Playing Frogger In Cochabamba, Bolivia's third largest city (900,000), we were able to further hone our Frogger Skillz. You know, leaping between the cars and trucks to make it to the other side of the street without getting flattened. Well, we're still three dimensional, so those days at the Atari after school really paid off! Maybe next year, we'll see if Pitfall really taught us how to swing on vines and jump across crocodiles. Anyway... Cochabamba is known as the "City of Eternal Spring" for it's year-round temperate climate. The flight in from La Paz was short and specta [View Full Entry]

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Finding ourselves with a layover day in La Paz, we decided to take a short little day trip to a nearby archeological site called Tiwanaku (or Tiahuanaco). We boarded a little bus with a bunch of other tourists from all over the globe and rode about an hour and a half to the site, which is near the south eastern shore of Lake Titicaca. Our guide took us into the small museum and around the site explaining the history of the Tiahuanco people, believed to be the cultural predecessor to the Incas. Much of the site is in poor condition due [View Full Entry]

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The Long Hike The second day started off with a very nice breakfast in the main hall with its screened walls, thatched roof and insanely beautiful mahogany floors. Sergio wanted to take us for a long hike to another river where we could swim and fish. The only people in the lodge at this point was our group of 5 (the two of us, a couple from Ireland, and a Dutch guy), so we all piled in the dugout canoe and Sergio paddled across Lake Chalalan to the start of one of about 20 trails through the jungle. I ain´t scared [View Full Entry]

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Getting there is half the fun? Well, that´s what they say right? For us, it was a wee bit stressful. You see, in order to visit the Amazon area of Bolivia, we needed to fly into a small town called Rurrenabaque. The runway there is grass...which, during the rainy season, is often too wet to land. There are also storms that prevent flying. So, you just don´t know if you´re going to make it there on the day you want to or not, and also you never know how long you might get stranded there. This makes travel planning a tad [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to the funnel, La Paz Bolivia It´s sort of like a funnel. A vast suburbia on the flat antiplano and La Paz plunges down a canyon. They say if you get lost, just walk down hill and you´ll eventually run into the main road through town. But first you have to get here.... After Isla Del Sol, we tried to hook up with the same bus company that facilitated the smooth border crossing route into Bolivia. We made it to the office and bought our tickets for the 1:30 departure. Or so we thought... Unfortunately we were hanging around the [View Full Entry]

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ISLA DEL SOL ...means ¨island of the sun¨, and as the Incas tell us, is the birthplace of the sun. Either way the sun was quite intense here and I (Dave)am glad I picked up a trendy hat in Copacabana to protect my head from burning. We woke up late and decided to forego breakfast in order to catch the boat that would take us to the southern part of the island. A nice 2 hour boat ride, which was surprisingly cold (we sat outside on the top deck)took us along the coast of Lake Titicaca. It is always described as [View Full Entry]

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¨We´re in Copa...Copacabana¨ We left Puno after getting some sleep amongst the fireworks and festivities of the night before and arrived in Copacabana, Bolivia, on the southern shore of Lake Titicaca. We opted for the tourism bus that took us all the way through the border instead of the normal transfers that are usually made between countries. Of course as American´s we received very special attention upon arriving to the immigration office in Bolivia - as we were shuttled quickly into the back office for our visas. The US charges Bolivian's $100 USD to enter the US - so just r [View Full Entry]

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Heading up the long hill to Puno, Peru After a fairly short and beautiful 6 hour bus ride from Arequipa, we arrived in Puno (elevation approx. 12,500 ft) and found a nice place to stay, the Hotel de Los Pinos. We sure do feel the affects of the altitude, but are managing quite well. Those few days in Arequipa did us right in the acclimatization factor, as well as the Diamox and tons of water. Still, those flights of stairs are challenging for us lowlanders. We arrived Puno at the perfect time, late after noon on Saturday admist the Festival Virgen [View Full Entry]

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Beginning the climb towards the sun.... After a whirlwind 24 hours in Lima we caught a flight out to the city of Arequipa. The ticket buying experience was a different one for us. We did it online at the airline office and then had to walk to the nearby grocery store to pay for the flight. This was probably the nicest grocery store I have ever been in, let alone ever seen when traveling. If only they had one in Argentina!!!!! Or Homer for that matter. Anyways, back to the airport and we passed a Chilis that looked like it [View Full Entry]

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From CA to Lima... ...via a few stops on the way. Our adventure started early in the AM in San Jose, CA where we caught our first flight to Dallas. In Dallas, we got stuck in one of those midwest weather holds. There was about 50 MPH winds, so we sat and sat in the plane, which was queued up with all the other planes waiting to use 2 of 6 runways available. We were lucky enough to be able to take off and take a due south detour around what looked like an impressive storm system that stretched many hunderds [View Full Entry]

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