Oruro for Carnival. The carnival in Oruro is the second largest carnival in the world and we happened to be there on the biggest day. We took a bus from La Paz at three in the morning to arrive on time. When we got there the festivities had already begun. There was a huge parade going on with bleachers on both sides. You have to reserve your seats far in advance because everyone from Bolivia is there. The parade started at seven in the morning and lasts until five the next morning. The parade consisted of different groups from all over the country representing their own culture. Everyone was dressed up in their native outfits. The women dressed up with skirts and the men all had masks and huge costumes. Along with the dancers there was ... read more

Crossing over to Bolivia was a little more challenging then the other boarder crossing. When we were getting on our bus the bus driver noticed that we were Americans and was not happy. Apparently Americans always have problems and they take three times as long. As you can imagine Eric and I were a little nervous. When we got to the boarder crossing the bus driver was rushing us out of the bus because we were Americans. Our first problem was with getting out of Peru. We didn’t have our departure ticket so we asked the police man what to do and all he said was that we couldn’t leave the country. After a few minutes of sweating he finally told us we could buy one with a small fee attached of course. We left Peru, ... read more

We wanted to do something special for Erics birthday so we decided to spend it on the islands of Lake Titicaca. We took a night bus to Puno then were off on a two day tour of the island. The first island that we stopped at was Uros. This was a collection of floating island made of reeds. They created these islands by putting thousands of reeds on top of each other to create a surface to build houses on. It was very interesting to see how these people live. The next island we went to was Taquile where we stayed the night. We stayed with a family here in little shacks with no electricity and mud floors. We ate our dinner by candle light. That night the town was having a little festival so Eric ... read more

After our stay in Lima we headed to beautiful Huacachina. This was an amazing little oasis that was perfect for us. After travelling for so long we were ready to take a few days to just relax. And that was what Hauacachina was all about. It is so close to the sun that the temperatures are at very hot levels. Every hostel has there own swimming pool. The first day we arrived all we did all day was lay by the swimming pool. It was very hot! We both regret laying out in the sun for so long because for the next week and half our skin was either very very sun burned or peeling off. Weeks later we are still feeling the effects. The second day we were there we went for a sand buggy ... read more

Our last stop before entering Peru. We had quite and experience going down to Cuenca on the bus. During one of the many crazy turns on a mountain road there was a bus also trying to make the same turn as us. Turns out that both buses could not make that turn at the same time. Our bus ended up t boning the other bus, shattering our windshield and making very large dents in theirs. It was a good thing we were going to slow or it could have been a lot worse. This did not stop of from continuing though. The bus driver was not effected by not being able to see out of the windshield very well. Lets just hope this was the only bus accident we get into during our trip. Our first ... read more