Cochabamba

I arrived to Cochabamba on Saturday, there is not much to do around here, I came especially to learn Paragliding, but I can not start until Thursday, so I had a quite boring few days, I spent my time on the Internet and reading my Harry Potter in Spanish book.

I did not manage to find a USB cable for my camera, but I found a general memory card reader and I bought it. I had to buy several other stuff as well, like sun glasses, dictionary , backpack, etc. I just hope the insurance will pay.

After I got my backpack stolen in La Paz, I went to the Police to make a report, which I need for my insurance, anyway the police man asked me for 20 Bolivianos (2 Euros) for the service, that sounded quite fishy to me then, but I needed the report, and for me it is not much money, so I did not want the hassle and I just paid him. Later on I met a women from Australia who had her handbag stolen as well, and the police man asked 30 Bolivianos for the service. Anyway she paid, but later she found out that it was illegal for the police man to charge her anything, so she went back and demanded her money back, she did get it back eventually , after a long hassle, and not before the police man spat and swore at her.

They stole my backpack

The fact that my backpack was stolen is nothing strange in a big city in latin america, and neither the way it happend, the only surprise for me was where it happened. I was sitting in the loby of my hotel, I was going to leave that night to Cochabamba on a night bus, but there was still sometime until my bus departs, so I figured it would be safer to wait in the loby of my hotel than in the bus station with all my baggage, well was I wrong ! I was sitting reading my southameirca travel guide when four men intered the lobby, one of them started saying something in Spanish with a very agressive tone, which I did not understand, and then they all left, there was a girl standing on the stairs in the hotel, and she shouted at my "tu muchila estupido", then I realized that my backpack was gone, I ran out to the street and looked for them for a while, but there was no trace of them. The only really valueble thing that was in my backpack was my glasses, which is propably of no value to the thiefs, and I rarely used them anyway, but they did cost me a lot to make. The otherstuff that I lost were : my dictionaries, my harry potter in Spanish, my sun screen, insect repelant, flash light, sun glasses (which I was thinking of getting new ones anyway), camera usb cable, gel, toothpaste, toothbrush and the backpack itself. Anyway I went to the police and made a declaration, which I need to make a claim to my insurance. Then I went and did some shopping and bought replacement for some of the items I lost. The only item I had trouble replacing is my camera usb cable, but the internet cafe here in Cochabambe has one, and the guy working here told me where to buy it, so hopefully I will have it today.

Tiwanaku

I went to visit the ruins of the Tiwanaku great city, the Tiwanaku culture is very impressive, the culture existed since 3000 years before the Inca, and lasted 2700 years, compared to the 300 years of the Inca impire. More than 1000 years before the Inca they already build a great city, and possesing a very impressive architecture. But only 10 percent of this great city has been excavated, due to lack of funds, or the relucance of farmers living on the site to move.

La Paz from above 

A Tiwanaku monument 

The Yungai Cruz Trek

Just returned from a four day trek called the Yungai Cruz, this as an old Inca trail around La Paz, the tale is that the Inca found gold in the valley and used this tail to transfer the gold out of the valley. The most interesting thing about the trek is the changing landscape as we went along, we started high up at the alto plano, at an altitude 4000 meters, a treeless landscape, then we descended into a cloud forest, and finally into a very dense rain forest.

There was only one other person with me on the trek, Laura an Australian girl, plus the guide and the porter. Laura is, by here own words, a fitness freak, and the reason she choose this trek was that it was the toughest one, and she convinced me to join here. She led the way from the beginning and set a very fast pace, we reached our first camp site in 3 hours instead of 5. The view at the camp site was amazing, looking down on the misty valleys bellow, once the sun set though it got very cold. Anyway whoever camped before us there left some wood, not much but enough to make a nice fire for a couple of hours.

The next morning Laura did not slow down the pace and we reached camp site by 1:30 in the afternoon already, so we had nothing to do the whole afternoon, I took the opportunity to bath in one of the cold streams, and to collect some wood to make a fire in the night, there was plenty of wood around this time around, since we camped at the beginning of the cloud forest. The name cloud forest is very well earned as we were in the midst of the clouds, with water vapors floating all around. The food was quite good again, as it was during the whole trek, a pleasant surprise compared to my previous treks. This camp site was very cold as well, and we woke in the morning to find everything frozen around us.

The third day we descended into to a thick dense rain forest, on the way I dropped my mat, and had to retrace back quite a way to find, and by the end of the day I was feeling quite fatigued. It was quite warm at the camp site this time around.

The last day we had to walk less than two hours, we could have easily done the trek in 3 days instead of 4, with the pace that we were walking at.

The rain forest 

The cloud forest 

One with the clouds 

The Yungai Inca trail 

The Yungai mountain 

Mountain biking on the world most dangerous road

I returned safely after completing the world most dangerous road on a mountain bike. The trek is not very difficult from a technical point of view, it is mostly a dirt road which cars, trucks and buses use as well, but the cliffs on the side of the road are very deep, hundreds of meters at some points, and a mistake can cost you your life, but as long as you follow the safety instructions, and stay concentrated on the road, rather than watching the scenery or the birds for example, you should be fine.

The first part of the road was paved, including a few inclines towards the end, when we reached the unpaved part , the road was blocked due to maintenance work, and we had to wait until 12 until it was opened again. Earlier I decided to rent the more expensive but more comfortable rare suspension bike, which is generally slower and is less efficient when going up hill, but much more comfortable on the bumpy dirt road going down. Biking and or driving down is a very interrupted affair, you have to stop every once in a while to allow trucks going up to pass. The cars and trucks on this road drive on the LEFT side of the road, this allows the drivers to better see where the edge of the road, so we rode on the left side as well (the edge side). Anyway no body had a fall, and we all reached the end of the track unharmed.

The group at the end of the track 

A monument for an Israeli girl who died here four years ago on a mountain bike 

Another strech of the world most dangerous road 

A stretch of the world most dangerous road 

Ready to go down the world most dangerous road 

The La Paz stadium , The Strongest side 

The La Paz stadium, the Bolivar side 

Ready for the football game Bolivar (light blue) vs The Strongest (Yellow and Black) 

La Paz

Finally made it to La Paz yesterday, there is little signs of the trouble that plagued this city last week. The only incident I saw, was when walking out of one of the many markets in this city, I saw some protestors surrounding a building, which was protected by the riot police, the number of police men outnumbered the number of protestors, anyway I moved away from the place. Strangely my first impression of La Paz is that it is rather quite place (for a capital with more than 1 million inhabitants).

Tonight I am going with Lisa and Rodri, an English couple I met in Peru, to watch a football game between two local teams from La Paz. Tomorrow I am going to do some mountain biking, going down "The world most dangerous road", a 64km stretch of road mostly going down hill.

I got my ipod , it works fine again, and all my music is still there, thanks to "ipod mods", the company that fixed it for me, www.ipodmods.com .

I don´t know if you heard the news, but a powerfull earth quake hit the north of Chile a couple of days ago, causing a lot of devastation and killing 11 people. If my ipod had arrived a few days earlier, that is where I would have been at the time of the earthquake, so I guess I am glad that it so long, and I am glad that things calmed down in Bolivia, both influencing my decision to go to Bolivia instead of the north of Chile.

Puno

Since things were cooling down in Bolivia, I thought why waste anymore time, and decided to head to Copacabana. I took a bus to Puno on Sunday morning, and from there I grabbed the first bus to the border with Bolivia, I got there only to find out that there is no transportation to Copacabana. I talked to a tourist that was coming back from Copacabana, and she told me there is still a blockade, and she had to walk the 8 kilometer distance from Copacabana to the border, which took her 4 hours to do (reasonable time carrying a heavy pack back at an altitude of 4000 meters) , anyway I decided to head back to Puno, the ride back was no joy, two hours in a crammed bus, sometimes it is a blessing not having a sensitive sense of smell. Anyway I am going to try again on Tuesday after I pick up my ipod, I will try to get a flight to La Paz, if there are not flights I will try the bus again.

Good bye Cusco

I think I have seen the last of Cusco. I used my stay in Cusco to work on some of my skills, in the mornings I went to Spanish classes to improve my Spanish, and the nights I went to some clubs to
practice my dancing, I have to admit though that I am becoming unsure about how much I like Salsa, I find the rhythm of pop/dance/trance etc, easier and more natural to dance to. In between learning Spanish and dancing, I went to one of the movie bars to see a movie.

When you spend enough time in a city, you get to know where all the good places are, the best food I had in Cusco was at ´Los Perros´, it was excellent in both taste and presentation. While the fanciest club in town hands down is Caos (Chaos in English), I heard the owner invested one million dollar in building this place, the Liquid pales in comparison with this place, and what is more, the Israelis have not discovered it yet. When I first got to Cusco I saw only a couple of them, but since the end of may they have been arriving here in dozens, the place is swarming with them now.

Cusco

This is my second time in Cusco, and I have already done all the site seeing there is to do the first time I was here, actually I already did all the site seeing there is to do in this region of Peru. So to fill up my time I am taking some Spanish lessons in the morning, going to watch a movie in the afternoon, and partying in the night. I called today to Puno, and they have recieved my ipod, but I can only pick it Thursday mornings or Tuesday mornings, I opted against returning immdeatly back to Puno, so I am going to pick it up next Tuesday, from there I will go to Chile, through Arequipa.

Puno

I was planning to head to Copacaban in Bolivia , together with the English couple I met earlier. But due to the trouble in Bolivia, the tourist buses no longer leave to Copacabana from Puno. I can get to the border using local mini busses, but after that there is no certainty that I will be able to get to Copacabana, the owner of my hotel told me that a couple that went yesterday came back because they could not reach Copacabana. I am currently waiting for the English couple to show up, as we planned to go to Copacaban together, they were supposed to meet me in the morning but they did not show up. But I am probably going to change my plans and go to the north of Chile instead. The problem is that I am awaiting to receive my fixed ipod at the post office here in Puno, but it still has not arrived yet, so I might head to Cusco to meet up with the American student group again, as they are staying there until the end of the week. Then I will come back to Puno, and hopefully my ipod would have arrived, maybe even the trouble would have ended in Bolivia and I can go there .

Taking a bath in the cold water

Some of the people from the group 

Me and my Andian wife ... just kidding 

Locals and Tourists dancing in traditional cloth 

The sunset 

A small bay on the island 

A traditional straw boat navigating the lake 

One of the floating islands 

Lake Titicaca

I returned yesterday from my two day tour to lake Titicaca, I encountered on the tour a group of American college students that are here on an student exchange program, with us were a few more Americans and an English couple.

The first day we visited the floating islands, which are build of straw like plants. There are about 40 of them, the people keep some strange birds on the islands, and on the big island they even had a pool where they grow king fish and trout. After that we headed towards the island where we were going to stay for the night. First we navigated through shallow water with straw like plants, which more resembled a swamp, then the water got deeper and deeper, and became a deep blue color. The cruise was quite pleasant, and the views around were very beautiful. When we arrived at the island, we were split into groups of 2-3 people , each was taken by a family to their home. Then we had launch, and hiked to the highest point of the island to see the sunset. At the top I encountered this English couple that I met earlier in Cuscu, apparently they were staying at another village in the island.

I had a chat with my family in the evening, and apparently the people in this village are Adventists, which seems to be some kind of Christian group, but they don´t eat pork, they don´t drinalcoholol, and their rest day is Saturday. These peoples diet is mostlvegetarianan with a bit of fish, as it is hard to keep animals on the island, which lies at about 4000 meters high.

After dinner oufamilieses gave us some traditional cloth to put on, and took us to a meeting place, were a band played Indian music, the young girl from mfamilyly then invited me to dance, and the othefamilieses did the same with their guests, the dance was a bit rough, but it did warm us up. It gets very cold there at night, and apparently this is one of the purposes of the dancing.

The next day in the morning we went to visit the second Island, where apparently thpeoplele have some kind of cooperative economy, were they pool their income together, and distribute iequallyly. Though apparently not everybody takes part of it, and somfamilieses prefer to have their privatbusinessss.

Before heading back to Puno, me and couple of guys jumped in the water for short dip, which was one of coldest baths I ever had, the watetemperaturere is around 12 there. After that we headed back to Puno, the trip takes 3 hours, during the way I taught my new friends how to play Shithead, and we ended up playing it during the whole trip back to Puno. The group then invited me to have dinner with them, I joined them in the restaurant later, but they had to leave at 9 though to head back to Cusco, were they are studying.

Puno parade 

Puno parade