Month: March 2016

Despite the fact that I was well aware I only had four days left of my trip, I just wanted to relax, so my first day on my own I did. I met three of the girls for breakfast from the yolo trip ( same route as our tour group, but different age group) and actually got to know them a bit. Our tour group had six people, while their’s had 14 so getting to know any of them was a intimidating endeavor. It turns out I got along quite well with these girls, and we chatted the morning away.  At around lunch, my old tour group plus a few of their new members came to my hostel to watch the Ireland vs England rugby game. None of the bartenders were Irish, but since they worked at an Irish hostel, they were required to cheer for team Ireland. I mostly had no idea what was going on, but it was still fun to cheer on England with my friends. In the end it was 21-10 for England. I had to say my goodbyes shortly after the game, there were only just barely no tears. I spent the rest of my evening with the three yolo girls, playing cards sitting in the bar. Two of the girls were leaving that night, so it was just Elaine and I the next day.

I woke up bright and early at nine the next morning to prepare for our walking tour. It was raining when we started off, but eased off shortly before we began. We started our walking tour right across from San Pedro Prison. San Pedro is unique because it is basically a town within a city. Inside the walls prisoners are free to roam around and live with their families. The wives and children can leave during the day for school and work. On our tour we visited one of the first churches in La Paz (they put mirrors in the church and told the locals that their souls were stuck in the mirrors, and they had to come pray every day if they wanted to keep them) several important governments buildings, the largest market in La Paz and several other places. My favorite place we visited had to be the Witches market. Llama fetus are a very common sight, as they are used in a special ceremony to ask Pacha Mamma (mother earth) for permission to build new buildings. There are candies, potions and candles, doing everything from creating love to creating erection (for horses, many men had heart attacks and died).

I spent the afternoon wandering around the city and writing my last blog post, and getting distracted by new friends.  That night was spent again at the bar, where Elaine and  made friends with some Swedish guys. I got into an argument about hockey for probably the first time in my life, about who had a better Olympic hockey team, Sweden or Canada. Pretty sure I won. Elaine left to the airport around midnight, and I was sad to see my friend of a day and a half go. Monday morning I got up and just wandered around La Paz. It was my last full day before I began my journey home so I hit up all my favorite haunts. I visited the square across from San Pedro prison, went for lunch at the Melting Pot (fondue place), wandered around the handicraft market and the witch market, read in the courtyard at my hostel and finally had a rainbow trout in a white wine and lemon sauce at the steakhouse. I went to bed early so I could get up at six for my flight.

Bright and early Tuesday morning I went to the airport for my flight to Lima. I had a quick stopover in Cusco, but got to Lima by three pm. Luckily traffic was pretty low and it only took an hour to get to my hostel. I checked in, and went straight for a walk. I walked to the ocean side mall, and just enjoyed the view. The mall is on the side of a cliff so unfortunately walking to the water was not and option. I went to my favorite restaurant for dinner and had the most Peruvian meal I could think of: Chicha Morada (a drink made from purple corn) and Ceviche de pulpo y pescado (raw fish and octopus marinated in lime juice).

I began my trip back to Canada Tuesday morning, the same time as the previous day. Ate some eggs on toast at the airport and tried to use up the rest of my soles. I flew from Lima to Bogota (Columbia), Bogota to Toronto and finally Toronto to Edmonton. Unfortunately upon arrival in Toronto, I discovered my bag was still in Columbia. Even worse, the Tim Hortons in the airport didn’t have a working hot chocolate machine! I had been awake for 22 hours at that point, but I spent most of the rest of the night trying to ensure my bag was going to continue on to Edmonton without me there. I managed to get two hours on a bench at some point during the night and around 5:30 I was 100% sure my bags would make it to Edmonton, so I checked in.

My lovely Grandma Vi was waiting for me at the airport, and it turns out, when your luggage is lost, reporting it missing is a lot faster then waiting for it to get off of the conveyor belt. I had my first AW meal on the way back from the airport and slowly got used to not being surrounded by Spanish. Now I am awaiting the arrival of my baggage before I get ready to head home.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Ciao!

Alex

PS-Last song! Listen to Half the world away by Aurora, and a big shout out to Best Friend for showing me that song!

I would love to tell you that I spent every possible moment in Cusco doing cultural/touristy thing but alas that would be a lie. Although after the Lares trek and Machu Pichu I believe some rest was required. The two highlights of Cusco round two for me was meeting David and Rosie at Norton´s bar, and then getting a recommendation to stay at their hostel The Wild Rover and my second blue cheese burger at Papachos. Monday morning we hopped on a bus to Puno. During that seven hour drive I watched the most movies of the entire trip. We packed our day pack that night and left the rest of our luggage at the hotel.

At 8am we took a bicycle taxi to the lake (I can’t remember the official name but basically it’s a bicycle with a two seater bench in front). Luckily for our poor driver the ride was mostly downhill.  Lake Titicaca is the highest altitude lake in the world, at 3812 m above sea level. It was the center of Incan  civilization, and is shared by Peru and Boliva. According to our Peruvian guide, 60% is in Peru and 40% is in Boliva, while according to our Bolivian guide 45% is in Boliva and 55% is in Peru. I’m fairly certain that no one knows for sure!

We hopped in a boat and went to Uros Island first. Uros is a “floating” island, meaning the locals find a spot where the water is only a couple meters deep and start building an island using peat and reeds. It takes about a year to complete one island, and they typically relocate every decade or so. There are a few of these islands, but we’re not quite sure how many are real, and how many show up just for the tourists then go back to Puno once the tourists leave.  Apparently Uros is the real deal, but our group did not really enjoy the island. They was a distinct feeling of “you tourists are here to give us your money so hand it over” making us fairly uncomfortable. We did a quick ten minute trip around the island on the “mercedes-benz” of reed boats, using a pole and paddle. They half dressed us up in local clothing for pictures and then we were on our way again.

Our next stop was two hours away, Taquile island (a proper island this time) After a 30 minute breathless hike up the hill we stopped at the town square. Taquile island is unique because in order to attract women, the men must be skilled knitters. Each man has to knit a hat for himself, totally unique from family to family. If a girl is interested, she will ask for his hat to examine the quality of his work. For lunch we had rainbow trout from the lake (originally from Canada though) and some quinoa soup. We had a scenic walk down the hill to the other side of the island, before hopping back on the boat to our next stop. I had a nap on the rooftop and promptly got a sunburn on my face.

We arrived at Luquina around an hour and a half later and were instantly greeted by a boy with a drum and man with a flute. To get into the village proper we had to walk uphill, and the floutist was huffing a puffing not too long into our ascent. Luckily he was joined by another floutist halfway up so they could alternate breathing. We met our new Mamas (for the homestay) and quickly started a game of soccer. I only managed to last for five minutes, but I still managed to (accidentally) trip one guy twice and valiantly defend the goal before I was reduced to debilitating coughs. After the soccer game we were dressed up in the full traditional garb of the area, including 3 skirts, a long sleeve shirt, a fairly wide belt, a hat and a yarn whip of sorts with pompoms. We then watched as the locals demonstrated a local dance. Then we were expected the replicate it! I think except for the the fact that I knocked my own hat off five times (it only sits on your head) I did fairly well. It was a complicated line dance that involved swinging the yarn pompom whip and specific steps that I couldn’t´t remember once it was our turn to dance.

After the dance we went back to our new mamas houses. Vicky and my new mama´s name was Stephanie. She´s 27 years old and lives with her mother (Teresa), father (Francisco), sister (Ilda) and her puppy (Tarzan). We mostly hung out in our room until supper, at which point we had conversation in a combination of Aymara, Spanish and English. After supper we taught Stephanie how to play war (the card game) with our very very limited spanish. We played until around 9, when the solar power ran out (due to the ginormous rainstorm) and we were plunged into darkness. The next morning Vicky and I helped out to the best of our abilities with the chores. We helped with the bread for breakfast (but managed to make the wrong shapes), fed the bulls, peeled potatoes, tied up the sheep, and de-shelled broad beans. We were fed a HUGE lunch of many different types of carbs, before it was time to shuffle back to the boat.

Since Lake Titicaca is the highest lake in the world, we naturally had to go for a swim. I cannon balled off the back of the boat without dipping my toe in the chilly 8 degree water first. Only one other in my group decided to take the plunge, and I think the rest of my group felt validated in their decision as soon as they saw my face upon resurfacing. I have been in much colder water, but eight degrees will give you a nice little shock no matter how much of a proud northerner you are. Once I got used to the temperature it was a fairly enjoyable swim, exempting the floating reeds that kept touching my legs.  Shortly after we arrived back in Puno we had the downpour of the trip and the streets turned into rivers. I had Alpaca for dinner since it was our last night in Peru, but I enjoyed the accompanying mashed potatoes much more.

We had a fairly uneventful eight hour bus ride to La Paz early Thursday morning. We took our last group photo at the Peru/Bolivia border. For our last meal we went to a Thai restaurant.  There were a few almost tears, and many many toasts. Since there was only seven of us we had become quite a family. We were still planning on going out for dinner the next night (minus our CEO, he had to go back to Peru), and half of us were doing the death road together so it wasn´t goodbye forever. Normally during this trip I wake up ten minutes before we leave, since I don´t require a lot of time to get ready. Just to ensure I was extra prepared for our 7:30 meeting time the next morning, I set my alarm for 6:50.

My room mates alarm went off first, which I found really confusing. After asking her the time and finding out it was 7:40, I apparently shot out of bed “As if I had a rocket up my ass”. Luckily I had packed all my belongings the night before, and I was out of the room in less than five minutes. Apparently there´s a one hour time difference between Peru and Bolivia and I forgot to change my phone. It was a 45 minute drive to the top of the death road and several hours on a bike down. We started at 4700m and went all the down to 1900m, passing through three different climate zones. The road is named the death road because it used to be the main link between La Paz and the Jungle meaning there was a fair bit of traffic. The road is moderately narrow in most places, so it was a common occurrence for larger trucks to just plummet off of the edge.  Nowadays they have a newer road connecting the capital and the Jungle, so the death road is mainly frequented by tourists on bikes.

We finished our journey a fair bit muddier and bug bitten than we began, but arrived a a hotel with a buffet and a pool. The trip down was so exhilarating, zooming down the mountain side without the breaks on almost felt like I could approach terminal velocity. Our three hour drive back to La Paz was only interrupted by one mudslide being cleared up and we were back by 6:30 pm. Upon arrival I had to grab my luggage from my old hotel, take a taxi to my new hotel, check in, sort out a locker situation, take a taxi back to my old hotel and then attempt to walk to the restaurant by myself. I met my old groups new group of  people including one new Canadian. I had a ball with their group, and I really regret that I can´t afford to continue to Brazil with them. I basically went straight to bed once I got back to the Wild Rover, and as I was waking up the next morning my roomies were going to sleep. Dorm life!

I will probably write my next blog post in the Toronto airport so keep an eye out!

Ciao

Alex

PS-Lift by Zerbin