Bolivia to Panama

---

The time has come for another entry, we feel...
So we bussed to lovely little Copacabana, a little hippy town on the sea-esque Lake Titikaka. We´d heard it was rather good, you see. Copacabana holds a lot of the general Bolivian charms - bowler-hatted women, drunken drum/pipe playing into the wee hours in candlelit plazas, cocoa leaf chewing, lots of altitude, and everything cheap as chips. It´s where some travellers come to and never leave, realising that their purpose in life is to sit on the street making strange looking jewellery out of feathers and sell thier wares to tourists. But the main reason why poeple come is for the ginormous lake and the Isla del Sol, the rumoured birthplace of the Incan empire. Quite fitting really, as this was also our first real encounter with Incan ruins (but it certainly wasnt to be the last...). So the next day we went out on a boat to the island, and dutifully walked the length of it and burnt our scalps in the process. But we couldnt get swept up in the general lazy atmosphere of Copacabana, so the next day we hopped on another bus to Cusco, Peru, and thus putting the twelfth country-notch in our travel-post (so to speak..).
Cusco (or rather Qosqo as it´s officially spelt) is a beautiful city in southern Peru, its old capital and true heart. It´s here you find all the amazing Incan stonework, still standing next to the newer Spanish architecture of the Conquistadores. We spent a couple of days checking out the museums, the cathedral and churches, and just generally acquainting ourselves with the city while the sun shone. And then it was the time for that old chestnut, the Inca Trail. We´d been advised that you have to book way in advance if you want to walk the ´famous´Inca trail´(although there are hundreds of others, just as authentic), and being traditionalists, this is what we did. After being put up in a rather nice hotel for two nights, which had actual hot water and a TV (part and parcel of the tour experience and a luxury for us), we decided to do some walking.
The Inca Trail is a four-day, three-night shindig, beginning at km 82 and ending at Machu Piccu. Some bits are tough, especially days 2 and 3 which involve incredibly long and steep walks up, and then down, respectively. It´s all made easier for you by porters, who are some kind of highly evolved super beings, who pretty much run the whole trail with a giant bag full of tents, gas cylindars, little stools for weary tourists to sit on, food, and occasionally people who have taken a tumble or are lazy. They arrive at each stop before you, and have already got lunch on the table by the time you arrive. They´re truly wonderful people and have our total respect... we may still be on the Inca Trail if we had had to carry our own stuff. Anyway, after some terribly cold nights and hot and sweaty days, on day 4 we reached the Sun Gate by about 5.30am, just in time to see the sun not spectacularly rise over Machu Piccu. No bother, it was still pretty good anyway. On our way down we came face to face with the lazy (American) tourists who opted for the 3 hour train up to the ruins from Cusco instead, and were all smug with their clean hair and non-smelling clothes. It was definitely worth the hike, though. The location is spectacular, and the ruins, although a lot have been reconstructed, were wonderful. It´s a large place, and we spent an hour or so touring it, being told about, amoung other things, the ancient sundial which got a chunk taken out of it by a falling Tv camera while filming a beer advert. We have lots of pcitures, so you should take a gander at those while I move on with our story...
Our plans then changed. Initially, we were going to leave Cusco after the trek, make our way up Peru (skipping Lima), and get to Quito, Ecuador in time for our prebooked Galapagos trip. But a couple of familiar faces decided to show up in Cusco for the Inti Raymi festival, so we decided we had to stay for it. We hadn´t really had much festival-ness, and we couldnt say no to seeing Ashlee and Bel again. We had to waste a bit of time before they arrived, so we went to the Manu Biosphere Reserve, which is a little slice of the Amazon in Peru. This involved a (very long) car ride into rural Peru, the cloud forest, and then the jungle. Unfortunately for most of this I was struck with a nasty bug, but apparently there was some (tame) white water rafting for the non-afflicted and lots of nature walks. I did however make it to the canopy zip-wire, which was fun, although we saw no monkeys.
After returning to Cusco Amy spent a night with a lady shaman discovering her mystical side and I recovered. Cusco had been anticipating Inti Raymi for about 15 days now, with colourful daily parades and rowdy nightly parties, and so it was high time it actually happened. Inti Raymi is the time Peruvians celebrate their Inca culture, and recreate the ancient ritual of chosing ´The Inca´ in the ruins above the city. People come from all over Peru to watch the ritual and the killing of a llama, and supposed ´reading´ of its entrails for good or bad omens.
We only had one more day and then we had to say goodbye to Ashlee and Bel, and leg it to Quito for our Galapagos tour. This involved 2 flights and 2 long distance bus journeys, all in one day. Amazingly, it all sort of went ok, despite a fairly dodgy border crossing. Our overnight bus was searched all of 3 times by Ecuadorian police (armed robberies are common on night buses in Ecuador, apparently, but its good to see they´re on the ball). However, we got to Quito, on time, and all in one piece.
Quito is a bright, friendly city with a large mix of people. The tourist district, La Mariscal, is full of trendy, slightly off the wall bars, cafes and clubs, and the streets full of even trendier teenagers just hanging about with a bottle of something. We were to discover Quito more a bit later when we studied Spanish there, but there was a little tour we had to go on first. This time the hotel we were put up in was downright posh, with bellboys and a conference centre and people in suits and, most importantly, an included buffet breakfast. Feeling all spoilt, the next morning we met our group and made for the airport.
We touched down on Baltra island, Galapagos, and were immediately thrown into nature, with sea lions, red crabs, frigatebirds and marine iguanas there to greet us at the port. On the boat we joined another tour group, largely consisting of much older American couples. The first day we sailed to a lagoon to watch the blue footed boobies dive head first into the water, pelicans swooping overhead, and finally to see giant turtles swimming about. The second day we did a bit of snorkelling with some seal lions and turtles again, as well as some amazing fish. In the evening we had some flying fish jump onto our boat, and then some sea lions attempt to jump on after them. Snorkelling again on the third day, and with a long walk to see some of the other endemic species on the islands. The last day we spent at the Charles Darwin centre and a rural farm in the highlands, to become acquainted with some giant land tortoises, including Lonely George. I don´t have to say that it was all absolutely amazing, but I won´t go on about it - it´s all in the pictures.
Back to dry land, we had a day to prepare ourselves for something we hadn´t done in a while - school. Although we were getting by with our hobbled Spanish (consisting mostly of stuff from menus), we thought we should at least attempt to put some coherent sentences together in case we needed them later. We had decided to stay in the hostal within the Cristobal Colon Spanish School, mostly because it would make the 9am starts a bit easier on us. We both had four hours a day one-on-one tutition for five days, and it was great value for money. We´re both now able to hold sort-of conversations, and have mucho mas confidence, which was the whole point, really.
Which brings me to yesterday, when we flew to Panama City in the rain. Rain aside, it´s at least very hot here, and we have brought out our flip flops once again. This, however, turned out to be a bit of an error - rain + flip flops + drinks/leaflets (depends on who you ask) = amy has twisted her ankle. Thus today has been spent in a Panamenian hospital (not bad by any means), trying to use our Spanish to understand doctors. She´s laid up for a couple of days, but is otherwise fine. A twisted ankle while travelling isn´t exactly a bonus, but we´re staying hopeful and sticking to our plans, only now Amy will be on crutches for a bit of it.She apologises to those she means to be in contact with - she´ll get to a computer as soon as she can!
That´s it then, it´s a big entry so I hope I haven´t bored you. We´ll be leaving Panama City for the coast, to check out Bocas del Toro and its sun and sand...ankle permitting!
Lots of love to everyone back home, from Louise and Amy xxx

---