It was bound to happen...

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Well, this is it for me. It's monday evening and I start my trek home tomorrow morning. I leave la Paz at 8 am via bus. I wanted to fly La Paz to Lima but the only financially solvent airline in south america was sold out of seats from lima to la paz - you can still buy tickets for the financially insolvent (dissolvent? bankrupt anyway) but they only have 2 planes or something now and are putting them on random routes and just cancel your flight sometime on the day it's meant to leave. I'm thinking of starting an airline and not even buying any planes or anything. I'll just agree to give incompetent travel agents a small cut of each ticket they sell and everyone (other than the travellers of course) will be happy. Anyway, after a 6 hour bus ride into Peru (big tourist bus, shouldn't be a problem, border crossing should be okay). I arrive in the town of Julliaca. Ironically we drove through Julliaca a few weeks ago when we were in Peru and I believe my exact words were ¨oh my god, this is the $h!ttiest place I've ever been, thank god I don't have to ever come here again¨ (that was before I'd been to the even crappier town of Uyuni of course-my horizons just keep expanding). Luckily Im just going to the bus station (because those are usually the prettiest parts of any city) and the airport (where you never need to be worried about safety etc). I should have about 3 hours in the airport which is officially a good amount of time, but I'm anticipating will be among the longest 3 hours of my life. Then I fly to Lima and have about 5 hours in the Lima airport (which should actually be fine because it's a real airport that doesn't just have a guy with a flashlight as the control tower). At midnight give or take I hop on a 6 hour flight to Houston and then have about 3 hours in the Houston airport before finally boarding my plane to Calgary to arive at noon. Now, my bus and first flight are confirmed, but my international one isn't. When I dropped off my flight information in the hotel travel agent at 9 this morning and she agreed to confirm my flights, I foolishly thought that she would confirm my flights. Apparently no. After being told to come back...Twice... it turns out she hadn't even tried and so she passed me on to someone else who confirmed one and then told me that continental doesn't have an office in Bolivia so she couldnt call. Once again, I'm going to open a travel agency, offer to do basically anything anyone wants, not do it, and hope they pay me. Maybe I'll just head to the witches market and buy the ¨please magically confirm my flight for me¨charm, it will be AT LEAST as effective as these travel agents.

Maybe you detect a note of bitterness (uncommon with me I know) in my writting today. Well, there are probably a couple of reasons...trip is almost over, I'm by myself and dont really like travelling by myself, miss Shelagh, worried about getting home etc...Maybe, or Maybe it's because today I had my first threatening South America Experience. I've been bragging about how I've felt so safe this whole trip and no one's tried anything etc, and KaBam, today it happened. So I was walking down a busy street today in sort of a downtownish area. Felt very safe. Couldn't find anything that was supposed to be on my really crappy tourist map(published bythe travel agent I believe) but enjoying the wander. Had stopped for good coffee. Nice weather. Decided to head farther than intended into this other nice area I hadn't been to yet. I was carrying just an over the shoulder MEC bag(yes, you canadians know what I'm talking about), nothing in it but a book, my sunglasses case, etc. I don't have a camera cuz Shelagh has it. Money and passport cleverly stowed elsewhere. Anyway, I thought I felt someone try to open it a couple times, but could have been mistaken. I twisted my bag around so the bag part was sort of under my arm, not on my back. Then they guy in front of me stopped to tie his shoe or something and I bumped into him and kinda tripped over him. The guy behind me definately bumped into me and may have tried to open my bag then, don't know. As I was recovering from the tripping I looked up and a guy coming towards me SPAT into my face. Luckily I was wearing glasses cuz it would have been right in my eye. I immediately wheeled around and said ...well, you know what I said...mom, cover your eyes...¨F&%k OFF¨. I kept the bag tucked under my arm as I did this. I didn't stop but kept walking in my original direction so didn't see again who or anything. Anyway, long story short, I'm not hurt, nothing was stolen and I guess I should be happy that I didn't miss out on this quintessentially South America experience. Let me pretty shaken for the rest of the day though and so I have sought refuge in several coffee shops and restaurants.

Oh, I should probably fill you in on the other things that have happened since last time. We had a good time in Sucre. Our group went out for a good dinner and multiple beverages on our last night together. In fact, way too many beverages for most of us. The night ended at a crappy Bolivian nightclub but we had fun. The next morning was rough. Half of us got up and zipped to the airport to catch our very bumpy flight to LaPaz (I think the pilot knew I was hungover and was punishing me...it wasn't pretty). Didn't do much the rest of that day except for some coffee shops, dinner etc.

Next morning we went to the Valley of theMoon which isn't a valley and I don't think it actually looks like the moon, but it was cool. Our guide (again from the same travel agent) thought she could speak english and definately was saying english words, but didn't make any sense, so I might not have asmuch info about it as I could (and I don't have any photos cuz Shelaghs elsewhere with the camera). Some kind of erosion wore away the land and has left hoodoo like structures. Its very cool actually.

On the way back we drove through the rich areas of LaPaz. It was amazing actually, we didn't think LaPaz, or Bolivia for that matter, had rich areas. I guess the moneys as unevenly distributed as they say. They were amazing houses and then streets of restaurants and cafes that could have been in any trendy area of a north american city.

We got dropped off in the middle of either a regular sunday market, some sort of large dog show celebration
Adios
Heather

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