Home | Bolivia | La Paz

Hello all and greetings from Bolivia--

There may be a bit of redundency here, since Jonathan may also be
sending along an update of his own--but since we had a bit of time
apart
(as well as having different experiences together), I thought I might
run the risk of boring some of you who might be seeing this again....

Here it goes.....

Well, we last left off at the center of the earth, in Quito, Ecuador
where Jonathan and Bryan dutifully answered almost every email and
basically tried to catch up with the everyday necessitities of life.
Quito was about 2850 meters above sea level (about 9350 feet) and was
supposed to be a spring-like climate year round. Someone forgot to
tell
us, however, that we arrived in Quito right in the midst of the rainy
season, where an afternoon shower was as likely as seeing Adrian Zmed
or
Denny Terio as the host on Dance Fever (quite often, let me assure you.)

Quito was divided into two sections, old and new--and being the budget
travelers, we decided to stay in the old section for the first few
days.
The old section was chocked full of churches (a couple of which claimed
to be the oldest church in Ecuador and oldest structure in South
America, respectively) and a whole bunch of plazas with everything from
snake charmers to street vendors selling every medical remedy not known
to science. The bad thing about old town was that the restaurants
(although plentiful) cried of cholera and the night street scene was
less than safe it seemed. So after a couple of days bunking with
Jonathan and Brad--the friend from Cali (fornia,) that is, I picked up
and went to the other side of the tracks.

A whole different world awaited on the other side of Quito--internet
cafes, menus in English, language schools--basically the land of the
Gringos. Feeling a bit homesick, I made my way to the first Burger
King
and told them to ¨supersize¨it (I can be crazy like that.) I paid more
for my BK meal than I had for my previous three lunches combined, but
the splurge was worth it. I ended up running into a fellow traveler
(from England) I had seen in Columbia on the Rumba en Chiva bus, and
quickly reverted back to English to further ease my homesick feeling.
Being in Quito was much like being in San Jose, Costa Rica--you can
feel
as ¨gringo¨as you want yourself to be. Many of the pleasures of home
are right there--with the exception of a completely decent telephone
connection. You may not be aware, but I believe that it is illegal for
most Latin American countries to have both their internet and telephone
systems in perfect working order at the same time. Ecuador was no
exception. The internet worked perfectly--the phones required a pound
of flesh deposit in order to function properly. Luckily, I was able to
make exactly 173 phone calls before I was cut off.

Since I was lagging behind Jonathan by a couple days, I decided to get
on the night bus from Quito to Peru to meet up with him to hike the
Inca
Trail to Machu Picchu. It all seemed okay when I borded the 5 star
bus--until about 15 minutes into the ride I realized that this bus
needed to be re-rated to at most 4 stars since there was no a/c to be
found. Normally a/c wouldn´t be a problem in the mountain ranges, but
this evening proved to be especially warm and humid. I had been
perspiring for about 3 hours into the 11 hour trip when the bus stopped
very suddenly and all of the men were ushered off the bus in an orderly
fashion. It seemed we had hit a military checkpoint, and all of the
men
(and boys) were being lined up outside the bus, hands in air, and being
frisked for weapons. I definitely had picked the wrong day not to wear
underwear. After what I would consider the most thorough body search
of
my 29 years, we were all allowed back on the bus. We were not
travelling more than another 10 minutes when the bus stopped suddenly
again, this time to panic-stricken faces throughout. ¨Great,¨I
thought,
¨the bus is being stopped by armed guerillas that missed getting me in
Columbia.¨ As I mentally figured how much money I was about to lose, I
realized that the problem wasn´t thieves, but only that the bus was on
fire. If this were Greyhound, they would call another bus, move the
passengers and everyone would be under way. But this wasn´t
Greyhound--so you can imagine my surprise when we were told to board
the
SAME BUS after they battled the fire for about ten minutes.
¨Everything
is okay,¨ we were assured, but I still had an unsettled feeling about
boarding a bus that had smoke pouring out of its back end. Luckily,
the
rest of the trip to the border of Peru was uneventful, and I crossed
into Peru the next morning, just a little worse for wear.

Since Peru is so mountainous and getting to Cuzco (the start of Machu
Picchu) would take about 64 hours by bus, I opted to fly instead (which
would take about 3 hours.) I flew into Lima only long enough to pick
up
their world-reknowned beans (ha ha) and then went out the next day in a
flight to Cuzco. There Jonathan awaited me at the airport with a
placard saying ¨The Plan¨ like I might have been someone important.
After renting some camping gear, planning our route and figuring that
we
were going to do the four day trail ourselves (without guides or
porters), we started off the next morning at 5:00 AM to start the Inca
Trail just the Incans did--in a taxi to the bus station.

Because several mudslides had closed off much of the train access to
the
start of the Inca trail, we had to take a combination of buses, taxis
and open flatbed trucks on some of the worst roads known to man to get
to the start of the trail. The first day of the hike, with the
exception of a bit of rain, was quite successful (and picturesque) as
we
hiked from about 2500 meters (8200 feet) to over 11200 feet in the same
afternoon. The only person that passed us on the trail was a French
guy
who was so wound up on chewing Coca leaves that we were not the least
surprised that we were being passed. We camped at about the 11200 foot
level, and prepared to hit the highest point of 4200 meters (13680
feet)
the next day--early. What we didn´t prepare for was that Jonathan
would
wake up the next morning--fully feeling the effects of a severe bout of
altitute sickness. The next day miserable for both of us--and I wasn´t
even feeling the effects of the altitude.

We both found out first hand the next day that our Gore-Tex jackets
were
not 100% waterproof, with altitude comes cold, and setting up camp in
the cold and rain is not much fun at all. We only hiked for about 3 to
4 hours the next day, as I tried to get ahead and set up camp as
Jonathan struggled carrying his 50 pound pack uphill. By this point,
everyone else who left the same day had either caught up or passed us
on
the trail, and most of us ended up camping in what seemed like the KOA
of the Machu Picchu trail (if only the sites were as nice as KOA.)
Even
though we were wet and cold, we were probably the most well-prepared
out
of any group on the trail--as we were consistently barraged by other
travelers for food, water, money, etc.)I started to rename the Inca
Trail the ¨Mooch Trail¨for the number of requests that we had received
for different items. Jonathan and I had carried just enough food and
supplies for both of us, and I wasn´t about to give away our rations
because others were not well prepared.

The third day was more of the same for Jonathan--still feeling the
effects of the altitude. The rain finally stopped and we were able to
get just beyond the second pass at about 12350 feet. Most everyone had
passed us up at this point, which left us a most spectacular set of
campsites all to ourselves. We were at the same level of the clouds
hovering over the valley below, with 16000 foot snow capped peaks in
the
distance. And when it grew dark (without the moon at first), we saw
more stars in the sky than I have ever witnessed in my life. I swear I
saw another galaxy in the distance, but not having Carl Sagan with to
confirm, I may have been mistaken. So there we were, alone admiring
the
night sky, at least we thought. To our surprise, we see two stray
Chilean hikers making their way up the path past our campsite. We
exchange greetings with them, only to find that they have lost their
two
travel companions--the companions who were carrying the tent and the
stove. (The funny thing is they did remember to pack their boom box
and
no less than 100 cassettes, however.) We offer to watch their packs
for
them while they run ahead to find their friends, but then we realize
that their friends have probably made it to the next campsite--three
hours away down a very trecherous trail. Seeing as it was getting
below
freezing, we offer to share our tent (with barely enough space for two)
with the two stray hikers. Needless to say, it was not the most
comfortable sleep ever (we were literally packed in the tent like
sardines), but better than the other consequences for them. (It for
sure would have been a made-for-TV movie--Alive II--hikers frozen at
12000 feet.)

The next day, sunny and beautiful, was perfect for the final descent
into the actual ruins of Machu Picchu. Since we were told that the
ruins would be closing, we hurriedly made our descent into the ruins,
getting to Machu Picchu in the late afternoon. The ruins were
fabulous,
but we only took in a couple hours of the ruins b/c then the rains
came.
I didn´t think the heavy stuff was going to start for quite some time
them. The Goretex, if there were any doubts, was definitely not
waterproof now as we walked from the ruins to the nearest town about
1000 feet below Machu Picchu. (We could have taken the bus, but we
wanted to have a ¨complete¨trip and save on the $3 bus fare.) 1 1-2
hours of a through soaking later, we arrived in the nearest town--with
me limping on one leg--barely able to walk any more.

Normally, the trip would have been over, but since the train tracks
were
washed out near Machu Picchu also, we had to hike 16 kilometers (9
miles) the next morning to get to the section of the track that the
train was able to operate on. (The only other transport was
helicopter.) As the helicopter buzzed overhead, taking those tourists
not able to make the trek by foot, I thought of what a nice option that
helicopter ride would be. We made it back to Cusco that night--about
10
hours later--all the worse for wear. I ate and slept well that night,
I
must say, as I welcomed the comforts of a warm bed and hostel in
Cuzco--thinking of the 44 kilometers we hiked on the trail (plus
another
16 kilometers to get home).

Now we are relaxing in La Paz, Bolivia, after a short stop in Lake
Titicaca (which borders Peru and Bolivia). This lake is one of if not
the highest lake in the world--it is somewhere over 12000 feet above
sea
level. The trip to Bolivia is a story in itself, so I will save that
for a different time, as not to crash anyone´s server with the size of
this message. We are off to meet Bill and Todd tomorrow in Sao
Paulo--or so we hope (just kidding Bill and Todd.)

Until the next time, hope everyone is well......

Bryan

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