CanadianMeg

Megan here again. The last leg of our tour of Bolivia included the beautiful Salar de Uyuni, Tupiza and then off to Argentina. Uyuni is an amazing area in SW Bolivia that includes immense Salt Flats, hot springs, active volcanoes and amazing landscapes. We were very excited to get there, so early in the morning we boarded a bus from Potosi to Uyuni. Having heard lots of bad stories about night buses in Bolivia, especially in the south, we decided it was safest to take the approx. 7-hour bus ride during daylight. On the ride, we could definitely see why it was so dangerous. About 1.5 hours outside of Potosi you run out of paved roads. There are no street lights, the roads are narrow and there are some pretty good cliffs at times. Also, because ... read more

The Bolivian adventure continued in the country’s official capitol: La Paz. We boarded another bus from Copacabana to La Paz, which involved getting out of the bus, en route, and onto a small boat to cross Lake Titicaca. It was quite funny to see the bus floating across the lake on a shanty looking barge. The entire trip to La Paz took about 4 hours. Just as we made our final descent into the city (Copa is at 3800m and La Paz is 3660m), we got some astounding views of the city from above. A large part of La Paz is in a valley, but the city is also built right up into the steep hills. It is amazing to imagine residents trudging up the incredibly steep hills to get to their homes every day. It ... read more

Day 3 started with another early wake-up call at 5am. The porters were frantically trying to dry the last of the wet clothes from the day before over their gas camping stoves. It was much appreciated to wake-up to dry jackets and pants. Luckily, there was no rain (yet) that morning, so we backtracked a bit to see one of the Inca sites we had visited the day before in the rain. It was definitely worth visiting again, as it was an amazing site, with amazing views of the Andes. After heading back to camp around 6:30am, we sat down to breakfast and embarked on what Raul called the “easy day” as it was “Inca flat” (some uphills, some downhills, but nothing as major as Day 2). We only trekked for about 5 hours in the ... read more

Kara here again. Our Inca Trail experience was quite eventful, so we have decided to split this blog entry into several pieces to avoid reader fatigue. Day one started with an early wake up call, at 4am, to make it to the main square for 5am to depart for the Inca Trail. After using my minimal Spanish to explain to the front desk boy (same one from the last entry) that we were going to the Inca Trail and needed to store our bags, we were able to securely (hopefully) store our bags and head out. We arrived at the square to meet our tour guides, porters , and the nine aussies. Much to our delight, our Llama Path tour guides, Raul and Yoshin, were really great and the Aussies all showed up in these ridiculous ... read more

Hola amigos, This is Kara here. Megan and I have decided to alternate writing the blog entries to even out the workload, because, no one wants to be overworked on vacation! Just a disclaimer, this is very long - but after reading it, you will get a real sense of our adventures! We have arrived in Cusco and are currently acclimatizing at 3300m in preparation for our departure to Machu Picchu on Boxing Day. The last few days were spent in the city of Arequipa, exploring the lovely, cultural city and trekking into the 2nd largest canyon in the world! (2nd only by 136m!). We left Lima after only one day, as we felt satisfied with the good day we had there and we are a bit short on time, so needed to keep the travel ... read more