South America

Rushing to the Red Light

Travelling around in South America, in all the countries I´ve been in so far (excluding Chile and the Guyanas) is pretty much akin to speeding up to a red light.

As I write this, I´m on hold with Lan airlines, fighting to get my airlines tickets re re re-confirmed, because they cancelled them. Why? They still haven´t told me. I got an email from them informing me of the cancellation two day before the flight, which was really useful, since I was sitting on a coffee plantation with no phone or internet and just got off a lovely 8 hour busride back to the big city to take this flight.

What do I mean by "rushing to a red light?" Our attempt to leave South America from Quito is shaping up to be a fine example. In order to leave Colombia this weekend, as we hoped to do, we needed to get our passports extended. Of course, this took a full day of wasted time and fancy fingerprinting in the office in Bogotá. At least it was free.

By the time we finished extending our visas, we didn´t have enough time to get the day bus to our destination 8 hours from Bogotá. So, we had to kill yet another day. Not to mention that we had to kill the day before, Monday, because it was a national holiday so prominent that 5 out of 6 Colombians we asked didn´t even know what it was.

The place we went, the Coffee Region, was fantastic. More on that later, but we of course didn´t have phone, internet, or anything like that available. So, unbeknownst to us as we enjoyed a hot pot of coffee on Friday afternoon, our airline cancelled our flight outta town.

Rushing to a red light? How about getting to the coffee region, which took a record 11 hours (6, 8 hours, eat your hearts out). We woke up at 7am, rushed to the bus station to try and arrive for some sunlight, not knowing that the Colombian road techs where going to let one ar pass in each direction every 2 minutes for a stretch of 60 km of highway. Yeah.

Even while vacationing, you kill yourself just to sit around and wait. We where told the only transport to this cool valley leaves daily at 7:30am on the dot, and so woke our hun over selves up on Friday to go catch it. Too bad it was a tiny jeep with 35 passengers on it already, so we skipped out. Also too bad that there where about 10 other jeeps around, all offering the same trip at any time of day you might like.

At 8:30pm, we ran like maniacs out of our hostal to catch the second to last bus out of our little coffee town to the big town, and found it sitting on the side of the road broken. Thankfully, we where able to run up to the plaza with our packs and catch the very last bus to leave. In the main bus station, we rushed onto a bus leaving right as we arrived, only to realize the ticket lady lied to us about the class, and put us on the bug-infested geriatric bus. Then, we had to rush off the bus with all our bags and book the next one.

Rushing to a red light. It irks me, to put it mildly, and it is one of the few things I won´t miss about travelling around like a weirdo.

Liz got stung by a jellyfish

A leg-sized jellyfish stung liz from her knees down on both legs. If that happened to me, I would still be crying.

Liz, apparently naturally qualified to join any number of guerilla military operations, is impervious to jellyfish sting pain. Lucky for her, because it hurts me to even look at it.

As usual, we will put on our white labcoats and treat this ourselves.

I am a youth

It is now official, I am still a youth.

Two days ago, I became the proud owner of a newly minted International Youth Travel Card. Apparently, you can buy these until you are 25 years of age, which I happily am not and will never be (till the 27th).

This card allows me to get fantastic airfare back to the states, and more importantly, reminds people of my official youthful status. When shall I return to the states, you ask?

My return route depends in which city I am thought to be studying the law. I can say this, I will be in Colombia and Ecuador until around mid-July, at which time I will begin a mad dash home. The possible routes:
-Bogotá-BsAs-CHI
-Quito-BsAs-CHI
-Quito-NYC
-Quito-CHI

Time will indeed tell. Youth card 4-evah.

PeruRail, you rile me

PeruRail is the most expensive way to travel in South America outside of a helicopter. In fact, you could almost hire a private plane for the price of some of their tickets from Cusco to Aguas Calientes.

I tried to stop them from ripping off gringos, but as you can see, failed miserably. There is no other transportation option to get to Machu Picchu, those train-running rats!

Ironically, this picture was snapped just 10 minutes before our actual train was set to depart. This was where our arriving train had dropped us off the day before, but of course, this was some sort of decoy train meant to confuse and rile tourists. Our actual, departing, train was a 10 minute run down the track from where you are looking right now. There was a funny moment indeed when we asked the conductor, who was equally surprised that we tried to get on his clearly not-departing train.

We bolted for our leaving train, and heard the classic train whistle. With no regard for safety, I flew down the stairs screaming espera, espera (wait!) until the nice men at the gate started blowing whistles and put their hands up in an "X", apparently the international sign for stop the damned train the gringos have fallen for the decoy train again.

Luckily, no conductors where hurt in this incident, and after a half hour, I stopped sweating and enjoyed the rest of my 2 hour, $32 train ride back to Ollantaytambo.

Machu Picchu for UNDER US$100, it can be done, here is how

The holy grail of South American Travel: Machu Picchu.

If you haven´t already been there, you are going to go there at some point in your life, it is nearly inevitable. When you go, Machu Picchu will attempt to take as much money from your wallet as possible, in a very short period of time. Íf you try and fight it, it will suck you in like a ruinous Incan money vaccuum made of stone.

It does not have to be this way.

If you wish to go to Machu Picchu in 2 days, for under US$35 a day, or US$70 per person for the trip, do read on. Otherwise, wait patiently until the time when you do plan to go to Machu Picchu, then read awa
y.

To Colombia

If all goes well, I will be on a flight to Bogota, Colombia this morning, by way of Caracas, Venezuela.

If all doesn´t go well, expect an angry post from big, smoggy Lima.

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.