Where am I?

Arequipa, Peru!

After 22 days in Bolivia, it was time to move on!

I took the boat back to Copacabana, Bolivia and bought a ticket to Arequipa, Peru!

Took a bus to the border and got stamped! Walked 300mts,

 got stamped again and got back on the bus...

Went to Puno and got on another bus... That bus broke down 2 hours into the ride. So we were stranded on the shoulder road of a curve, that was beside a cliff... With no lights and it was cold. 

It is then that I think to myself, good thing I am doing this trip now, because I don't know if I'll have the same amount of patience in a few years!

I arrive in Arequipa 2 hours later than expected. I take a cab with an Italian couple and I go straight to bed.

Woke up feeling great. Decided to do the walking tours. This one wasn't as impressive as the one in La Paz. He just walked by museums and told us what's in them. 

Walking around Arequipa is charming though! It's colonial and beautiful! 

(Me @ Plaza de Armas)

Church facades have indigenous influence.

The "last supper" painting has a guinea pig on the table! (Couldn't use flash!) It's so Peruvian!! Haha love it!

It's surrounded by active volcanoes. It's low so the weather is lovely! Although you can't get a decent picture of the volcanoes without an antena infront of it!

The city has a charming crossing guard that is super chatty and loves tourists!

I tried their "queso helado", which is a native Arequipian thing.... It's like ice cream, they sell it everywhere along the plaza...

My favorite attraction was what I called the "Casa de La Moneda", the bank's museum... I went when it opened at 14:30 and had a private guide. The woman knew everything, she was phenomenal at explaining every detail! Couldn't take pictures. :/

What's interesting about Arequipa is that all buildings seem to have a yard. Banks, museums, Internet cafes... There are passages through out, linking various opposing streets together. 

Isla del Sol, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia

I was afraid I wouldn't make it up the stairs Inca stairs. I almost didn't go. Thanks to Daniel's encouragement, I went! 

After, an hour boat ride... I arrived at Isla del Sol, where the Incas genuinely believe that the sun was born.

Infront of me lied the Inca statues and the longest staircase I've ever seen up to now...

It took me a little longer than forever to go up with my big backpack, my medium backpack and the 'chinchilla', which is my bag that I haven't thrown out yet!

 

This place is absolutely gorgeous!! You are so high, it's hard to grasp sometimes.... Well, till you take another

step and realize you are exhausted... Haha!

It's so sunny and the views are breathtaking!! 

In Isla del Sol, I got the best deal... A PRIVATE room with a great view for 30Bolivianos! Whattt! Yeah! :) That's like 5$Canadian. After almost two months of sharing dorms with up to 14 people, this was a treat.

On Isla del Sol, there are no cars... Just a lot of donkeys that carry merchandise up.

The meal of choice is trout, which was delicious!

There is no internet, despite what this ridiculous sign says at the top!!!

There's only a whole lot of sun. :)

Finished Another Book

Highest Capital City in South America: La Paz, Bolivia!

I approached La Paz as a scary town. This is the problem with reading travel guides sometimes. 

With experience from the mean streets of Rio, I was prepared for the violent/crazy streets of La Paz, and honestly... It wasn't that bad! I'm not saying it's a safe place either, kidnappings are not uncommon... but "pivetes" aren't a danger here! 

I stayed at Pirwa hostel, which is a couple of blocks from the bus station. The hostel has squeeky loose wooden plank floors and nice beds with duvets. Yet, you get woken up everyday at 730am, with new comers that arrive from the overnight buses! 

Contrary to what I had thought, the main part of the city actually has a lot to do. You got the San Francisco church 

that has an interesting facade with native pictures in the rocks of a lady giving birth to a flower and guys chewing coca. It's also the centre of all activities of street performers at night. Beside it it's the market with a variety of shops and juicebars! 

It has a street with a bunch of souvenir shops, that is near Santa Cruz (witches market) and a bunch of hair salons and places that plastify documents... Hahaha which I saw a cabby hand over some papers and whilst he sat there in traffic he got it back in time.

After the "Yungas Death Road" biking experience, my favorite activities were the walking tours! (I will do a separate post, with photos eventually!)

After a day of adapting, I woke up acclamitized and decided to go out and explore! The first tour I did brought me to "El Alto", which is where the city is growing to: the tops of the cliffs that surround the city. There 1000m difference.

They recently (in May!) built cable cars to go up and it's awesome! There will be 3 lines this year: like the flag... Red, yellow, green. It's so well used that he plans to build 5 more next year! Going up you get a great view of the city and snow capped mountains! On the way up, you can see a car that fell and got squished and stuck between the cliff. I couldn't get a photo in time! :(

Also, most of those photos are on the camera!

El Alto is heavily populated and has a huge statue of Che Guevara, which they adore, because he was anti-capitalism... It has little stalls where witches read your future (usually done with coca leaves!), it has another witches' market and these suitcases infront of stands that say jobs like: "carpenter", "painter", "plumber"... So they advertise their jobs. I really wish I had taken a photo, it was quite interesting!

On the ride back down to La Paz, you can smell the breaks...

The second tour I did was a city tour. It was done by the number one tour operator on tripadvisor. The tour guide was 25yo English girl. She was very good at talking about Bolivia!

We got explanations of a few things:

-San Pedro prison, as the tour began at the San Pedro park, which has the prison directly infront of it. It's a prison runned by inmates! 

(Despite spending a while thinking about my own freedom, I really wondered if it helped deter people from committing crimes, and found out that it no, it doesn't given the amount of individuals in it.

-Cholitas: They wear lots dressed because the fashion was influenced by Spanish women, (100 years ago!). The hats, well they came small, so they figured they should wear them how they are!

They wear lots of dresses because it's cold and to emphasize their hips!

Sexiest part of a cholita: calves!

You can only be a cholita, if your mom was a cholita!

-Shoe shinners wearing facemasks, because they clean shoes that are associated with feet, which are considered the dirtiest part of the body, therefor it's a shameful job!

-The fascinating Witches' Market!

She said it best by saying: it's not made FOR tourists, it just happens to be in this part of town! It's not about our beliefs... It's a Bolivian thing. 

These witches' market is a serious thing, these stores have been open for years! They do offerings as often as they need to. The obvious desires are: love (which I stayed away from!), 

money and health. 

Most offerings are for Pachamama (Mother Earth). She likes booze and sweets and burned baby llama featuses! 

It's fascinating how deep this is a part of their culture!

I bought myself a soap that "attracts a job"... 

Hopefully it'll work! Hahah

So other than the ups and downs of most streets, Cholitas, shoe shinners and and souvenirs shops... La Paz, has some interesting stuff to do. 

Bolivians love to protest or march... This little one happening tonight, is for the president.

Bolivians... They don't seem to enjoy our foreigner presence. They avoid us. It's awkward. At first I figured they might be shy like the Japanese or something, but nah, they just "don't care", like they even don't bother acknowledging your presence. As a Brazilian, this sort of offends me... Yet, I do prefer it over "in-your-face" cultures...

Hardest product to find in La Paz is: shampoo.

Easiest products to find: potatoes, candy stands, orange juice stands, something with a llama on it, glasses store, popped cereals, fresh fruit juice in a bag!

Now... It's Titicaca time! Highest lake in the world! :D 

Sucre to La Paz

I bought an "expensive" ticket (150Bs.) with El Dorado bus company. After much rumors that there aren't any buses with beds, I can confirm that I had a 179degree incline!

From my sexy pose, you can see how comfortable it was...

Now the bathroom, lol... Yeah, there was one... But it was locked! (Yeh, I also wonder...) a classic Bolivian moment.

2 hours into the ride, the bus pulls over. 

I go outside to pee, without knowing what's going on... Then I realize that there was a car crash with the car infront of us. They were drunk and lost control and drove into the mountain and the car flipped! Holy shit! It's 11pm, pitch black, closer to the middle of nowhere than to any town... 

So people from the bus carry 3 people from the crash who are all insanely bloody and in serious condition into the bus floor... And had to leave the 2 others which were dead on the side of the road. 

Yup. Wtf!

Then we drive to the nearest hospital at perhaps half an hour away, which was closed. Cops and people from the bus were banging on all the windows of the hospital. 15 minutes later, they open and take in the crash victims and we carry on our trip.

There I layed, thinking about everyone I loved... Realizing how precious life is... And completely aware that once I enter a bus, I have no control of the outcome... Yet I still do, for the sake of seeing new places and meeting new people. 

I calm myself by thinking that "Hey, two consecutive crashes... Would be too much"... 

Eventually I fall asleep and wake up to a baby crying/screaming and the sun blinding me... And at city built on a hill, with views of snow-capped mountains!

This is La Paz. The capital of Bolivia.

I have altitude sickness again... Today, I will be sitting. Ugh. I have to re-adapt... Atleast I know I can.

I'm a 300m lower than Potosi, and only 800m higher than Sucre!

Tupiza to Uyuni: Salt Flat Tour

I got up early to pick up some extra water and snacks. I also wanted to write to my family that I was leaving, but there was no internet!

I did the tour with Torre Tours and I wouldn't recommend them! I overpaid that tour and I even feel robbed! Please, choose another company!

As we are about to leave, they inform me that there is one more person in our car, despite the fact that we had agreed on 4 in total. 

Then after taking forever to leave, our driver tells us we don't have a cook, despite the fact that we paid for it... Then tried to sneak in a "cook".

Our main group was: 

German couple. 

German Father & Daughter

Other car: 

French couple.

Macedonian guy and angry Dutch woman.

+their "English" guide.

We saw a lot of impressive landscapes! We were up at 4500m at first, then we reached 5200m, when we visited the Geisers.

My favorite part was my dream come true: seeing flamingos in the wild. (That's right, not in a cage or on a leash at a resort!) I had originally missed my opportunity north of Mexico...

On the "Red Lagoon" is where we saw a lot of them. They were "James flamingo". They are absolutely gorgeous! 

We also saw a lot of them at another lagoon. 

(My very impressive flamingo imitation!)

My second favorite place was the Geysers "Sol de Mañana" which we saw at 5200m! It was incredibly fascinating to see it bubbling and the steam it realesed. It was awesome to feel the earth'a heat.

My third favorite place was obviously the Uyuni salt flat. Because we are in the end of dry season, they aren't as white or shinny, but they sure are huge and salty! 

It blew my mind! 

In the middle there's a famous island we climbed and it had huge cactuses. 

There was also 3 llamas. Which now, have also become one of my favorite animals... They have a real funny expression on their faces and are kind of awkward, especially when they run... Lol, but incredibly cute! Especially with their earrings which are markings by the owner because they are everywhere around the country...

I tried some coca beer too...

Bolivian moments...

This is a classic travel moment. No leg room + seat reclined!

"If you want to be comfortable, stay home!"

Daniel on our 1.5 hour bus ride from Villazon to Tupiza, Bolivia!

AdiBOS socks.

Chuflay... Not that drinkable!