Little post from the Big City

Well, we made it to Buenos Aires.

Last time I posted we were headed to Potosi, Bolivia. We got there and had a great pj party for Bens birthday. Got nice and drunk and almost got kicked out of our hostel...all class.
I ended up doing the mine tour with everyone. I was definitely interesting. First, we went to the miners market and had to buy gifts for the miners, including 96% alcohol, cocoa leaves, dynamite, gloves, etc. Then we got all dressed up in our wares and headed down to the mine. It was pretty easy going down, only a few small holes to climb through. We met a lot of the miners (who start working there as young 14) and shared their alcohol with them (its rude to say no apparently.) The alcohol was essentially just rubbing alcohol and very disgusting. Oh ya, on the way to the mines I managed to work up a HUGE wad of cocoa in my mouth, so I fit right in when I got down there. We also saw Tio, who is the devil that they worship in the mines. What else....oh ya, I almost decided to stay down in the mine when we were leaving because it was so incredibly hard to climb back up. My lungs were full of dust and I couldnt breathe at all! But I made it!!!

After Potosi, we headed to Tupiza and did a 7 hour horse trek, which was absolutely amazing! For my first time on a horse I managed to not fall off! I had the most stubborn horse who only ran when the others did and then proceeded to cut everyone off. It was a lot of fun.

The next day we did a 4 day tour to the salt flats. It was a lot of lagoons, flamingos and sleeping in really really cold accommodation with no showers!! It was fun, but I was pretty tired by the time we got to the salt flats. We took some cool photos (which will go up on Facebook soon).

After we got back from the salt flats, we headed across the border to Salta. Our bus from Tupiza to Villazon (the Bolivian border town) was horrible. The seats werent even bolted to the bottom of the bus. What a way to leave the country!!! We walked into Argentina then got on an awesome bus to Salta. We didnt do too much there, but we did manage to go out until about 5 am, which was fun....

From Salta, we took a 23 hour bus to Buenos Aires....the bus was really nice, which leather seats and everything (compared to Bolivian buses, anything is nice) and we managed to last the entire ride on Valium (which you can just buy over the counter here!)

Last night, we went to a drum show and then partied at our hostel pretty hard...so its been a lazy day.

Im going to just post pics on facebook from now on, its easier then posting on here....

Inti Wara Yassi pics

Machu Picchu pics

Let me know if the links dont work.

More later....

Into the Jungle I go..

Ok, so I just wrote a post and deleted it. silly me.

Apparently Bolivia doesn´t like my photos, so I´m afraid this blog is going to be more text then anything. Somehow I´ll try to keep it interesting. I´m moving on again tomorrow to my next destination, Villa Tunari. Why, you ask? Well, I´ll tell you:

http://www.intiwarayassi.org/articles/volunteer_animal_refuge/home.html

I have a death wish. Ha ha no it will be good for me. Maybe do some soul searching, like I was supposed to when I was in France almost 6 years ago (yes, it´s been that long) and ended up only finding wine and cheese...

Anyway, I´m going to spend at least two weeks (possibly a month) getting peed and pooped on and trying to make nice with the jungle cats. I wonder if I´m allergic to them too...hmmm.

The nearest village has a dodgy internet connection, so I´ll try to post while I can.

Yours truly,
the unscarred, unbitten, clean,
Erin

Let me in to Bolivia

Ok, so it´s been a while. I got lost in the frenzy that is La Paz. Here´s what I´ve been up to...

We left Cusco on the 11th and were headed for Copacabana, but not before we spent the day in Pisac, which is a little market town outside of Cusco.

My friend Niamh and I were brave enough to sample some fresh hot chocolate in a nice cafe...made with milk...which was likely unpasteurized. Fast forward to our 12 hour bus journey...

We spent our first bus ride from Cusco to Puno in absolute pain just trying to fall asleep to escape...then we spent the hours of 4:30 am to 7 am in the bus terminal in Puno taking turns paying 50 centimos (about 15 cents) using the facilities. We boarded our next bus to Copacabana on time and feeling a miniscule amount better.

It was on this bus that I experienced my first border crossing. Our driver was really good in explaining how it was to work. We stopped in the town just before the boarder to change money to Bolivianos, because to our surprise there were no banks or ATM´s in Copacabana. After changing the minimal Soles we had to Bolivianos and fretting over not being quite sure if we´d have enough money to make it out of Copacabana, we arrived at the border. We then proceeded to walk ourselves from the Peruvian office to get our goodbye stamp (you are granted a tourist card when you arrive that you must have stamped when you leave), over to the Bolivian side to get our new tourist card. For most English speaking countries, we are granted only 30 days (as opposed to the usual 90) in Bolivia, so I had to ask for special permission (in spanish) to stay 90 days. Trust me, not a pleasant experience after being sick on a bus for 12 hours and tired as hell...but alas, the grumpy border official let me have it. And that, is what crossing borders in South America is like. You actually just walk yourselves over!

Anyway, we got to Copacababa with no problems, and managed to sleep a lot our first day there. On Sunday we woke up early and took off on a trek to Yampaputa (the end of the peninsula) in order to get a boat to Isla del Sol. Our trek took us almost 6 hours and was such a beautiful and peaceful walk. Nevermind the hills at an altitude of over 3000 metres above sea level. I felt like my health was deteriorating, having to stop every 12 steps to catch my breath.

We walked through a number of small villages along Lake Titicaca, until we almost got to the end. We found a gentleman by the name of Horario Paye (as suggested in the Lonely Planet) and asked him to take us out on his reed boat. After our relaxing reed boat ride, we definitely did not want to finish the last hour of our trek so we paid Horario´s much younger (really he was probably 65) to ROW us to Isla del Sol. It was a 2 hour boat ride, during which we pulled our own weight and took to the oars!

We finished the night with a great meal of fresh trout from Lake Titicaca. The next day Niamh and I headed back to Copacabana due to a lack of funds! We had to haggle our way on to the boat just to get back to mainland, then managed to get half price tickets on a bus to La Paz.

I´m not having any luck posting photos today, but will try to get them up as soon as possible!