Getting to Cochabamba

On Sunday morning I woke up at 6am to see my parents to their taxi to take them to the airport. Then I had a few hours until I need to be to the bus station. I took my time and packed and then got in a combi/taxi to the bus station. I got on a nice Pullman bus that was headed to La Paz, but they were going to drop me off in another town to get another bus to go to Cochabamba, easy enough, I thought.

On the Pullman bus I sat next to a little man who is from Taiwan, but has been living in Bogotá, Colombia for a few years selling motorcycles. He was proud to tell me he had eight cars and was now traveling to Bolivia to expand his business. He was nice though and I found his Spanish accent to be funny since it had an “Asian” sound to it.

I was told we would get to the town where I was to switch buses at 3pm, but of course we didn’t get there till 5pm. Patricia, the SIT secretary, who I was suppose to call told me not to arrive late in Cochabamba and to call her if I could when I switched buses. Well, I got off the bus and was told it wasn’t a normal bus terminal; actually it wasn’t a bus terminal at all. I would be riding on real Bolivian buses: crowded to the max, no bathrooms, and no frills. I had very little time to process this, as a huge gust of dust came out of no where and invaded my already hurting eyes. Great. Then I dragged my backpacks to where I was to jump on a random bus marked for Cochabamba.

A little shoe shining boy came RUNNING across the street, first asking if I wanted my shoes shinned, then asking if I needed to change money. I asked a woman in a food stand where the bus for Cochabamba was, she pointed to where some people were standing so I dragged my things over there. By that time the little boy knew I wanted to go to Cochabamba and was trying to help me with that. Out of nowhere a bus marked Cochabamba pulled up, and practically never stopped. I threw my backpacks onto the bottom and ran to jump on the bus that was still moving. I got on it and it was FULL, they told me to move to the back. There were three ladies and a little girl sleeping in the back along with a man who wasn’t sleeping. He told me the little girl’s seat was my seat and I would need to wake up her mom to move her. Well there were quite a few bags of things between me and the lady and I really didn’t want to wake a stranger up. So the man woke her up and then she woke up her daughter, but that wasn’t so easy. Her daughter wouldn’t wake up for anything, at one point I wondered if something might be wrong, it took a good minute of shaking the little girl to wake her up. She woke up enough to pass out on the floor of the bus. I squeezed into her spot.

Then it was time for me to pay. And guess what? I had no Bolivianos, only Chilean pesos. And no one would change it, I think because they didn’t know the exact exchange rate, which I guess is good they didn’t try to rip me off. So the lady next to me took care of me. She paid my $25 Bolivianos fare (about $3 USD) and took my $10,000 pesos (about $20 USD) to change when we got to Cochabamba. I thought that was really nice of her.

The bus ride to Cochabamba was suppose to be five hours, I think it was about that long, but it felt like 24. I have failed to mention that the lady sitting next to me also had a two month old son, Christopher. He was a good boy and didn’t cry too much, but he took up some room along with the little girl who didn’t have a seat. It was cramped in the way back of the bus. We had one 15 minute stop where we could buy food and use the bathroom. All I had was 1 Boliviano, enough to use the bathroom. No food. I did find half a pack of chocolate covered almonds in my bag, which I was very happy about.

It was getting dark and my choices were to try to sleep or watch the movie. Happily they did show a good movie, Air Force Once. Which brings me to my next observation about South American buses: every single bus company has men working for them as drivers and attendants (except Cruz del Sur). And you can tell by which movies are shown. When I was in the Cruz del Sur bus they showed chick-flicks and every single movie played by men attendants have fighting in them, it’s just truth.

Well Air Force One was good, I hadn’t seen it before, of course and it passed time very quickly. After the movie was over we were practically in Cochabamba, or so I thought. We had a good half hour before we got to the city and it was hot. Ricky and Megan can relate to this, buses get hot in the night time for some reason. It was like a sauna between this lady, her baby and this man who had been sleeping for hours. I couldn’t get sick though, that was not an option. Then we got to Cochabamba and I guess this is a pretty big city, we drove around for another half hour before we got to the bus terminal. When we got there the lady and I tried to find a money exchange without any luck, everything was closed. What to do? I spotted and ATM and told her I could get money out of there and then pay her back in Bolivianos. Good plan. Well of course I got four 100s out, so now I needed change. I went to a little snack bar to buy a soda and get change and all of a sudden three kids walk in saying Jacquelyn? Jacquelyn? I was really confused because the plan was for me to call Patricia when I arrived. However I was much later than I had said. I was really confused like I said, why were these kids saying my name? I responded that I was indeed Jackie they all kissed me on the cheek and well if you can imagine 3 strangers coming to your rescue while you were trying to pay back another lady that came to your rescue you would just be a little, um, surprised? I explained to them that I needed to pay the lady back and they reached in their pockets and paid for me! AMAZING. Then at the same moment they called Patricia and I had to talk to her, I could tell she had been worried and I was so shaken up that I couldn’t explain in Spanish what had happened. She just told me to go with Pedro to the hotel, so I did.

These kids were funny. We never had a formal introduction and when we were walking out to the car I asked in Spanish, “So who are you guys?” That got a pretty good laugh, followed by responses, “Bin Ladden, terrorists, etc” I could tell these kids would be fun. We talked as Pedro drove, he asked me if I was hungry. Well I was, but I was also sick after that bus ride. Plus I new I wouldn’t be finding any good vegetarian food. He suggested a hamburger and I admitted to not eating meat, they thought I was crazy. Then they suggested ice cream and I agreed. Chocolate ice cream for dinner was amazing. And I changed my 100 so I could pay them back for paying the lady on the bus. Good deal. We had a few more laughs on the way to the hotel, where they dropped me off and we said goodbye. I got in bed around 12 midnight, what a day.

Puno-Floating Islands and lots of reeds

After Arequipa/Colca Canyon we headed for Puno, a town on the shore of Lake Titicaca, one of the highest lakes in the world. We took a day trip to Uros Islands, 40 floating islands made of reeds. They are unique to the lake and to the world. The Quechua people still live there and use the reeds that surrond them to make many things, such as the island it self, boats, houses, and kites. They also can eat parts of the reeds and use the reeds to make medicines. Here are some pictures: Dad getting off the bus on the first reed island.

Bird's eye view of the island.

Sweet boat, no?

Then we went to Taquile Island, a natural island where Aymaras live. We had to climb up to get to our lunch spot and the views of the lake were amazing.

Mom making it up the first "hill."

The cutest little girl, who played peek-a-boo with us behind a rock.

A view of the lake.

Cruz del Condor

We took a 2 day 1 night trip to Colca Canyon from Arequipa, Peru. The final day we were able to see tons of huge condors as they searched for dead animal to snack on. I hope these pictures do it justice of how close they really did get!

The scene

So we hopped on a bus to Nazca yesterday afternoon and the 7 hr bus ride turned into 8 or 9 because of the really bad road conditions due to the earthquake. Which was fine, we got to pass through Pisco and Ica where the quake hit the hardest. We saw some major cracks in the road and part of the road that had collapsed. We also saw a blankets being passed out of a big truck to people who were sleeping outside because their homes were destroyed.


I'm sure this was safe to drive over.

This however, definately wasn't, the right hand side of the road is collasped.
A destroyed home.

People on the side of the road, holding a sign asking for help.

The last two hours of the bus ride we made friends. Marita, one of the attendants on the bus, and Diego, a 31 year old professor from Spain. Who come to find out is coming to Charlottesville in late November to study under a professor at UVA who knows a lot about his field: 18th century Spain. After talking about everything under the sun, politics mainly...mom invited Diego to stay at our house and even borrow our car. Oh the friends we make...

Then today we were picked up at 8am to go to the airport to fly over the Nazca lines and guess who was in our taxi Diego! He had made arrangements to tour with us for the whole day, it was very enjoyable and nice to have a second translator.

Can you see the spider? (sorry shea)

An Earthquake?

Things just keep getting more and more interesting...

My parents came in on Wednesday night and Megan and Ricky tried to leave, without much sucess, the one Delta flight that flies out everyday has been oversold until the end of the month, they were not going anywhere. So they had to buy a ticket to fly to Santiago to get a Delta flight out of there. I was in the airport until about 2:30 making sure they got taken care of, though I still haven't heard from them, which worries me...

So everything went smoothly for my parents and the next morning we woke up to have breakfast and talk to a travel agent to get some ideas about what we should do for 10 days. We made up a pretty nice plan to take a trip down south, cross into Chile and then they get a flight to Santiago so they won't be gambling with the one flight in Lima. We went to his office that night to confirm everything and when we were about done things started to shake, pretty hard. We ran outside with the other people in the office building and everything was pretty surreal. The quake lasted for a good minute and it was pretty strong. A window shattered from the 2nd story of the office building and we quickly ran accross the street to get away from the glass windows. When things calmed down we went back inside and tried to finish our travel plans, but things were slow because all the phone lines were tied up.

After getting home we realized the epicenter of the quake was in Ica/Pisco area, the exact towns we were suppose to be going the next day. We got a call this morning from the travel agent saying we definately couldn't go to these towns and our plans need to be rearanged. So we spent a few hours this morning figuring out what our other options are for the rest of the trip. I just received another call from him saying we could leave tomorrow to go to Nazca. I'm really excited about that because there have been little tremmors all night and day since the big one last night, and we are 4 hours away from the epicenter!

What a trip this has been!

The broken glass on the sidewalk.

El Camino de los Inkas

On Aug. 9th at 545am we began our 4 day trek through the Andes of Peru. We were nervous before, we aren't going to lie. Megan had been sick for about 3 days and hadn't eaten much of anything; I had no idea how she was going to find the energy. We were picked up at 545 and had about a 3 hour bus ride to kilometer 82 where the Inca trail begins. We had decided to share a pack, which even though helped Megan the first day, because she didn't have much strength, was not the best idea. We ended up hiring a porter to carry our things for the 2nd and 3rd days. Megan did regain her appetite and strength by the first night, which was such a relief and blesssing. We were able to enjoy the whole trip from then on. We were trekking with 12 other people from all over the world, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy and Holland. It was an amazing group of people and mixture of cultures. We had many laughs during our free time at our camp site, playing cards and charades. The second day was definitely the hardest trekking day; we climbed uphill for 5 hours, to our highest peak of 1400 feet above sea level. It was gorgeously worth it. The 3rd day was mainly downhill and we saw lots of Incas ruins along the way. Every one you came upon, you felt as though you were discovering it yourself. Everything felt so remote on the side of a mountain. We woke up super early the 4th day to hike to Machu Picchu. It was incredible. It's bigger than any picture can ever show and there are so many details and traces left of the intelligence of the Incas from over 500 years ago. The challenge was well worth it and full of rewards.

Before we hit the trail, most of our group.

Our first camp site.

at 1400 ft!
Megs and I looking over some ruins.
Flowers

We made it to machu picchu!

Trying to look decent, even though I hadn't taken a shower for five days...

gringo futbol and other events

We have been in Arequipa, Peru for about three days now, visiting our friend Cassandra. She has been wonderful giving us all of her free time when she is not teaching english. She has also let us sleep at her apartment so we could save a few dollars. On top of that we have all been sick, basically since we got here. I was first and I quickly took a "miracle pill" and felt better in a few hours. Megan got sick the next day and is still sick two days later, Ricky got sick this morning. They both took the pill, so hopefully they will be feeling better soon.

However we were all able to have an enjoyable Sunday afternoon together. Cassandra and the insitute she works for is trying to start a volunteer progam (for people from the states and Europe to come and teach english, play with kids, time and energy type of stuff...) in a little town outside of the main city of Arequipa. Right now they are just looking for kids who want to be entertained by some gringos. So we traveled to a little poorer town and taught anyone interested to play flag football....not my choice, nor their choice of game...but none the less that is what we played for a few hours. The kids caught on after a while and really got use to us gringos. It looks like the volunteer program should work out nicely.

Today I had a little adventure of my own. Cassandra took me out to lunch, Ricky and Megan stayed home, and I had to find my way back...including changing buses. I cannot justly describe the bus system here, let us just call it crazy. So I got on and off the first bus fine. This bus ends up at the cemetary and they have a row of vendors selling flowers for the grave sites. I decided to buy some for Cassandra and for a nice lady I met last night. I needed a vase though so they pointed down a street where I could buy one. Well I walked down the street that was mainly residential. No luck. So I asked a lady in a little snack shop if she knew of a place to buy a vase. She told me to go back to the ladies selling the flowers. I told her they told me to come down the street. Then she called the liars....So she did me a favor, she found two plastic containers and put some water in them for me for the flowers. Very nice of her, I thought. We also had a nice converstation about my stay in Arequipa. She also pointed to the corner and told me I could catch the bus for Cerro July (where I needed to go). So I went to the corner and waited. I knew it was the wrong bus almost the second I got on (even though the bus boy said it was the right one...). So I thought I would enjoy the ride and see what would happen. I ended up outside of the city in a poorer neighborhood. I once again asked the bus boy if this was the bus to Cerro July....this time he said no and it was his bad he would get me back to the place I needed to be and for free! (I saved 20 cents...) So I got back to where I started and got on the right bus to Cerro July. It was almost an intintional screw up just to have a little adventure, I enjoyed it.

Chau