So it turns out 11 hour bus journeys are perfect for blog catching up:
Ali and I had a slight inconvenience to our onwarBolivia
ls in the form of protests on the road between Cusco and Puno so none of the bus companies were running the day we wanted them to. This wasn't the end of the world as it just meant we spent another day chilling in Cusco which is a truly beautiful town and spent some more time with my friend Liv :) we even got to visit a chocolate museum and its safe to say we made the most of the free tasters! And then a day later than planned we caught our 6 hour night bus to Puno, a Peruvian town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Thankfully we had organised with a tour company that they pick us up from the bus terminal at 5am and they took us to their office which seemed much more like a woman's apartment where we freshened up and waited for our tour of Lake Titicaca, the largest, highest altitude lake in the world!
Our tour took us on a little motorboat to the Uros Floating Islands which are islands lived on my indigineous, quechua speaking people and they are entirely made up of layers and layers of reeds floating in the water. It was a very strange sensation walking on the springy ground and I felt like I might fall through at any moment...thankfully I didn't! We then headed further into the stunningly blue lake with a piercingly blue sky overhead to Isla De Taquile where we walked across the islands for about an hour (yes, more walking!) until we reached the central plaza and then ojr lunch spot. The island had the most incredible views over the water but was extremely remote, being 2 and a half hours on a boat from the mainland and I don't think I would have wanted to live there but it was interesting to learn about the culture and lives of the people there. It was then 3 hours back on the boat, where I fell asleep in the sun and stylishly burned one side of my face - not cool!! I said a tearful goodbye to my aunty Ali and she headed to the airport to fly back up to Lima and then home and I found myself a little hostel to stay in.
The next afternoon, after wandering around pretty nondescript Puno for the morning and finding myself a 20p lunch, I jumped on a bus and crossed the border over into Bolivia. I was amazed by how easy and smooth the crossing was. I got off on the peru side, went into the office, got the stamp, walked up the hill to the Bolivia side, got my entry stamp to bolivia, changed my Peruvian soles to Bolivian bolivianos (imagined name huh?!) and then hopped back on the bus and continued on our way!! An hour or so later, I arrived in the beautiful tourist resort of Copacabana (the Bolivian one not the Brazilian one). Found myself a luxury private room in a hotel with a view over the lake and watched the sun go down magnificently. The next morning I found myself a boat that took me, and others, to the north end of Isla del Sol (island of the sun) which is another stunning island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. I spent the day walking about 25km from the north of the island to the south with occasional breaks to catch my breath (actually they were very frequent because doing anything at altitude makes you so out of breath) and multiple stops to snap the unforgettable blue views over the lake. It's hard to believe that its the middle of winter here and yet every morning I wake up to clear blue skies...I like to think its because I am so high up that I'm above the clouds ;) on the way back from the island I made friends with 2 Chilean guys, a Colombian guy and girl and an american lady so we spent that evening drinking beer, watching the Copa America which is currently on in Chile, dancing and entirely speaking Spanish as they spoke no English - it opened my eyes (or ears) to how difficult Chileans are to understand too, as they don't pronounce their 's' but I managed!!
On Sunday I caught a bus to the Bolivian capital of La Paz, on which I met 2 sisters who are travelling around Peru and Bolivia
so I tagged along with them and they used me for my Spanish speaking ability! I ended up staying in the same hotel as them in La Paz, the infamous Wild Rover hostel which is known for its party vibe, a good night and being completely full of Brits. The thing we were most happy about was that they were doing a Sunday Roast which was incredible (obviously not as good as my mums roast) but it did perfectly after 2 months without that kinda food! Vicky, Catherine and I then spent the rest of the night in the bar introducing ourselves to Bolivian beer (every town has a different beer; cusquena from Cusco, paceña from la paz, etc) and making friends with the bar men, and stumbling into bed (mine in a 20 person dorm, imagine!) in the small hours. Spent a lot of Monday trying to find ATMs in La Paz that would let us take any money out, which involved trying about 15 different ATMs and going in to talk to at least 3 different ones...and we eventually managed to get money, much to our relief. We also booked ourselves on a 3 day tour to the jungle (having hunted around for best price of course). We also did a little bit of sightseeing, walking up through the extensive markets (when I say up, I mean up, everything is up or downhill in La Paz, it being the highest capital in the world at about 3800m) and going up the cable car to take in the views over the city from which we also spied a car that had fallen off the road, down the steep cliff and was wedged between the faces of the rock!
The next day we took on the challenge of cycling Death Road, also commonly known as the Worlds Most Dangerous Road due to the hundreds of fatalities that used to occur on this major trade route before the built a new road. We started the ride at 4800m all kitted up in overall jacket and trousers, knee and elbow pads and helmets and pretty much didn't have to pedal the whole way down 3000m but that is probably a good thing because all energy was going in to holding on to the handlebars for dear life! The road started as tarmac but far too quickly turned into a dirt road with more bumps than you can imagine. The reason it is known as Death Road is that the entire time there is a sheer drop on one side of the road that you are hurtling down, made even more scary when we were in the middle of clouds so it was wet and couldn't see a lot. As much as I say it was scary, I never actually felt I safe or as if I was going to fall off it was just a matter of dodging the biggest bumps and not letting yourself go stupidly fast and I loved the whole thing - particularly when they adjusted my brakes and handlebars so that they were close enough together for my little hands to be able to hold both firmly). When we made it to the bottom, in the beautiful sunshine, we were presented we t-shirts saying 'I survived the death road, Bolivia' as a souvenir and fed a buffet lunch before making the 3 and a half hour ascent back up to La Paz which was almost more terrifying as there was an almost landslide and we were driving through thick cloud with the whole of the inside of the van covered in condensation. I have no idea how the driver saw anything!
The next day we were up at 4.30am to catch our tiny, weeny 20 seater plane to Rurrenabaque in the jungle! The plane was an experience and it was beautiful to watch the sun come up, about level with us, over the mountains. It was also funny to get on as I don't think any of the 3 of us had realised quite how tiny the plane was, as Catherine and I both 'shotgunned' window seats and of course it turned out that everyone had a window seat and even I had to crouch to walk through it. Once we reached Rurrenabaque, we had a 3 hour drive to the Pampas rivers where we were going to be spending the next 3 days. For much of the drive, I slept, as I seem to have found an affinity to sleep anywhere and everywhere her, but we were woken up by our male guide, Hilda (I know), to be on sloth watch. We managed to see 2 sloths; one quite a long way from the road climbing up a tree and another little one right next to the road just sat there in the tree watching us. It was awesome to see the sloths as apparently they are really rare to see and they are such funny looking animals - I also loved the fact that the word for sloth in Spanish is 'perizoso' which literally translated means 'lazy' which seemed so appropriate! We spent the afternoon on a little long, motor powered boat, soaking up the sun and animal spotting as we went. We managed to see pink river dolphins (which according to my brother are endangered but there seemed to be plenty of them bobbing out), turtles sun bathing on logs, caimen (of the croc family), monkeys and a large variety of water birds. We arrived at our river lodge - a couple of wooden shacks, covered in netting and all on stilts above the water - to find a caimen skulking around the camp who then stayed there for the duration of our stay and we enjoyed taunting. I even got to touch her tale, and we named her Lucy, of course :) after stuffing our faces with popcorn and coating ourselves in mosquito repellant we went to watch the sunset with a bottle of wine and all the other tour groups, for a bit of socialising as the other 2 people on our your were a grumpy French couple who clearly didn't like us! After dinner, and more wine (purely to keep the mossies away, of which there were cazillions) we went for a night time boat ride to admire the incredibly clear stars - its very strange seeing them from the southern hemisphere rather than the northern hemisphere, I CAN'T FIND ORION - and to look for caimen eyes with our torches.
The next morning we went anaconda hunting which involved donning wellies and wading through mid-thigh deep water which potentially contained anacondas! One of the other guides found and caught a baby one so I got to hold that, although it was only about 3 it was already 2.5 metres long and about the thickness of my calf - crazy! Over lunch time there was a torrential downpour of rain which awoke me from my afternoon nap as it was dripping through my mosquito net onto my face and bed, not pleasant! This meant that our piranha fishing trip was a little delayed but that didn't bother us too much as I discovered that I don't really have the patience for fishing and Catherine, Vicky and I all failed to catch any piranhas (but I did get a few bites) however the others managed to catch 5 between them so we later had them for dinner but they were so tiny it wasn't really worth it! We wisely made the decision not to get up for sunrise the following morning she to the presence of the clouds, and so headed out at 9 to find some dolphins to swim with. The dolphins were there, but sadly as soon as we got into the water they would swim away so I would say I more swam in the vicinity of rather than with the dolphins but it was still a great experience. We then powered back to Rurrenabaque where we enjoyed a hot shower, a yummy pizza dinner and a few too many free caipriña's before hitting the hay. Next morning we caught our mini flight back to La Paz, this time I was sat right at the front so I felt like I was virtually on the pilots lap! Coming back up to high altitude was a bit of a shock to the system and I suddenly felt very unfit again. Thankfully we didn't strain ourselves too much for the afternoon and j spent most of it lounging around in the sun in a hammock. That evening I then bid farewell to my friends Vicky and Catherine and headed out on my own to catch a bus to Sucre....
Much love xxx
Ali and I had a slight inconvenience to our onwarBolivia
ls in the form of protests on the road between Cusco and Puno so none of the bus companies were running the day we wanted them to. This wasn't the end of the world as it just meant we spent another day chilling in Cusco which is a truly beautiful town and spent some more time with my friend Liv :) we even got to visit a chocolate museum and its safe to say we made the most of the free tasters! And then a day later than planned we caught our 6 hour night bus to Puno, a Peruvian town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Thankfully we had organised with a tour company that they pick us up from the bus terminal at 5am and they took us to their office which seemed much more like a woman's apartment where we freshened up and waited for our tour of Lake Titicaca, the largest, highest altitude lake in the world!
Our tour took us on a little motorboat to the Uros Floating Islands which are islands lived on my indigineous, quechua speaking people and they are entirely made up of layers and layers of reeds floating in the water. It was a very strange sensation walking on the springy ground and I felt like I might fall through at any moment...thankfully I didn't! We then headed further into the stunningly blue lake with a piercingly blue sky overhead to Isla De Taquile where we walked across the islands for about an hour (yes, more walking!) until we reached the central plaza and then ojr lunch spot. The island had the most incredible views over the water but was extremely remote, being 2 and a half hours on a boat from the mainland and I don't think I would have wanted to live there but it was interesting to learn about the culture and lives of the people there. It was then 3 hours back on the boat, where I fell asleep in the sun and stylishly burned one side of my face - not cool!! I said a tearful goodbye to my aunty Ali and she headed to the airport to fly back up to Lima and then home and I found myself a little hostel to stay in.
The next afternoon, after wandering around pretty nondescript Puno for the morning and finding myself a 20p lunch, I jumped on a bus and crossed the border over into Bolivia. I was amazed by how easy and smooth the crossing was. I got off on the peru side, went into the office, got the stamp, walked up the hill to the Bolivia side, got my entry stamp to bolivia, changed my Peruvian soles to Bolivian bolivianos (imagined name huh?!) and then hopped back on the bus and continued on our way!! An hour or so later, I arrived in the beautiful tourist resort of Copacabana (the Bolivian one not the Brazilian one). Found myself a luxury private room in a hotel with a view over the lake and watched the sun go down magnificently. The next morning I found myself a boat that took me, and others, to the north end of Isla del Sol (island of the sun) which is another stunning island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. I spent the day walking about 25km from the north of the island to the south with occasional breaks to catch my breath (actually they were very frequent because doing anything at altitude makes you so out of breath) and multiple stops to snap the unforgettable blue views over the lake. It's hard to believe that its the middle of winter here and yet every morning I wake up to clear blue skies...I like to think its because I am so high up that I'm above the clouds ;) on the way back from the island I made friends with 2 Chilean guys, a Colombian guy and girl and an american lady so we spent that evening drinking beer, watching the Copa America which is currently on in Chile, dancing and entirely speaking Spanish as they spoke no English - it opened my eyes (or ears) to how difficult Chileans are to understand too, as they don't pronounce their 's' but I managed!!
On Sunday I caught a bus to the Bolivian capital of La Paz, on which I met 2 sisters who are travelling around Peru and Bolivia
so I tagged along with them and they used me for my Spanish speaking ability! I ended up staying in the same hotel as them in La Paz, the infamous Wild Rover hostel which is known for its party vibe, a good night and being completely full of Brits. The thing we were most happy about was that they were doing a Sunday Roast which was incredible (obviously not as good as my mums roast) but it did perfectly after 2 months without that kinda food! Vicky, Catherine and I then spent the rest of the night in the bar introducing ourselves to Bolivian beer (every town has a different beer; cusquena from Cusco, paceña from la paz, etc) and making friends with the bar men, and stumbling into bed (mine in a 20 person dorm, imagine!) in the small hours. Spent a lot of Monday trying to find ATMs in La Paz that would let us take any money out, which involved trying about 15 different ATMs and going in to talk to at least 3 different ones...and we eventually managed to get money, much to our relief. We also booked ourselves on a 3 day tour to the jungle (having hunted around for best price of course). We also did a little bit of sightseeing, walking up through the extensive markets (when I say up, I mean up, everything is up or downhill in La Paz, it being the highest capital in the world at about 3800m) and going up the cable car to take in the views over the city from which we also spied a car that had fallen off the road, down the steep cliff and was wedged between the faces of the rock!
The next day we took on the challenge of cycling Death Road, also commonly known as the Worlds Most Dangerous Road due to the hundreds of fatalities that used to occur on this major trade route before the built a new road. We started the ride at 4800m all kitted up in overall jacket and trousers, knee and elbow pads and helmets and pretty much didn't have to pedal the whole way down 3000m but that is probably a good thing because all energy was going in to holding on to the handlebars for dear life! The road started as tarmac but far too quickly turned into a dirt road with more bumps than you can imagine. The reason it is known as Death Road is that the entire time there is a sheer drop on one side of the road that you are hurtling down, made even more scary when we were in the middle of clouds so it was wet and couldn't see a lot. As much as I say it was scary, I never actually felt I safe or as if I was going to fall off it was just a matter of dodging the biggest bumps and not letting yourself go stupidly fast and I loved the whole thing - particularly when they adjusted my brakes and handlebars so that they were close enough together for my little hands to be able to hold both firmly). When we made it to the bottom, in the beautiful sunshine, we were presented we t-shirts saying 'I survived the death road, Bolivia' as a souvenir and fed a buffet lunch before making the 3 and a half hour ascent back up to La Paz which was almost more terrifying as there was an almost landslide and we were driving through thick cloud with the whole of the inside of the van covered in condensation. I have no idea how the driver saw anything!
The next day we were up at 4.30am to catch our tiny, weeny 20 seater plane to Rurrenabaque in the jungle! The plane was an experience and it was beautiful to watch the sun come up, about level with us, over the mountains. It was also funny to get on as I don't think any of the 3 of us had realised quite how tiny the plane was, as Catherine and I both 'shotgunned' window seats and of course it turned out that everyone had a window seat and even I had to crouch to walk through it. Once we reached Rurrenabaque, we had a 3 hour drive to the Pampas rivers where we were going to be spending the next 3 days. For much of the drive, I slept, as I seem to have found an affinity to sleep anywhere and everywhere her, but we were woken up by our male guide, Hilda (I know), to be on sloth watch. We managed to see 2 sloths; one quite a long way from the road climbing up a tree and another little one right next to the road just sat there in the tree watching us. It was awesome to see the sloths as apparently they are really rare to see and they are such funny looking animals - I also loved the fact that the word for sloth in Spanish is 'perizoso' which literally translated means 'lazy' which seemed so appropriate! We spent the afternoon on a little long, motor powered boat, soaking up the sun and animal spotting as we went. We managed to see pink river dolphins (which according to my brother are endangered but there seemed to be plenty of them bobbing out), turtles sun bathing on logs, caimen (of the croc family), monkeys and a large variety of water birds. We arrived at our river lodge - a couple of wooden shacks, covered in netting and all on stilts above the water - to find a caimen skulking around the camp who then stayed there for the duration of our stay and we enjoyed taunting. I even got to touch her tale, and we named her Lucy, of course :) after stuffing our faces with popcorn and coating ourselves in mosquito repellant we went to watch the sunset with a bottle of wine and all the other tour groups, for a bit of socialising as the other 2 people on our your were a grumpy French couple who clearly didn't like us! After dinner, and more wine (purely to keep the mossies away, of which there were cazillions) we went for a night time boat ride to admire the incredibly clear stars - its very strange seeing them from the southern hemisphere rather than the northern hemisphere, I CAN'T FIND ORION - and to look for caimen eyes with our torches.
The next morning we went anaconda hunting which involved donning wellies and wading through mid-thigh deep water which potentially contained anacondas! One of the other guides found and caught a baby one so I got to hold that, although it was only about 3 it was already 2.5 metres long and about the thickness of my calf - crazy! Over lunch time there was a torrential downpour of rain which awoke me from my afternoon nap as it was dripping through my mosquito net onto my face and bed, not pleasant! This meant that our piranha fishing trip was a little delayed but that didn't bother us too much as I discovered that I don't really have the patience for fishing and Catherine, Vicky and I all failed to catch any piranhas (but I did get a few bites) however the others managed to catch 5 between them so we later had them for dinner but they were so tiny it wasn't really worth it! We wisely made the decision not to get up for sunrise the following morning she to the presence of the clouds, and so headed out at 9 to find some dolphins to swim with. The dolphins were there, but sadly as soon as we got into the water they would swim away so I would say I more swam in the vicinity of rather than with the dolphins but it was still a great experience. We then powered back to Rurrenabaque where we enjoyed a hot shower, a yummy pizza dinner and a few too many free caipriña's before hitting the hay. Next morning we caught our mini flight back to La Paz, this time I was sat right at the front so I felt like I was virtually on the pilots lap! Coming back up to high altitude was a bit of a shock to the system and I suddenly felt very unfit again. Thankfully we didn't strain ourselves too much for the afternoon and j spent most of it lounging around in the sun in a hammock. That evening I then bid farewell to my friends Vicky and Catherine and headed out on my own to catch a bus to Sucre....
Much love xxx
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