple corners and angles carved into them. One of the amazing features of Inca architecture is that the most important military and religious buildings have walls made of huge stones carved to fit precisely together without the use of mortar, and nearly every stone will have different angles cut on its sides. It is quite different than ancient European architecture, where stones are cut into simple squares or rectangles. In a few places I saw stones with 10, 12 or even 14 corners/sides or more!

After walking around the large ruins of "sexy woman", we walked back down to Cusco. It's a quick 20 minute walk back into the city along an ancient Incan path. I find it amazing that Incan architecture is still usable on a daily basis even after more than 500 years! We had a quick lunch near the main plaza, called Plaza de Armas, and then walked down to the Temple of the Sun, which is in Cusco. This used to be a key Incan temple, and now showcases Incan architecture and Jesuit art and architecture.

The Spaniards destroyed most of the temple, kept the foundation and built a monastery on top of the Inca foundation. However, in the subsequent years strong earthquakes destroyed the monastery, while the Incan foundation was still intact!

That night we had a briefing session with our tour operator, SAS Travel, where we met our two guides, Saul and Juan, and our fellow hikers. Our group was 13 tourists, and we learned people were from all over the world; Russia, Australia, UK and USA. We also received duffel bags and plastic bags to hold our belongings and sleeping pads, since Julie and I paid a little extra to have porters carry our belongings. I wanted us to spend our time enjoying the hike and scenery rather than being tired from schlepping a backpack at high altitude.

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02 January 2007

Bolivia-Copacabana, Isla del Sol, and cuisine

After spending Christmas at both Julie's and my parents' places in Fremont and Miami, we flew to Bolivia on Dec 29 to visit my family and go sightseeing.

We were excited because my cousin Andrea invited us to spend New Years at Copacabana and Isla del Sol, both which are on Lake Titicaca. It would be a great opportunity to visit these 2 famous areas in Bolivia.

When we arrived at La Paz airport, my aunt Teresa and Andrea were there to greet us. There we learned that we were supposed to leave early the next morning (Dec 30) to go to Copacabana. Oops! A little miscalculation on my part. Normally this would not be an issue, but it's important to understand that upon flying into La Paz, nearly everyone gets altitude sickness. The airport is at 3600 meters or 11,800 feet! So my aunts & uncles were a little nervous about us going off and camping/hiking/whatever a day after our arrival.

I wasn't worried about the altitude, but what we were supposed to bring to Isla del Sol. I didn't know if we were staying hotels or camping out! With little info to go on, we packed our sleeping bags and plenty of warm clothes.

The next morning we took the bus from La Paz to Copacabana. Taking a bus in Bolivia can be an interesting experience. There are many 20+ year old buses that are colorfully painted and are a key transportation mode in Bolivia. The road to Copacabana includes a stop at Tiquina, where we had to get off the bus and take the little boat ferries across the other side of the lake, just a short 1/2 km ride. The buses, trucks and cars crossed via large flat ferries. After a 3 hour trip, for just 20 Bolivianos (USD$2.5) we finally arrived at Copacabana. Here, we quickly arranged our boat transport to Isla del Sol.

We had lunch in Copa. Apparently the trout is supposed to be good here... Well, after eating loads of seafood in NZ and fresh steamed fish Chinese-style at Julie's parents' house, a pan-fried fish filet was just average. During our month in Bolivia, we quickly learned that Bolivia is not known for its excellent cuisine. However, we quickly fell in love with the soups - this country seems to be the capital of soup! yum!

The boat ride from Copacabana to Isla del Sol is 1.5 to 2 hours on a small ferry boat for about 25 people. There are great views of the lake border as you approach the island and it is just amazing to see such deep blue water!

We stopped at south end of Isla del Sol at the little town of Yumani. We planned to spend the night at a hostel here. But first, we had to climb up the 1000 Inca steps and see the Fountain of the Incas! Uh oh... this was definitely not the thing to do less than 24 hours after arriving in Bolivia!

Luckily the 1000 steps are not that many, maybe more like 200. But it took us quite a while to walk up, me with a 40-liter pack on my back. The reward was seeing a 500-1000 year old Inca fountain still flowing with water - the Incans were amazing architects!

We had a lot of drama finding a hostel. We had to hike to the top of the town just to try to find a decent hostel, which was quite tiring for Julie and I, and finally my cousin's friend settled on a so-so hostel; we learned many were already full. The upside was that we had amazing sunset views, with the typical red-fire sunset accompanied by dozens of lightning flashes off in the distance - wow!

The next day we set off for the ruins. That night, we learned that hiking to the north end was a 3-hour trip and we probably would've had to hike back, due to the limited boat schedule. Well, half of us weren't up to 6-8 hours of trekking, so we opted to take a boat ride to a nearby town and and do the short walk to the ruins.

We had a nice 45 minute walk up to the ruins, with a big impromptu tour group, and learned about the place where the Aymaran culture (pre-Inca) believes the world started. There was a big rock shaped like a puma, another rock in the shape of a diety's face, and a set of Aymaran ruins that used to house a small colony of priests. One of my cousin's friends even got a blessing from the priests at a small altar.

Back to Copacabana by boat. We had another night in a hostel in town, as we decided to spend New Year's here rather than on the island. We sort of had running water - Julie and I managed to take a warm shower! Later that night the workers had to carry buckets of water to the roof to refill the water tank!

Well, we had a great New Years watching fireworks all over the town. We had a little bubbly at the hotel rooftop balcony taking it all in. That night we had picana, a typical Bolivian dish for Christmas or New year, which was a 3-meat stew with corn and potatoes. Not bad except for the toonta potatoes.

One thing there is a huge variety of in Bolivia and Peru is potato. Apparently there are hundreds of varieties, including some potatoes that are dehydrated and others freeze-dried. Incredible what the pre-Incan cultures discovered. There are 2 main dehydrated/freeze-dried potatoes. Chuna is the dark-colored one, and Toonta the white one. While chuna tastes like a rehydrated potato, it's interesting and tasty, toonta was our least favorite potato - it tasted like crap! literally...

The next day we woke up at 9 am (yes!) after dancing until 3 AM... Luckily everyone else got up just before we did. Since our bus wasn't until 3 or 4 pm, we wanted to do a short hike in town and decided to hike up Calvary hill in town. It's supposed to have great views of Copacabana and the lake, so we went. We learned there are 12 crosses on the way up, which represent the 12 stations in Christ's crucifixion, and the Catholics supposedly stop at each cross, say a prayer and a wish, and toss a little pebble onto the cross to make the wish come true. I thought it was a nice way to remind us to pray, so Julie and I did this on our way up.

The views at top were indeed fantastic. In addition to the typical South American shrines, what was also interesting at the top was this pagan ritual of renting a small plot of dirt and putting a mini house, garden and cars on it. Apparently this miniature home was to represent the real things you wanted, so you bought miniatures, set them up, and some old guy blessed the whole thing with a prayer and splash of beer.

Well, OK. After taking in the views, we hiked down, had another average lunch of trout, and returned to La Paz via bus. All in all, we had a fascinating introduction to Bolivian customs and managed to stay healthy!

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