Don´t worry, be happy :)

The parades through the plaza were exciting at first but over a weeks worth of costumes and dancing, the novelty wore off and we started avoiding the crowds. The last day of Solstice was Tuesday and the whole 5 days weren`t as crazy as I had expected. The party we went to up on the hill was a private residence with a ton of property so naturally, we went exploring in order to avoid the horrible music. We found this rope bridge with sticks as the base. Pretty scary, but I survived. You can tell how high it was with the city lights in the background. Amazing! Tuesday was the final parade and dance in the plaza except this time they were in more traditional Inca clothing and marched their way up to Saqsaywaman, up in the hills near Cristo Blanco, to continue the show. We wanted to try and beat the crowds up there so we took the bus, but it didn`t make much difference. I guess people were skipping the plaza parade and going straight to Saqsaywaman as early as 9am. We didn`t get there until about 12:30 and it didn`t even start until close to 2:00. We were standing on a hill with thousands of people watching the exact same thing they were doing in the plaza. It would have been more enjoyable if we weren`t constantly losing our footing on the dirt. There was another hill that they had blocked off, but about 30 people broke through the police barrier in full sprint. The police were able to swing their clubs around and get the people back, but only for about 15 minutes, when a couple thousand people broke through. At that point, there was no stopping them. They covered the hill and ended up with the best seats! Why would they have blocked that off to begin with? One of the traditons of this festival is that they sacrifice an alpaca (looks like a llama) so even though it sounds malicious, our curiosity made us stick around for that. We were pretty far away so it was hard to tell, but it looked like about 8 men carried the alpaca onto the stage, all huddled around it. The alpaca was making standard alpaca noises (not sure how to describe the sound of one, just use your imagination. It wasn`t happy). And you could see the men all moving back and forth. When they broke away, one man was carrying a bag that is supposed to contain the heart. Well, it looked like a bunch of smoke and mirrors because first, there was smoke and second, they hid the alpaca behind a wall. Well, the next day at volunteering I talked to Timo, the guy from Holland who hangs out with locals, and he informed me that there was no alpaca at all, it was a recording of noises, and the heart in the bag was from a cow. I`m pretty sure the Inca people would not be proud of this fake sacrifice. We left before it was over in order to avoid being in the middle of any rushes to get out.

My last day of volunteering was Thursday and I went hiking on Friday with Gadi and Timo. We walked up to Saqsaywaman (forgot to mention that it sounds like `sexy woman`) and continued past it to the back country. It was so nice to walk around up there. We found a pretty high peak of rocks so we sat for a while and I lost my head in the clouds. Lynne and I met a girl in Rio who was telling Lynne about a place she visited that wasn`t fun for her because, `you would really have to enjoy nature!` We both kind of laughed at this since we obviously did enjoy the outdoor activities more than the museums or partying. But, everyone has their own interests while traveling.

I am leaving Cusco tonight (Saturday) for Arequipa where I will visit the Colca Canyon and see tons of condors. I had a really good time in Cusco and I will miss all the Bob Marley played in the bar. Be happy!

Solstice is Here!

Winter Solstice starts today and lasts until Tuesday. Carnival in February is the biggest party in South America, and Winter Solstice in Cusco comes in second. Tonight there is a big party up on a hill somewhere so it´s outside, but there are going to be bonfires. I will probably still freeze! I´m not sure what´s happening over the next couple days except that Tuesday the 24th is a big festival in the plaza. If you don´t hear from me again it probably means I either put on some authentic peruvian ropas to tour with one of he dance groups, my head is ringing from all the trance music that they love here and I can´t see straight or I just got lost in the shuffle somewhere and I´m wandering the hills of Cusco. Whatever mess I get myself in, I´m sure it will be fantastic!

I worked for a bit at the bar during the Friday the 13th party and have worked one more time since then. I keep offering Katie and Gadi a night off so I can work for them but they don´t seem to mind working (although, ´working´ is an overstatement since it´s hardly a job and more about hanging out). I am ´hanging out´ for Katie on Saturday night so I will feel like I am sort of earning my free stay at the hostel. I leave next weekend and I don´t want to leave feeling like I didn´t help out at all. After the 13th party, my first night out was Monday. Ben, the owner of the hostel, wanted to take all the staff out to meet the bartenders at Uptown (a club in the plaza) so we would get free drinks whenever we go there. Another bonus! Once the bar at the hostel closed around 1am, a group from the hostel headed to Uptown. The nightlife here is on a totally different time frame than I´m used to. When they are getting ready to go out, I am thinking ´well that was good night, it´s going on 2am, I´m ready for bed.´ Too bad for me, it´s actually time to go out. Here is a picture of me, Katie, Gadi and his friend Alex (looking at something much more interesting than the camera). Another difference about the clubs here is that they are packed even on a Monday night. I bailed early compared to everyone else, but 3:30am was good enough for me! I took it easy Tuesday night because I was meeting with the Volunteer Coordinator at 9am Wednesday morning. My next night out involved Ben coming in around 11pm to get us all started on drinking games. There were a handful of new people, also on their own like me :) so Ben got everyone together for a game of killer pool. A non-drinking game turned into one. We played a couple card drinking games, and we were set for another night out, this time at Extrem. I think I met my soulmate. A peruvian man wearing a pancho, a cowboy hat, taking over the dance floor while holding a 40oz the whole time. He kept grabbing my hand to dance and would cheers me and say ´muy bonita!´ It wouldn´t have been as funny, but he did this probably ten times and we were there for less than an hour. I think my soulmate might have been a borderline alcohlic. Such a shame, I really think it could have worked out. I felt it was time to leave Extrem and my peruvian dancer behind so Ben took his little sheep herd back to Uptown. I will see more than 2 clubs while I´m here, but it was close so it worked. Walking around in a large group reminds me of freshman year of college when people would warn you not to go to IV in big groups because ´you will get water ballooned!´ Anyway, I had another smashing time at Uptown but the thought of waking up at 7:30am for volunteering was haunting me a bit. I did set my alarm before leaving the hostel though, because I am really smart :)

So! Volunteering. The volunteer coordinator took me to the school the first day and explained a little bit about what they were doing there. There are 3 other volunteers, 2 girls from New York and one guy from Holland. They have been there about a month and have another month because they came to Cusco specifically for volunteering. Puts my two weeks to shame, but that´s okay. When I showed up the kids flocked to me, giving me hugs and fighting off other kids to hold my hand. They love new faces and they love the camera. I hadn´t even gotten it out yet and they were asking me to take pictures of them. The other voluneers have been working on a playground and a garden for the kids. I helped out in one of the classrooms the first day, there are only 3, and was amazed (although somewhat expected) at how un-organized it was. These kids were equivelent to second grade, but their ages ranged from about 7 to 12 years old. The teacher took 15 minutes to write a song on the board while the kids kicked each other, threw paper at each other, and ran out of the classroom to go swing. Some of the kids were so sweet, but clearly some were not. There is just no discipline. After they sang the song on the board, I helped them with the days of the week in English. Then I cut colored strips of paper so they could glue them together to make the Inca flag, which is a rainbow, so we did the colors in English too. The next two days they needed help in the garden. Sounds lovely right? Well, it´s a pile of dirt right now so we had to put up a small fence, move rather large rocks, dig a trench for a wall and shovel lots and lots of dirt. Here are the New Yorkers, Regan and Caroline, who are volunteering for their senior project for college. I have really enjoyed being up in the mountains with great views and working out in the sun. I love being warm. I have been getting back into town by noonish, when everyone else is just waking up, so I´m not missing anything!

I don´t know 100% what to expect over these next few days but I will report back as soon as I can function again :)

Cusco Cuscoooo

If you have ever been to a bus station in South America then I´m sure you remember that at every station a person is yelling out a destination to intrigue all the potential buyers. It´s tough competition since there are twenty or more stations all offering pretty much the same thing. One person yells Cusco Cuscooo, and immediately 5 more people around them start yelling too. This ´Cusco Cuscooo´ phrase has been stuck in my head since the night we waited for two hours to go to Cusco. There wasn´t anyone else around except all the people, already holding tickets, waiting to get on the bus to.. CUSCO!

Back in Ollantaytambo, we were woken up with, ´tamales tamales tamales!´Lynne said she heard a bus driving away and the same woman yelling, ´Muy RICOS!´At that moment Lynne and I were set on finding tamales later that day. We were unsuccessful in Pisaq but figured Cusco would satisfy our craving. Nope, no tamales. Well, today is Sunday, and apparently it´s Cusco´s tamales-on-every-corner Day. I passed tons of women with steaming hot bags of tamales, but of course my craving wasn´t in full force at 9am this morning and I would rather treat myself to the free breakfast at my hostel, but I am hoping to find the tamale chicas around lunch time. Lynne, I suggest you come back for tamales tamales tamales :)

I´ve been watching some of the Euro Cup, had a great lunch at an Irish Pub called The Irish Pub yesterday, and haven´t really worked yet. Can´t complain about that! The hostel hosted a big Friday the 13th costume party and I must say Halloween is my least favorite holiday, so I was all but excited about getting dressed up. I took a few shots, I mean, I buried my huge ego and put together a costume with some left over leopard material. There were face and body painters too, so naturally, I was a cat. I would have been satisfied with the basic nose, wiskers and some cool eye make-up, but of course that is far from what I got. Here, you see what I did get and me drinking on the job, totally necessary, obviously! The party got pretty big downstairs with mostly locals and the hostel crew pretty much stayed upstairs. However, it was a pleasure to meet a well known group of gay guys that frequent the parties at the hostel. So overall it was a good party, I´m just hoping I´m out of herre before the next costume party!

While walking around this afternoon I noticed the main plaza was blocked off to cars so I ventured over to see what the action was. Just like Santa Barbara and State Street, it seems that Cusco uses any excuse to have some sort of parade in the Plaza de Armas. I´m not entirely sure what the parade was for today, but I heard they do it a lot on Sundays. People of all ages in different groups were dancing through the streets in authentic costumes. Very pretty! I was drawn to the niños of course, this little guy was so good! The alpacas were also very stunning with their fancy bows. A little dog starting sniffing the back of the alpaca´s leg, it took the alpaca about 10 seconds to turn its neck all the way around, and they startled each other. It was pretty funny becauase the dog was the size of a cat.

Things have been pretty mellow here. I either go walk around by myself, watch movies in the TV room, EAT good food, or hang out with my roommate Katie, from Australia and one of the other bartenders, Gadi, from Israel. I met a really nice couple from England last night who just did the sand buggies in Ica so they were getting me excited about that, and I was telling them about the Jungle Trail because they are going to do that in a few days. It´s fun swaping travel stories with people! I´ve heard there are some good hiking trails around here, so I am going to get someone to go with me soon. I also think I am going to find a Spanish class tomorrow since I will be here for a while and it gives me something else to do during the day.

I purchased an enormous water, 2.5 liters, for about one dollar. I must stay hydrated! Plus a lot of peeps are sick here and that´s the last thing I want. I discovered a huge market today with food and hand crafts and basically anything you could ever want. There were rows and rows of smoothies, it was glorious. These markets seem to be pretty standard everywhere we have been b

ut it´s still fun to walk through them. I hope my next blog will be more interesting, I just haven´t really done that much in Cusco yet!

A brief look at the liars of South America

Lynne and I decided that people love to lie here. Number one liars - taxi drivers, second place I would have to give to touristy shop employees or waiters. It usually has to do with how much something costs, but on our most recent adventure on the Jungle Trail to Machu Picchu, we discovered that even our 20 year old tour guide was a liar. They learn young. What is it about lieing that some people enjoy so much? Why is the truth so frightening? If I have learned anything in these 3 and a half weeks, besides the incredible amount of history, is that liars suck. It makes everything so much harder. I don´t want to dwell on this too much, but I will be mentioning the unecessary lies we have been told throughout this blog.

Even though I already talked about the horrible bus ride to Cusco, something I am trying so hard to block out of my memory, I left off after Copacabana on our way to Puno. The first day there we were still getting used to the cold so we found a store full of handmade hats, scarfs, gloves, blankets, tapestries, etc. The lady was so nice and let us take pictures with her, so here is an example of some of her work. Since we didn´t make it to Isla del Sol in Copacabana, we decided to do an island tour from Puno. The full day tour included Los Uros Islands (the floating islands), and Tequile Island. A 25 minute boat ride and we were at Los Uros Islands. So incredible what these people can do with the totura. Boats, houses, beds, chairs, and most impressive, the ground they are standing/floating on! Here is the type of boat they make and in the background you can see all the houses. Well imagine this times 100. Over 2,000 people live out there. A lot of the islands are connected to other islands so if they are not getting a long with their neighbor, they just untie and float away for a while. When we arrived, we were greeting by very colorfully dressed and super friendly people. They had us all sit in the ´living room´and talked to us about the history of it all. They even have a government system. When they told us to go explore for a while, a woman grabbed Lynne, two other girls and I to go see her house. They had solar heating, lights and pretty big beds. Her husband came in and said he was the President of the islands so we were in the ´Casa Blanca.´ The woman started grabbing all the colorful skirts and hats and told us to put them on for pictures. Oh geez. Well we couldn´t be rude right? Picture soon to come. Then we took a ride on one of their boats over to another floating island. They have schools and everything, I was really impressed by their culture. So, back on the boat with a motor, to Tequile Island. Two hours later, the tour guide tells us we are about to pull up but all I see is a hillside. He says, if you have done the Inca Trail, this will be a piece of cake. What? No one said anything about a climb! It took about 45 minutes to get to the top, at least we were warm for a while. Another 2,000 people live on Tequile Island and another impressive place. Awesome views of the lake and the snow covered moutains. We hung out in the main square for a while, had a group lunch with delicious soup and trout, and listened to young school kids play their drums and other instruments. When it was time to leave, we had to descend about 500 stairs down the other side of the island to the boat. Great day! And we were excited that we were getting on a bus to Cusco that night. I´m not even going to go there. Except first lie - the bus is at the cleaners. Over two hours later, the bus arrives with crumbs on the seats. Moving on.

The first day in Cusco was so warm. We were able to defrost and check out the main square, Plaza de Armas. We didn´t really have a plan except we knew we were going to Machu Picchu at some point. We decided, instead of the Inca Trail, to do the Jungle Trail. A four hour bus through the mountains would drop us off, with guide, to bike downhill (lie 2), to Santa Maria where we would stay the night. Second day was a 6 hour hike with lunch somewhere inbetween (lie 3) to Santa Teresa. Third day was a 4 hour hike (lie 4) to Aguas Calientes and day 4 was Machu Picchu. When we signed up, the guy told us that three other people were also signed up (lie 5). We showed up the next morning at 7:15 ready to go and he said the other 3 people canceled (lie 6, those people never existed, he was just trying to get us to sign up, right?) but whatever, we were excited. After the four hour bus ride with a group from Israel that wanted to share every snack and every but of information they had (nice people) we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Oh, lie 7, we stopped somewhere during the crazy switchback mountain drive and asked our guide if the road we would be biking was like this. He said ´mucho mejor.´ Ok. We ate some lunch and hopped on the bikes which did start out downhill but it was all rocks, big rocks. I felt like i was jack hammering my way down this hill. The guide took off and while eating his dust, both Lynne and my gears weren´t working. ´Señor! Come back!´ For this kind of mountain biking and for two people who had never done it before, these bikes were crap. Two hours later, covered in dust from all the passing busses and trucks, we made it! Santa Maria was a tiny town in the jungle so it was warm all night which was wonderful. The next day we woke up, ready to hike. ´We are much better at hiking´ we told our guide. After two hours in the blazing sun, with a heavy heavy pack, we stopped in the shade for a nice rest. We were going through a valley between two huge mountains, but scaling one of them, which turned out to be a LOT of uphill. We were pushing ourselves because we knew we were going to be stopping for lunch soon but when we just kept walking and walking, Lynne asked when we were stopping and he said Santa Teresa. What happened to lunch inbetween? It was soo hot so everytime we saw water running down the mountain we would take advantage of it. See photo. I can´t believe they expected us to hike 6 hours with no food and ONE water bottle that they provided. During one of the water breaks (meaning the pools of water) a motorcyclist stopped to do the same. Lynne heard our guide asking him how much longer until Santa Teresa. Great, our guide doesn´t know what he is guiding! Motorcycle man told us 2 more hours and that it was downhill from there. Ha! (lie 8) We knew how to recognize a lie at this point. On the way we stopped to admire some cute little niños. Look how cute they are. See the nice greens growing behind them? That´s a coca field. Not to worry, these children aren´t dealing cocaine. Coca tea is very popular here, apparently coca is sacred and it helps with adjusting to the altitude. They use the leaves so it isn´t actually cocaine.They make tea, candy, chocolate,soap, and jam. Well, another 2 hours uphill and then one more hour downhill and we were in Santa Teresa and more than ready for lunch. I would have noticed my stomach eating itself if it weren´t for my broken collar bones and shoulder blades from my bag. I left a lot of stuff back at the hostel in Cusco, but apparently not enough! We had some good food, laughed a little about what we had gotten ourselves into and woke up with a scorpion in our room under my bag. SCARY! Excited to get out of that place but not to put my pack back on, our guide told us that day 3 of walking was a lot flatter. Riiiight. We spotted a bus stop in the distance and fancied a sit. No bus though. Oh well, back to hiking. We were following the river for about three hours, saw an amazing waterfall flowing through a hole in side of the mountain that was all rock. Our guide told us that many many years ago there was a factory in the side of the mountain because the rock is hollowed out but the water washed it all away and now there is a whirlpool on the inside, but no one has ever seen it. Myth? Anyway, what we could see was really beautiful!When we entered Machu Picchu territory we had to sign our lives away and the guide told us we had only 2 more hours of walking (lie! I´m losing track). He also didn´t mention that we would be walking on train tracks lined with rocks. We were back to the jack hammer bike ride but on foot. Not so good for the ankles. So, 3 more hours and questioning if we would ever get there, we finally got there. Aguas Calientes was a great little town right on the river. We found some stairs behind a restaurant that led to the river because we wanted to soak our feet so bad, but after about 30 minutes of relaxing, a police man from up on the bridge used his whistle as a signal to leave. Oops, well it was nice while it lasted. The next day was the big day, the day we had been anticipating and had so much time during the long hikes to really anticipate.

We woke up at 4:30am for a 5:30 bus ride up to Machu Picchu. We had to pay extra for that because the tour we were on offered an optional hike straight up hill to Machu Picchu. Noo thank you! Plus, we wanted to make up before sun rise and beat the crowds. 22 buses leave at 5:30 and we were on the second, well done! I really don´t have words to describe how incredible Machu Picchu is and I don´t even feel like these pictures do it justice so I guess that means everyone should see it for themselves. But, in the meantime, here are some pictures. We definitely beat the crowds and ended up near the entrance to Waynapicchu with signs saying ´only for healthy and fit people´´steep, narrow path´ ´enter at your own risk´and ´beware of dog.´I might have made the last two up. We considered it, but weren´t too thrilled about more hiking and figured we had anough to keep us busy in Machu Picchu. As we walked away, Lynne said ´the more we keep walking away, the more I want to go back.´Done. We went back and were number 42 and 43 admitted, out of only 400 people per day. There was a man in line in front of us who told us this was his fourth time trying to make it to the top. He was 78 years old, originally from Japan but now living in Florida. He had a personal guide to help him who thought it would take them 2 hours but they were shooting for 1.5. (Lynne left today and texted me from the Cusco airport that she ran into that same man and he made it. How awesome is that!) She also informed me that the airline she was flying, Aerocondor, went bankrupt..YESTERDAY. I almost died when I read her message. Nothing is easy remember? There is always something! Luckily, She was able to get an earlier flight on LAN. Bye bye Lynne I will miss you :( So, it took us less than 45 minutes to get to the top of Waynapicchu and the thousands of stairs was totally worth it. For how big Machu Picchu felt when we were walking through it, the view from Waynapicchu made it look tiny, but still absolutley fantastic. We hung out on the rocks for a while, took a bunch of pictures, then started making our way down. The first quarter of the way down is different from the way up, but when you get back to the main stairs you have to dodge the people on their way up. The stairs are not big by any means, but the people going up seemed more than happy to stop and let the people going down pass. I could tell by the heavy breathing and the looks on their faces, ´how much longer??´ It felt so good to be up there and I´m really glad we did it. Back down in Machu Picchu, which is high enough, we looked back up to Waynapicchu and noticed how incredibly impossible it looked to have stairs going up the side of that mountain. The stairs are on the shadowed side in this picture and we could actually see people standing at the top.

We had lunch, did a lot more walking, a lot more stairs and called it a day early afternoon. We had been up there since 6am so we didn´t feel too bad about going back down to Aguas Calientes. Our guide, who didn´t accompany us to Machu Picchu, told us he would leave our train tickets at the restaurant we ate at the previous night because he was taking the early bus back to Cusco and our tickets only took us to Ollantaytambo. We went by the restaurant and the lady said he left them at the hostel instead. Hmm, ok. So we walked back to the hostel and the lady there said we could get them from our guide at 5pm. What? Our guide was supposed to be back in Cusco. Sure enough, 5 minutes later (I swear he had spies watching us) he showed up with our train tickets. A little weird, but at least we had them. We ditched him as soon as he turned around (don´t feel bad, he was horrible, and he lied, a lot) and went to a restaurant for happy hour. 4 x 1 is pretty awesome! We had a lot of time to kill and walking around didn´t sound as fun as drinks. We caught the train at 6, met a super nice couple on their honeymoon, who further confirmed that everyone lies here, and who also did the jungle trail but with a different company. The train stopped in Ollantaytambo and that´s where our tour ended, we had to get a bus back to Cusco. Instead, we stayed the night there and in the morning took a bus to Pisaq which has the best shopping, like this hat for example. We stayed for the afternoon, bought more corn on the cob :) and then took a bus back to Cusco. I wanted to put my pictures on a CD for Lynne to take home so I could free up some space on my memory card. We went to a couple different places that either didn´t have a CD drive OR that just lied to us. We were in a hurry because we had dinner, complete with music and tango, at 8. We rushed into probably the third place and looked at a couple computers that had CD drives and looked at the guy for the ok to sit down. We said, we just need the CD drive. He pointed to one computer and said it was busy. Busy? No one was sitting there. Then he changed his story to not even having it at all. I looked at a sign staring me in the face that said ´CD reader.´ Complete confusion. I really don´t get it. The truth would be fine, I don´t care if you don´t have one but don´t put up a sign that says you do, then say it´s busy, THEN say you don´t even have one. We decided to do it after dinner and went to get a drink first. We made sure the restaurant took visa because Lynne spent all her cash purposely so she wouldn´t have any left when she went home. When the bill came we both got our cards out and he made up some bs story about the machine not working. We explained that we asked downstairs before even sitting down if we could use our cards and he didn´t say anything to us once we orded. Lynne worked her Spanish magic and he said he would take one card. We said noo, we are spliting it. Again, Lynne, Spanish. He took both cards and guess what? The machine magically worked. What is that? Lie 14? I really like being here I just don´t like being lied to and being taken advantage of because I´m a tourist.

Like I said earlier, Lynne left today and I am on my own for a while so we will see how that goes. I got a job at a hostel for at least two weeks which includes free stay, breakfast, internet, lunch or dinner (I choose) and 40 percent off any drinks or other food I buy here. I just have to work the front desk from 6-11pm a couple nights a week. Pretty sweet deal! I am also looking into a volunteer program with little kids at their school. They help you with your Spanish too. I don´t know what to expect from the next couple weeks but we will all know soon! I think I said this was going to be a brief story about liars. Well, I lied.

I forgot what short sleeves felt like!

Well we made it to Cusco, barely. I am going to get the bad stuff out of the way so I can think more about the good stuff. Last night we were in Puno and had an 8pm bus to Cusco, which takes about 7 or 8 hours. We got to the bus station early, since we had been cutting earlier boats/buses a little close, and at 7:50 they put us all outside to wait for our bus. Like I`ve said before, it gets freezing here at night, so at about 8:15 we asked to wait back inside. By 8:30, everyone was asking where the bus was. There was one lady at the counter and she said the bus was at the cleaners and it would be about 5 minutes more. Well, we`ve heard that before. It wasn`t much warmer, or I guess I should say, it wasn´t any less cold, than standing outside, so we were sitting, standing, jumping, swinging our arms, but nothing worked. I can`t express enough how grateful I am that Lynne feels as miserable as I do when I`m freezing, we suffered together! 9 o´clock, no bus, 9:30, still at the cleaners? This bus doesn´t exist. We made the decision to spend 5 more dollars and buy a ticket to another bus that we could actually see sitting outside with people on board. We got on the dark, smelly bus, noticed there was no bathroom, little hope of heat and no tourists. We were a little nervous, but trying to tell ourselves at least we are on a bus going to Cusco. Well, our bus pulled up about 15 minutes later and without hesitation we jumped off the questionable bus and onto the, what looked to be, nicer and more tourist friendly bus. By 10:15, over two hours later than our scheduled departure, we were on the road to Cusco and anxiously waiting for the heater to come on, full blast. Nope, no heater. We tried moving to seats that were closer to other people, maybe we could feel the body heat from 3 feet away..? No, our faces said it all and we ended up laughing about it for a while. Lynne thought that maybe sticking her head under the seatback cover would keep her warm! We didn´t think there was any way we would make it to Cusco a)alive or b)incredibly sick. The bus stopped to pick up more people, everyone equipped with 2 or 3 blankets, clearly needed on an overnight bus with no heat in 30 degree weather, everyone know´s that.. Well, a very nice man, offered us one of his and we didn´t have to pay. You have to pay to use the bathroom here so I was pretty surprised when he said not to pay. Lynne and I say with the blanket over our heads for 8 hours, in and out of sleep, fearing hypothermia. At one point I opened my phone case to see what time it was and hearing the rip of the velcro, Lynne said `don`t tell me what time it is.` I didn´t but it was 2:45 and I really didn´t know how much longer. A couple hours later I felt the blanket being tugged off of us, I thought the devil of iceland was coming to kill us. But no, it was just the nice man wanting his blanket back because we were in Cusco. Finally! I could see a warm bed in front of me, but our journey wasn`t over. We waited for our bags, of course at the bottom of the huge pile, and made our way through the bus terminal to find a taxi. We stopped to look at the address of the hostel we had written down and when we looked up there were about 50 people waiting for a taxi. It was 5:30 in the morning and no way there were enough taxis for everyone. Our very infrequent luck seemed to kick in at that moment because a taxi driver came up to us before we even started looking for one and within a few minutes we were at out hostel. Still freezing, we burrito wrapped ourselves in extra blankets, that we asked for of course, and fell back asleep until about 11am. Outside our door is a courtyard that was filled with sun and I couldn´t be happier to be in a t-shirt right now. I am just scared for the sun to go down.

OK! Onto the good stuff. It`s been a while, and that`s because we didn´t have internet for a couple days and when we finally did and I was all set to blog the night away, the hostel `Dad`in Puno closed the computer room at 9:30. Who does that! So I am starting all the way back to La Paz. What a difference from anywhere I have ever been. We flew in at night so all we could see from the taxi to the hostel was a massive hillside of lights. The next day we walked down to the main Plaza and it was much more of a culture shock than Rio, BsAs, and Iguazu. No one has a car, the street is flooded with minibuses, taxis and people. When we could get a view of the surrounding hills, all we could see was brick colored and shaped houses for miles. We walked across the bridge in the background of this picture and if it`s big enough, you can see there are people lining the edge watching very intently. We thought something happened or there was something super cool to see. We took a peak over the edge and it was a construction site. Exciting stuff! Well, my dad might have enjoyed it, love you dad :) I still can`t really figure out why that many people were so fixated on the construction, and I never will. I promise not to lose sleep over it, the cold nights are enough to worry about. We walked up a hill to the bus station, taking it easy because of the high altitude, and found a bus leaving that day at 3 to Copacabana (right on Lake Titicaca), then to Puno, then to Cusco. Total price, 16 dollars. We had some time before the bus so we went down to the market square to get some sandwiches for the bus and couldn`t pass up the amazing fruit stands for a smoothie, mmm. Back to the bus station at 2:30 and 10 minutes later the ticket lady called us over and said there weren´t enough people at that station for the bus we were taking so she was going to go put us in a taxi to take us to the bus. Ok, kind of weird, but we weren´t going to try and walk there. Lynne asked her where we were going and she pointed at the driver and said, he knows. So Lynne then asked the driver and he mumbled some jibberish and that was that. Of course all the worst possible things are running through my head. The ticket lady is on it, the driver is taking us to someone that is going to run out and grab our bags, or us. BUT, no need to worry you with my crazy thoughts. We made it to the bus and it was not nearly on the same level as our luxurious bus to Iguazu, but it was also a much shorter trip to Copacabana. After a couple hours on a winding road, we entered the middle of nowhere in the mountains, but we were still picking people up! Where were these mountain people coming from? Some people on the bus were even getting off after curve number 172. That was weird. Also, I think it´s the law to honk at least 5 times a minute here. If you think you have road rage in the US, move here and they will crush any honking record you were hoping to break. So finally we see a glimpse of civilization. We stop and they are telling us to get off and take the boat across the water. I go to get my bag and they say no no, the bus is going across too. What was that? Yes, the bus is getting on a big, flat, floating surface and taking a ride across the channel of water, just like us. It was a pretty funny sight to see all these buses cruising along the water. We took a smaller boat for humans and waited for the bus on the other side. A couple more hours and we were in Copacabana. I was hoping to get there while the sun was still up but after picking up and dropping off all the mountain people, we got in after dark. We found a hotel right on the water, went out to dinner for 2 dollars each. You are probably thinking we had a piece of bread for dinner but you would be wrong. They had those three course dinners where you choose each course so we got two and shared everything. We both started with salads and bread, then a vegetable soup, a pumpkin stew and mashed potatoes, then a lasagna to split, and a chocolate cake to finish. After dinner we went to buy our tickets for Isla del Sol. Two people told us that they offer half days to the Island which was perfect because our bus to Puno left at 1:30. We bought our tickets with no problem and the next morning got to the dock, about a 2 second walk from out hotel, at 8:00. We boarded soon after and at 8:20 a man came up to us and said there wasn´t anyone else doing the half day so they couldn`t bring us back, but we could go out there with them and HOPE there are other boats, that we would have to pay extra for, to get us back. Super frustrated, Lynne talked/maybe slightly raised her voice at this guy, but bottom line, we didn´t want to get stuck out there and miss our bus. We were able to get our money back and the lady told us about another place we could go that was a lot closer. We hopped in a minibus that dropped us off about 10 minutes down the road. We walked through a deserted village, saw a few people, and the road ended at the water. We didn`t see the floating islands we were told about so we just started walking along the shore. As we passed some shelters that were about half way built with `totura` (the weed that grows in the water), we caught the attention of two dogs. We were down there by ourselves, but we kept walking, trying to keep a low profile, ya right. One dog started showing it´s teeth and Lynne said, `did you see it`s teeth!?´I kept walking, hoping it would realize we weren´t a threat, but it started barelling towards Lynne, barking, teeth fully showing. She yelled a little and it stopped. Hearts POUNDING, we were pretty scared but for some reason laughing at the same time. We saw a man in the distance waving his arms at us. A little embarassed by the dog encounter but happy to see another person, we made our way over to him and could see the floating islands from there. He explained that there was a ticket office back in the village but he would be willing to take us out to islands. There were three total and even though they were all close, we decided to just do one with the time we had. We got in the row boat and he was a great tour guide. Lynne got the impression he just worked for the tour company, cutting the totura and keeping everything clean, but since we were already down at the water, he just took us himself. The same way they make the balsas de totura (a miniature version is what I am putting on in the picture) they also make these floating islands and you can see the side of a hut behind me. Inside one hut were a bunch of bird eggs. He explained each one to us and showed us that we were actually on two islands that were linked together. So you can untie one island and float somewhere else. They are working on getting them ready for people to stay overnight. With solar heating and portable toilets. Pretty amazing what they can do with the totura. He also showed us that you can eat the end of it. The other picture is of us eating the end after you peel away the outter part. So we got our boat ride and private tour, just not to Isla del Sol. I don`t know what we missed out on but we had a lot of fun regardless.

In Rio we saw the most well kept dogs with owners. In BsAs, there was dog crap everywhere, scraggly looking dogs but still with owners. In Colonia there were a lot of strays and it has been that way since leaving BsAs. Copacabana was full of them but I liked this one :) I have so much more to talk about but our hostel has ´slow and steady wins the race´internet that you have to pay for so I came to an Internet Cafe and I am meeting Lynne in a bit back at the Plaza de Armas. I will pick up next time with Puno (such a great day) and Cusco.

Hope you are having sunshine like we are today!

Update - Nothing to get excited about

I realized I didn't follow up on our flight to La Paz. On our way to catch the but to Iguazu, we stopped into a travel agency to see about buying a ticket. If you recall, our ticket buying experiences haven't exactly been peachy. We sat down with 1 hour and 25 minutes before our bus departure and the people seemed very nice and helpful. After about 15 minutes of them poking around the computer, and after already saying they found a flight for us, we couldn't really figure out why the process wasn't moving forward. We had our credit cards out. Everyone wants to take your money, not these people. She had us fill out some paperwork and wanted the address and phone number to the place we stayed in BsAs. We told her Republica San Telmo but we didn't have a phone number. She spent way longer than she should have looking for the phone number online. Who cares! Lynne explained en espanol that we had a bus to catch at 6 but wanted to get there by 530. It was now after 5, they had swiped our cards but hadn't given us anything to sign. The guy was on the phone, off the phone, back on, saying nothing to us. The woman is still looking for the phone number. Lynne asks how much longer. She says, ooh cinco minutos. Ok well we really need to go catch our bus. No reaction. We asked if we could just sign our credit cards, that was fine, but we still couldn't leave. Going on 530 now. Lynne says you have my email can you just email me the confirmation, he says that's fine so we stand up to leave/run to the bus but the lady follows us. She has to walk down the street with us to photocopy our passports. So we go into a completely unrelated establishment to wait for these photocopies. First the passports, then she says oh and your credit cards..WHAT! This is ridiculous, she knew we were in a hurry, she couldn't have made the photo copies while we were waiting for the other guy to sit on the phone for 30 minutes. Whatever, we got our tickets to La Paz, we are here and hoping not to get altitude sickness. We landed first in Santa Cruz, Bolivia and had to buy our visas there and then back on the plane to La Paz. More bread was served which was great..And the hostel we found has a free pancake breakfast and free beer once a day. Too bad we are only here one night! It's really cold outside but I think I will sleep a lot warmer here. The place in Iguazu was seriously an ice box. Sorry no pictures this time, I told you this was going to be unexciting since we were on either a bus or plane all day. But check back for our exciting days to come!