South America

Run for your lives, tourists still in Bolivia

Here, en Español, is a recent email sent out to some American Volunteers in Bolivia.

Les pido por favor lean con atención este mensaje. Es de conocimiento de ustedes que nuestro país atraviesa por una situación bastante difícil y de alguna manera peligrosa. Lo propio en nuestra ciudad "Cochabamba". Las calles están bloqueadas, hay marchas y protestas. Hemos escuchado que hay grupos de delincuentes, ladrones, que están robando negocios, tiendas, y otros. Quiero pedirles que por favor tomen las precauciones necesarias, y sean lo mas cautos y precavidos posibles, si alguno de ustedes visita el centro de la ciudad, debe de tener mucho cuidado. No quisiera alarmarlos, pero si hay problemas y deben de considerar su posición y situación.

Just to give you an idea of what happens when there is no control in your country, random mobs start taking over your cities and looting stores. I guessed this would happen in Bolivia, and already it is being confirmed for me.

Keep reading BBC and Yahoo on the situation, but know that on the ground things are always much worse.

Life in Peril Volume 4: Some farm to La Paz - the long road home.

Sometimes, when standing in cow manure in the middle of rural Bolivia, you ask yourself-

How did I get here?

Especially, you ask those type of questions in the late afternoon after 3 days of high altitude hiking, with no food since 7am when you woke up early that morning. The danger of bus toppling had ended for us for the moment, and we found ourselves safely outside the bus watching the newly minted Bolivian bus technicians trying to come up with ideas to spring it from its watery grave.

Firstly, some passengers pushed the bus deeper into the water, on the suggestion of our Cholita guide. At that point, people had to climb in underneath the other side of the bus, and deep-sea dive for their luggage, which was submerged in the undercarriage. The exhaust pipe, crucial to this operation, was so far underwater it could no longer be seen.

Then, the driver and the Cholita lady took off in opposite directions into the field to look for a tractor, as pictured above. 45 minutes later, they returned with no tractor and conflicting stories. Then, my favorite moment came as the lady pulled out her cell phone and answered a call.

If you had the cell phone all along, why didn´t you just call a tractor?

So, I´m no mechanic, far from it, but even I know better than to tie a rope to the axle to pull the bus free. When the bus didn´t budge, and the tractor sunk into the mud, we all knew it was time to mosie into the montain sunset, before we all froze to death in the field.

With 50lb packs, Josh´s poor unsuspecting parents, and lots of manure on our shoes, we marched 45 minutes through the field till we saw salvation - a cattle truck bound for La Paz. We where already fed up, and now soaked in excrement. This is the stuff memories are made of, huh?

We all hopped on, and rode for two freezing hours until we hit El Alto, the aforementioned dangerous area just outside La Paz. Exhausted, and famished, we scrounged up enough remaining money to catch a shared cab with Josh and his parents back to the city. Then, we hunted down our travel agent type guy, got our tickets, and began preparing to get up in 4 hours to fly to go...

...to the Bolivian Jungle.

Bed Bugs. I kid not.

One last little gift from Bolivia, for the ride home.

Bed Bugs. In my pants. I kid you all not.

This, is very very unfunny. I have never before had my own pants attack me in such a way. I write to you all today from Lima, or "The Lime" if you really insist on translating everything, and I´m currently pondering how to keep my new friends from infesting my newest hostal bed.

CNN had this to say about bed bugs,

Once attached to a sleeping human, they use a barbed proboscis to bore through the skin and suck their blood meal. They can go months without feeding, patiently awaiting a new host or travel companion.

... and they are so right. It is awful. I have bites in places I couldn´t possibly describe on the internet, but I will reiterate that this is seriously awful. Plus, I just took a lovely 20 hour busride from Cusco to Lima, in which I was apparently served as the late meal.

ugh. Thanks to Rurre, and the hostal next to hostal Beni. Never ever stay there. Ever.

Life in Peril Volume 1: Bus from Uyuni to La Paz

CLANK. SMASH. BANG. Crick, crick crick, BOOM!

These are some of the choice sounds of nondescript metal objects smashing into the bottom of our bus at 3am.

Liz, teeth literally chattering, slowly and deliberately asked me for my thin, sarong-like towel to use as a blanket, in an attempt to keep some warmth near her body. She sat next to the bus window, which was now frozen on the inside.

Like a scene out of titanic, our bus was stuck on ice, and we were slowly freezing inside. We didn´t know it at the time, but we were about to endure 8 hours of sub-zero temperatures.

Life in Peril Volume 2: La Paz to Copacabana

It sounded like we had been hit by a grenade.

One quick pop, an explosion, and suddenly our bus was careening out of control. In the 2nd seat, I saw the bus driver pull a frantic manuever as the people on all sides of me screamed for god to help them. The indigenous lady next to me, whom I had a lovely conversation with earlier in the ride, grabbed onto my arm for some semblance of safety.

Our bus had just experience a severe tire blowout, one of the more common ways to get seriously injured while travelling in Bolivia.

Though thoroughly spooked, no one on the bus was hurt this time. Liz, who had a rear seat, was bear hugged by the lady sitting next to her, who obviously feared the worst.

Lucky that no serious damage was done, the bus crew fixed up the tire and took us down to the straights, where our bus boarded a boat. I can´t make this stuff up, so I took a picture.

Life in Peril Volume 3: Getting from Copacabana back to La Paz - the long road home.

"EEEIEEEYYYY" was the overwhelming sound heard as our bus rumbled out of Copacabana, taking a speed bump at about 5mph, and causing half the passengers to nail their heads against the bus ceiling.

This one might be the travel story you have all been waiting for.

If only we knew then what kind of road we were about to embark on, I think most passengers would have turned around right then. Here is the story of the Bolivian bus driver that did, in fact, try to kill me. If you have never tried to push a bus out of a river, please do read on...

My first mistake - Salar de Uyuni

"No Busses till 6:30," muttered the world´s most uninterested office clerk, as I attempted to huff what little air was available into my lungs. There I was, just as I had feared, stuck once again in Potosí (my least favorite town in the universe); except this time I had all my personal belongings on me and it was a dreaded Sunday.

The adventure actually began for me at 7am that same day in Sucre, as I arrived lugging my bags at the bus station. I had prepaid my bus ticket to Potosí at the hostal, planning to catch the said noon bus immediately out of Potosí and on to Uyuni, my destination town. One foot out of the cab, a bus company lady grabbed my bags shouting "Potosí, Potosí" and started walking up to her office. I calmly explained that we had already bought tickets, and she calmly convinced me that I had a ticket for her company.

Of course, she was lying. She started to write out new tickets, and even though I was still half-asleep I could tell something wasn´t right. Regardless, she tossed the huge bags on top of a ramshackle bus, literally, and my travel companion Liz and I were about to board.

Why I hate Potosí

I spent one night in Potosí, and ran back to Sucre for my life (me in the foreground).

Going to Potosí is like the Bolivian equivalent of a visit to West Virginia. It´s a cold, mean, ugly mining town filled with angry miners. What´s worse is that it is the world´s highest city alititude wise, or so I´m told. Why would anybody want to stay there?

Spider Bite!

Who knew spiders can bite?

Let me tell all of you, spiders can and will bite you while you sleep, and it happened to me. Gross!

Please read on...

ATTN PORTEÑOS: Help Taro Out!

Taro is a good buddy of mine from Tokyo. We met up in Buenos Aires and shared many a scotch and digital photo. You shan´t meet a cooler kid around, I promise you. Therefore, I ask you to help him out if you are in or around Buenos Aires, and let us all know by way of comments if you are at all succesful.

Taro stayed at the Aventura Inn on Corrientes, and they totally screwed him over. If you are a traveller, don´t stay there.

Here´s the story: