Welcome

Welcome to my Peru & Bolivia blog. On this trip we have 3 brothaz:

1. Siavosh (right), representing Iran and USA.
   
2. Andreas (left), representing Sweden.
3. Aleks (middle), representing a few other corners of the world

The trip consists of 3 main parts:

1. Cusco, Peru and around. This includes the main Inca centers of Machu Picchu, and the Sacred Valley
   
2. La Paz, Bolivia and around. This includes Lake Titicaca and other Bolivian experiences. Siavosh leaves in the middle of this part, while Andreas and I continue further.
3. Iquitos, Peru, and the Amazonian jungle
   

This blog is pieced together from written notes, audio recordings, pictures, and videos, so posts will trickle in one by one in the next few weeks. Stay tuned for updates.

back to Europe: The End

Back in Europe now. I forgot how green this place was! And the air is so noticeably fresh, it's summer time, everyone is rich and content.

Back to the land of good public transport, good techno, and expensive Chinese food with bad service!

back to Lima

Back to Lima now. This place feels a little bit like a home away from home. We're in a rich district. The taxi driver has a CD player and a nice stereo in the car, and he's playing Michael Jackson. There's nice roads, tons of cars, and McDonalds. Lima is a good place to take a break and get away from all the touristy stuff, it's a good transition before going back to Europe.

Here you can have a coffee at the Dunkin Donuts, go to a disco, or even go to a museum. Lima is nothing special, but maybe that's what's so cozy about it, you don't have to think about it too much. Also, while La Paz is a place where people get stuck in the middle, Lima is usually a place where gringos are on their way in or on their way out.

Jungle guide

- BANG, BANG, BANG!
- What are you doing?
- I'm killing the snake
- Is it dangerous?
- Yes, very dangerous. Most dangerous snake in the jungle
...

______________________________
Later on ...
- Look over there! See the aligators?
- No, where?
- Over there in the middle of the lake.

All we can really see is their motionless yellow glimmering eyes

- How big is the alligator?
- About 2.5 meters [the adults are that big, the picture is of a baby]
- Is it dangerous?
- No, watch the spikes on the tree.

At first we thought the guide's short yes or no answers were due to his lack of understanding of English, that he would just say yes or no even if he failed to hear what we were saying. But in 3 days we have figured out that he always heard, he always understood, and always gave the right answers.
We have learned to trust this man, his 10 years of military experience, and 7 years as a jungle guide. He speaks a little strange without maintaining eye contact, but that seems to be the custom of the locals. He is very curious about English, and other parts of the world, he's a quick learner, so I gave him my Spanish-English phrasebook as a good-bye present.

Sleeping in the jungle

Usually we have a comfortable lodge on the periphery, with (almost) all comforts of civilization.



but this night we were in the jungle in heavy rain, like this:

Pirahnas and mosquitos

Andreas: Why are you swimming in the river?
Falcon (our jungle guide): It's fresh, you should try it
Andreas: Is it safe?
Falcon: Yes (we just went piranha fishing 2 hours earlier in the same river)
Andreas: And the piranha don't bite?
Falcon: No, just a little bit sometimes.

With all the heat and sweat, this is our only shower opportunity, so we finally broke down and went for a swim. According to Falcon, the piranhas don't really eat you alive unless you're bleeding profusely. Mmm, the safety of the Amazon :)

There's also anacondas in the river, but those only come out at night.

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The biggest discomfort in the jungle is actually the mosquitos. There is an insane amount of them everywhere, you cannot even imagine. We counted the number of bites toward the end of the trip, and it turns out my right hand alone had more than 50 bites!
Andreas had more than 100 bites on his hand and arm included. And here's a picture of my back from that day:

Amazonian jungle: first impressions

(Warning: I wrote very little during this part of the trip, so the writing is going to be a beat weaker in style, and sparse in content)

In the jungle now. 1st impression: The jungle is not really as dangerous as I thought it was. the animals are mostly small and harmless. Either that or they're insects. You can walk around even at night with a flashlight, and not worry about some jaguar or alligator attacking you.



Yesterday we took a walk in the jungle during the day, and another one during the night. We saw all sorts of weird ants and spiders, and this morning we went to see monkeys!

Chilling in Iquitos

Overall this city has a feeling of a beach town, even tho there is no beach, only the Amazon river nearby.

The atmosphere is really relaxed. A lot of jewelry salemen, juice stands, and you spend a lot of time sitting around drinking juice and eating fresh fruit. To chill, we sometimes take a motorcycle taxi, because you finally get a breeze, and it's very refreshing.

As far from civilization as we are supposed to be, the club next door is still playing Rihanna, and the television shows the reality show "The most smartest model" (I guess I missed that one in the Western world). Today we ate alligator burgers

I don't think alligators are endangered species in this part of the world, so I decided to have me an alligator burger. Mmmmm, it's actually quite delicious.
If the law of karma applies, then we should be eaten by the alligators tomorrow. We're all ready for our jungle trip.

arriving to Iquitos

We arrived at 10pm and it was still 25 degrees, and about 90% humidity. Luckily we could still survive with our jackets on, but clearly we need to do something about our clothing, because the climate is vastly different to what we were used to earlier in the trip. The people here look very different than the Incas in the mountain regions. They have curly "afro" hair, shorter clothes. The main means transportation here is 3-wheeled motorcycle, and not your normal car. In fact we haven't seen that many normal cars here at all. This is also how taxis look. Buses and motorcycle are missing windows - I guess you don't need windows in this climate, or the city is too poor too afford them. The people and the climate are so different from Southern Peru and Bolivia that it feel more like you're in Vietnam or Thailand.

As soon as we got off in the airport, we had about 20 taxi drivers plus jungle tour operators trying to plug their tours to us. Everybody here knows that when a gringo comes to Iquitos, they might be interested in the jungle. The assumption is true in our case, too.

So far the best offer we had was $100 per day, but we've heard we should be able to do better.

Iquitos, on top of being really hot, is also very loud. Motorcycles of all sorts are zooming across the highways, and they all make a lot of noise both with their motors and their honking.



It's so hot, even the locals are complaining. And if you ask them if this is normal, they'll tell you that it's usually hotter than this. But I thought it was bearable, and I was expecting much worse. We could survive just fine. In our hotel we even have air conditioning.

This city is basically centered about tourism, and almost any place you go, will try to sell you their jungle tours. Everything is cheap. We needed to buy some clothes for the jungle trip, and it cost almost nothing. It's so cheap, you don't even wanna bargain, and the guys who sell you things, are so happy, you feel like you got cheated, but you convert it into dollars, and you realize, you actually got a good deal anyway.

leaving Bolivia

This is our last morning in La Paz. We woke up in freezing temperature (zero C), we have no heating in our room at all. Our taxi is the shittiest piece of machinery you could ever find. Our driver is a 70 year old man with shaking hands, and a literally whizzing breath, (seriously, it's almost like a whistle), and he's driving like a maniac! How do you say "Slow the fuck down, dude, we're not in a hurry" in español?



The airport is pretty disorganized, just like everything else in this country. Lines are long, and for some retarded reason they need copies of our passports, right before we leave.
Last thing we need to do before leaving Bolivia is pay a departure fee of $23, as if my entry fee of $100 for the Visa wasn't enough. Thanks Bolivia, it's not like I needed the money anyway.

Off to Iquitos, Peru, and the Amazon jungle.

Back to La Paz

Coming back from Coroico in the morning was a hell of a trip. The bus just went up and up and up back to the altitude of 4700m.

Last impressions of La Paz - it seems totally ... not something we looked forward to. I almost forgot how much of a headache this city was. And I mean literally a headache. All the noise, all the gas, all the polution, all the altitude, I've had enough of it. But on the positive side, we're enjoying a nice hot chocolate in this cozy rich area of town, which should brighten up our last day.

Otherwise, not much else is going on. We're just wasting our time here, and preparing for our departure.

The animal refuge - La Senda Verde

We're in Coroico Animal Sanctuary near a mountain stream. It's really great here. After the hustle and bustle of La Paz, it's really good to get away, the air is fresh, the altitude is low (only 1200m, which is essentially normal), and then there's the animals. We have capuchin monkeys, spider monkeys. A little tiny goat, which thinks it's a dog, a few real dogs, a cat, a bunch of parrots, some turkeys, howler monkeys, and squirrel monkeys. All the animals are vaccinated, and quite tame, so it's totally fine to play with them. Especially the capuchin monkeys seems to be fun, they try to pick your pockets and open up any zipper you have, they can steal a camera if you're not looking, because they're a curious bunch.




This place is quite an oasis in the middle of this country. Everything is well run. We have clean water, good electricity, and also even shampoo and soap dispensers in each one of the showers. The place is run by a South African and a few guest gringos, who stay there simply for food & shelter. The owner is also the chef who with help from a few locals, can provide food for the hoards of "Gravity Assisted" bikers that come thru each day for dinner.

We had extremely good sleep here. There's not much noise except the parrots and a donkey outside out little hut.

Today we're fresh and rested, and ready to head back for our last day in La Paz, after which we're going to be on our way to the real jungle around Iquitos, Peru.