Bike ride (from Andreas)

Andreas writes:

Yesterday was possibly the most dangerous day of my life.... Maybe it wasn't but it sure felt like it.
We woke up early in the morning and went to a coffee place. Here the guides picked up us on a bus. We left La Paz up to the mountain climbing, through the cocaine districts. Finally we came to a little lake at 4700 meters altitude. This is the highest altitude I have ever been to. Its almost as high as the highest mountain in whole Europe!

We got lots of heavy clothing, helmets, gloves and..... the bikes. Oh the bikes. These bikes cost 20000-30000 SEK ($3000-4000) and were a joy to use.
We were getting ready to hit the road, to drive down a crazy ride from 4700m to 1100m deep in the jungle. Around us the mountains were covered in snow and the sun was shining. A beautiful day. A beautiful day as long as you didn't fall off a cliff down 600 meters that is...

The guides were amazingly professional. They gave us a long lecture on exactly how we were going to drive, how we were going to take turns, how to take bumps on the road and how we were going to communicate with each other. I learned several things about bicycle riding I didn't know.

The first stretch was on asphalt.
We went fast, fast fast, the drops on the sides were not that amazing but there was traffic and long turns. This was super fun and if you like riding a bike this would be pure joy!!
After a few hours we came to a part of the road that was covered with gravel. This was the place were things was getting real scary.



Suddenly we had heavy gravel, muddy sections, waterfalls over the road, mudslides, rock slides, incoming traffic that would only leave a tiny tiny space for a rider. And of course a plunging fall next to the road for hours. If this doesn't sound bad enough we had to ride CLOSE to the fall too, so we couldn't go close to the mountain. The reason was that this was where the cars were riding and meeting a car at full speed was not an adventure anyone would want. The also told us several stories about accidents in the past. Accidents were quite common but out of 35000 persons only one person had actually died on the ride.



Riding down for hours was an amazing experience. The mountains were more beautiful than anywhere you could imagine. Deep jungle everywhere, snowy peaks, water falls and always, always the drop only 1 meter next to where you were driving. (No railing, of course).
After a while you began forgetting about the missing railing and could enjoy the ride more. The trick was always the turns in the gravel: don't take them too fast, but lean in, don't break too hard, and well... don't fall!
We rode for hours, hours and hours for an amazing 63km long trip.

After an amazing day riding the bike we came deep into the warm jungle. And the adventure didn't stop here!!

What to bring to Peru / Bolivia

On top of the expected stuff, here's something that you need specifically for a trip like ours

• Altitude sickness pills - this is number 1! We brought them just in case (Diamox), but ended up taking them almost every day between Cusco and La Paz. You can try to do without, but be prepared to lose a few days just because you can't take another step. Coca tea is another thing that helps, but its effects are only mild in comparison with Diamox.
  
• Good hiking shoes - there's a lot of mountain hiking, and if you already got the altitude pills, you can begin walking up & down the Inca stairs without running out of breath too much. Invest in good ones, and you'll be a happy camper
  
• Patience - if you're used to efficiency of the western world, take it easy, because not everything is on time, and again, because of altitude, you might wanna take it easier than usual
• A Spanish phrasebook. I recommend Lonely Planet's
• Sun screen lotion & sun glasses - the sun in the mountains during the day can be severe, so watch out
• Comfy pants with a lot of pockets
  
• Money belt
  

chill out

That evening we celebrated our survival at an awesome place called the Thelonious Jazz bar in a rich part of La Paz.

Dinamita y mineros

Security in this city is really tight. There is police at every major intersection, and a security guard with a big gun in front of every bank. Several days in a row, we've seen riot police with shields, guns, helmets, and tear gas capsules.
Today we finally had a chance to see what exactly the police were preparing for. As we strolled leisurely down the main square of La Paz, enjoying our day off (nothing in particular planned that day), we witnessed a major left-wing demonstration. It had all the predictable components: Che Guevarra flags, propaganda leaflets, and patriotic songs on the radio - just like the good old days (or something).

The nearby streets were blocked for traffic and it seemed like something was about to go down. In fact, there was a lot of noise from firecrackers (or maybe it was guns?), and some more loud BOOM noises in the distance. A few times we heard the word dinamita. It's hard to assess the danger of the situation in a new country without proper language skills, so we had to rely on looking around and making a judgement call based on people's facial expressions, and what they were doing. For the time being it seemed like nobody was worried or going anywhere, and the police were not agitated at all.

Firecrackers and dynamite - what can go wrong? It could be an everyday occurrence in La Paz.

We slowly walked away from the disturbance, and for a while everything seemed OK, back to the usual chaos of La Paz, with lots of honking, exhaust fumes, and yellers from the microbuses. But apparently the demonstration was going the same way as we were, and the Che Guevarra flags were getting closer and closer, and so were the big booms of dynamite explosions. It's difficult to keep cool and composed when big explosions approach. While firecrackers were visible and small, it was hard to tell how close the dynamite explosions were. We asked a few people if it was safe to be around here, and they said something like "No peligroso, tranquillo, tranquillo, as long as you keep your distance". But at this point, even the Bolivian onlookers were backing away and their faces turned from uninterested to worried.

Dynamite ain't no joke, so we went on side streets away from danger. No-one was really running at this point, just backing away continuously, and the traffic was a mess (more than the usual chaos here, as police frantically tried to redirect traffic away from the demonstration).



Just to clarify: the girl in the video is an Austrian au pair we met that day, who is babysitting the Bolivian child from a rich family (the child is also in the video). Around 1:43 in the video is a dynamite explosion.

On our way back a couple of hours later, the taxi driver said the area was still blocked off, and the police used some tear gas on the protesters (with my limited Spanish he may have been saying that this is what happens sometimes). Apparently the protesters were miners, and the unrest was tied to upcmoing elections, where Evo Morales may or may not be reelected.

Overall, it was a scary, but exciting day. I can totally see how some journalists like covering war zone stories.

exit Siavosh

Siavosh left this morning to pursue his American dream in Manhattan. We'll miss you, man!


Andreas and I have to continue our painfully long European vacation without him. More exciting adventures to follow, including a couple of near-death experiences.

La Paz, Bolivia: first day

One word to describe La Paz: chaotic. It's very dense, with endless crowds of people and insane traffic. Crossing the street is always an ordeal, as the drivers think honking automatically clears their path. They use the horn at every opportunity, no less than once a minute.

The air is heavy, partly because of the exhaust fumes, and partly because the city is about 3800m above sea level. We've been walking around like zombies, tired and with slow reactions to this fast-paced city. It seems more useful and safe to actually take a taxi anywhere you go, because it's cheaper, and the drivers seem to know what they're doing and how to navigate thru this madness.

The main means of public transport here is microbusses. They definitely contribute evey more noise and nasty fumes into the already polluted air of the city. On top of the honking you will inevitably hear the incessant yelling from the operators of the microbusses. Every microbus has a "yeller", whose job it is to find customers for the bus by yelling out the destination and the price louder than the competitors.

The road to La Paz

We have finally arrived to La Paz, but our journey was not uneventful, to say the least. We went on the bus from Copacabana, and the police stopped the bus in complete darkness in the middle of the mountains, looking for drugs. Then we got on a ferry-boat across lake Titicaca, which was ironically called Titanic.
I don't know if the 3 military guys with guns were supposed to make us feel safer, but the massive waves sure didn't help.
They dropped us on the other side, while the bus went on another boat. In the meantime they didn't give us ANY instruction on what to do when we got to the other side. We just stood there for 20 minutes in freezing cold, not knowing when or where the bus was gonna show up, we could have been there all night for all we knew. We kept going up & up & up the mountains, had to take the altitude medication yet again.

Arriving to La Paz was a little scary at 10pm, with strange streets with homeless people and stray dogs and tons of police. Our hotel was out of space (we arrived a day too late since we made that detour at Copacabana). After about 3 tries, we finally found a nice hotel, with good cable TV with American channels, and some episodes of Orange County. Yay!

Isla Del Sol

I haven't written anything that day, so I'm going from memory here:

Basically, Isla del Sol (The Island of the Sun) is supposed to be this great place to visit, a must-see in the travel books. It's an island in the middle of the Titicaca lake and has a Sun Temple - what could go wrong?

Well in fact as much as possible! (apparently Siavosh has a premonition on this picture). The boat that goes from Copacabana to Isla del Sol, at the first glance looks like it can carry the load of 70+ people, but in fact all that's driving it is a set of 2 standard motor-boat engines, held in place by a 10-year old boy. As a side note, child labor is no big deal in Bolivia, "make your child work for you" should be their slogan. The speed is predictably slow. It's seriously no faster than 10km/h and since the two motors are working overtime to try to pull this humongous boat they're not suited for, you are always afraid one of them is gonna fail half way into the trip.

When we arrived to the island, they gave us instructions about how to get there to the Sun Temple, but despite that, after 2 hours of walking, we didn't manage to find it, neither did most people from our boat. The boat operators couldn't care less if we found the Sun Temple, or got back to the boat in time (the adults went off for lunch, while the 10 year old boy was left to clean the motor). The inhabitants of the island often didn't know or gave us the wrong directions.

Then we went to another part of the island, and finally saw some ruins, but after all this hassle we were hoping for more than this:


Of course not all was bad that day. Long boat rides are good for nice conversation and getting to know your fellow travellers. Siteseeing-wise, the trip was still worth it, because of absolutely astonishing views of lake Titicaca.


An additional bonus on Isla del Sol was the massive cutness of piglets and herds of sheep.




Kinda makes u forget all the inconveniences :)

For magnificent views from this part of the trip, check out this link

Math

People here are not very good at math. On Isla del Sol, a woman had a hard time adding 4+4+2. Oh boy, was she scratching her head at that monstrous calculation!

A few times in Peru, people had to get out their calculators to figure out something like 40+30=70. or 15*3 = 45.

Copacabana, Bolivia

After crossing the border into Bolivia we ended up in the resort town of Copacabana. It wasn't originally on our itinerary, but everyone told us this was the place to be if you want to see Lake Titicaca, so decided to change our plans last-minute.

Here we got a really nice hotel with direct view of Lake Titicaca.


It was spacious and the beds are comfy. But that's where the first class treatment ended. For heating at night, you have to pay extra. What you get for heating is a dysfunctional electrical heater that you plug into the wall. Except the plug in the wall is totally destroyed and when you plug something in it, you see sparks. The heater itself only has 1 our of 2 heating elements working. I went down to the reception to get it fixed, and after half an hour of messing around with plyers and a fleet of about 10 dysfunctional heaters, they managed to make one of them work properly. Joy!

The shower looked normal at first, but water is heated with an electrical device whose wire is hanging over your head. I lost my appetite for showers that night. Welcome to Bolivia.

------------------

I just saw a woman run after a flock of sheep, which apparently ran away from her in the middle of the town.

Crossing the border: Peru to Bolivia

more of train impressions & Puno

Passing by Tupac Amaru Avenue somewhere in the Peruvian countryside. This is the Inca rebel after which the rapper Tupac Shakur named himself. Gangsta!



Passing by Juliaca, Peru, right before Puno. Juliaca is the nastiest town we've seen so far. It looks like a bomb hit this place, there's not a single tree, just donkeys kicking up dust, rusted out train carriages, and car parts for sale.
Disgusting. This is how I imagined Peru to be before I got here. Luckily for the most part it's exceeded my expectations by far.

Puno. We are only staying here for 1 night. Veeery cold:


The highlight of our night was getting hit on by 2 gay guys each. Hey muchachos, just because we're gringos, it don't mean we're gay too! :)

Train from Cusco to Puno

The first part of our adventure is over, and now we're on our way to Lake Titicaca and Bolivia, leaving Cusco and Machu Picchu behind. Our train from Cusco to Puno is pure luxury. While everyone else is upper-class older Europeans (pretty much exclusively English, French and German), we are the only backpackers in the place.
It totally feels like we're back in the 1950s. There is a bar and an observation deck where you can absorb the magnificent view.
This train is in such strong contrast to some of the Peruvian local busses we've had the fortune to take just yesterday. As the classical music is playing inside the carriage, we pass the rural squalor of delapidated peasant huts, homeless dogs and roaming cattle, with the amazing Andean landscape in the background.



Of course no upper-class European train ride would be complete without some good sell-out entertainment.



That was music from Cusco, and here's some music from Puno:

Ollantaytambo 2: non-Inca impressions

Ironically some of my most memorable video-moments were also here in Ollantaytambo, starting with the mind-blowing cuteness of a cat & a dog cuddling up together, and ending with some old-school plowing like I've never seen before.

Ollantaytambo 1: The Inca glory

On our way back from Machu Picchu we went to visit Ollantaytambo (don't ask me how to pronounce this). We paid for a guide who explained to us how the Inca actually moved put these huge stones with only basic tools like ropes of Llama leather, how they polished the stones and made them fit with each other so tightly.

The short story is, the process was quite crude and extremely labor-intensive. You can see more about that process in a documentary about the Inca Secrets of Lost Empires: The Inca

I liked this town, because it had a little bit of a true Inca flavor, and not the uber-touristy grand feel of Machu Picchu.

Machu Pichu 4: The walk down

On the way back to Aguas Calientes (the town below MP, where you can actually get a hotel room), we took the walking path down. Our travel book mentions that such a path exists, and that it takes about 1 hour, but I don't think any of the writers ever bothered to walk that path themselves, because they forgot to mention how boring it was. The path just keeps on going and going down and down, and then some more, with nothing interesting in sight. On top of that, this isn't just any staircase, it's an Incan staircase, with uneven steps and unpolished cobblestones. A total pain in the ... knees.




Oh well, it was fun to descend into town in total darkness, luckily among the 3 of us, we had enough patience, and skills to find our way back in the dark.

Machu Picchu 3: the lunch

In the middle of the day, we took a break for lunch. There is only 1 restaurant around, and it's $30 all you can eat buffet. After whining for a few minutes about how expensive it was, we finally decided to go for it, and the food was absolutely delicious. Best lunch I've had all year. Yumm...

Machu Picchu 2: Hiram Bingham

Standing in front of the plaque in the name of Hiram Bingham, at the entrance to Machu Picchu. He is the American scientist who showed the world Machu Picchu.

I pointed to the plaque, saying to Siavosh & Andreas "Oh that's the guy that discovered Machu Picchu!" All of the sudden an older Peruvian man said in good English "He did not discover anything! Machu Picchu has been here for thousands of years"

He was partly right, but I didn't like what he said, because MP as a settlement only existed for less than 600 years and the scientist opened up the glory of MP to the rest of the world. So I said "After all, we're here because of him".

In retrospect I should have given the Peruvian man respect for the glorious accomplishments of his ancestors and left him with his pride. But he has moved on and so have I. The mini-clash of civilizations at the entrance to Machu Picchu ended without a satisfying conclusion for either side.

Machu Pichu 1: The Inca skillz

So how was the Machu Picchu, Aleks? This is the question I have gotten the most about this trip.

First of all let's get the negative impressions over with. There's certain parts I wasn't particularly impressed with. From up close, the architecture at Machu Picchu is quite weak.

The monuments are very simplistic, the sculpture is very primitive, and even the countless staircases are just a bunch of uneven, unpolished cobblestones with protruding edges, every stair has a different size and shape.

Here's an example of their finest sculpture at the MP: The solar clock, and the Condor.

Apparently on top of being able to carry stones, and knock them with some basic tools into barely recognizable shapes, the Inca had a very vivid imagination.

Compared to, for example, Roman architecture, or the Parthenon of ancient Greece (built around 2000 years earlier), the Incan constructions are absolutely lacking finesse. It seems like the Incas were simply lacking technology for the fine & detailed stonework.

However, as an overall composition, on the grand scale, Machu Pichu gives a very good impression.


Let's remember that even in the year of 1460 (that's about when MP was built), the Inca did not have the wheel, large cattle, a writing system, iron tools or any of the prerequisites you'd expect for a great civilization.

Despite that, the Inca managed to pull of a project of this magnitude, and that is awe-inspiring. Just the sheer size of the construction is massive, especially considering how high it is. It must have been a monumental undertaking to bring up all these stones (probably millions of them) to the mountain tops.


Another thing the Incas sure got right is the location of the site. MP is surrounded by some of the most breath-taking scenery in the world.





Just in case you might want to see more pictures of this beautiful place (I can't imagine why), here's a link

Pisac, Sacred Valley

Today we went to Pisac, our first site in the Sacred Valley nearby Cusco. Here's some pictures that illustrate our experience there.

We saw our first Llama, and bought our first Alpaca sweaters, and Peruvian winter hats. All the gringos around wear the same sweaters and the same hats.

Some bike ride

Met an interesting guy yesterday. He had been in Cusco for 10 days, now on his way out

- Well I should head to Lima pretty soon, because I need to my plane back to Australia
- What do you mean? Aren't you gonna fly ... or take a bus?
- Naah, I'm biking
- How long is that gonna take you?
- Well, if i was in a hurry, it would have been 2 weeks, but I'm gonna take it easy, so it's gonna be 3.

This guy is actually biking ALL the way across the Andean peaks mountains from Cusco to Lima. Most people fly it, because it takes 2-3 days by train or bus. Don't forget the rare air, and the altitude, this is a gargantuan feat. Oh yeah, and some of this biking is slighty uphill (remember those mountains that stop the clouds? Yup, it's the same ones). I hope this guy is alive by the time he makes it to Lima.

So what's up with the strange flags?

When we arrived to Cusco, we saw a lot of rainbow flags. We weren't sure at first if this country has embraced its gay side or what the story was.

Turns out the rainbow flag is the flag of Cusco. Hah, who would have thought!

... Another interesting thing you see around Cusco is a lot of inscriptions in Hebrew! (Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that). A lot of the burger joints, falafel shops, and souvenir stores are apparently owned by Israelis. This is also true in other parts of Peru and Bolivia.

cultural observations

Siavosh has noticed that around here many restaurants have TVs, but instead of running regular TV programs, they run infomercials. So you're pretty much forced to watch junk which contains less useful information than a FOX news broadcast. It's so bad, it even has commercials in breaks between infomercials. They go for hours, so that's all you see throughout your lunch break.



Siavosh says "screw the ruins, let's just watch infomercials". Another thing Siavosh has noticed is lack of trash cans. The streets are reasonably clean, but whenever you have to throw something away, you have to look really hard for the next trash can.

But overall, we're pretty impressed with the infrastructure of this country. The roads are good, the electricity and water run fairly smoothly.

The people are nice, and nobody is trying to cheat you. We've gotten nothing but correct change back when buying things.

Rich or poor?

The Peruvian people don't seem to be that poor. Not as much as I imagined anyhow. Everybody seems to have a place to live and a plate to eat from (at least in Cusco). You don't see too many crazy psychos or alcoholics, or gangs of teenagers up to some trouble. It seems peaceful.

Peruvians will approach you with some offers, try to get your tourist money, but most of the time they back off when it's time to back off, and don't pester you that much.

Also the Peruvian people strike me as a quiet subdued people, who keep to themselves, and you never really see them getting loud, they don't talk much, even to each other. A true Peruvian pub is about 10 times quieter than a pub full of gringos.

Some Brazilians we met had some very harsh words for Bolivia, interesting how that country is gonna be ...

Cusco in the town

Cusco is much more sunny than Lima. It's a huge contrast, as you're pretty much entering another climate zone here, and this picture from the plane might explain why:


After a few hours of sufficient relaxation, we descended to look at the city center.
It's really beautiful, photogenic, fairly clean, and got a good vacation atmosphere.


But you still get reminders that this is the Third World, from countless stray dogs, and dirty kids lying on the plaza.

People approach you with offers for restaurants, tours, etc. Our taxi driver tried plugging us into his friend's hostel and taking his friend's tour of some Inca sites.

Cusco and the altitude

The first thing that happened as soon as we got off the plane is: we got DIZZY. We were wondering if we should take the altitude pills we packed "just in case", but within 15 minutes we realized it was pretty serious and the pills were very much necessary. (The pills are called Diamox, and it's a must at this altitude of 3500m, unless you wanna spend days and days panting and running out of breath instead of siteseeing).

This altitude sickness is a weird feeling. You feel dizzy and disoriented, there's a lot of pressure in your head, sometimes it feels like it might explode, the chest feels really heavy, at the hardest points it feels like it's gonna fill up with blood. So what's the hardest thing to do at high altitude? Going up the stairs. And of course Cusco is all about going uphill. Just going up to the hostel was already a challenge.

So we basically spent most of the day just getting to our hostel, settling down, and chilling in the lounge drinking our Coca-tea. Coca-tea, a.k.a. mate is everywhere, you can get it in coffee shops, bars, restaurants, anywhere at all, and it helps a bit with the altitude.

First impressions: a walk around Lima center

Surprisingly we have not seen any white people. We have not seen a single white person who is not a tourist yet. Nobody really speaks English, but that was kind of expected.
Everybody is short & brown-skinned. Every one of us sticks out like a sore thumb in this country, especially Andreas with his blond hair and blue eyes. This should be interesting ...

Just like in Japan, nobody will make eye contact with you, but unlike Japan, when they think you're not looking, you find out that people are checking you out afterwards. Heh, sneaky bastards.

The city center is pretty nice.


There is a tank and a lot of heavily armed guards in the middle of the main square. So far even though we're noticeable, nobody has tried to harrass us, aside from restaurant promoters being fairly aggressive.

Our visit to Lima is pretty brief, off to Cusco tomorrow...

First impressions: our first hotel

The hotel where we're staying, is trying to look upscale, but when you look closely, it's dirty, and the walls are yellow. The fancy classical statues that are supposed to bring you to the glory of Old Europe, are all faded out, the lamp shades have tons of dust on them, and the lock on the door looks really flaky, like anybody could just kick the door in without trying too hard.

The seemingly fancy hotel doesn't have toilet paper or soap in the bathroom. But on the positive side, there's no rats or roaches either, so we can't complain.

First impressions: riding thru Lima

We just arrived in Lima airport and riding in a taxi toward our hotel.

At first, it seemed like everything was just like Northern Europe. Cloudy skies, 15C, the taxi driver is tuned to a radio station, which plays Brian Adams and U2. The roads seem pretty well paved, they even have fresh lane markings on them.

Some guy on the street saw our taxi, and yelled out "Gringos!" with a smile on his face :) That was a fun welcome to this new country.

Turns out the radio we were listening to in the taxi was just for us, and in fact the taxi driver normally listens to something else. He switched to a different radio station, and it sounded just like Mexican radio in Los Angeles, I couldn't really tell the difference. The music was happy-happy tunes, simple rhythms and a lot of wind instruments. Not my cup of tea, but it was funny to hear.

After a while, the city looked less and less appealing, nasty, unfinished buildings, fishing strings with drying laundry started to slowly dominate the skyline. In fact a lot of Lima reminded me of poor Mexican districts of Los Angeles, just a little bit dirtier.

The air is quite unclean, mostly just exhaust fumes from cars, and not so much industrial smog. It's hard to breathe at first, but we're getting used to it quickly. On the left we have a shanty-town of hundreds of poor residents, and in front, some villas as well as the European-styled city center.