On the Move to the Islands

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Well, we have safely arrived in Lima, Peru, in route to the Galapagos Islands. We have now been without our friend and translator, Jill, for 36 hours, without major incident. Hopefully, this will keep up as we have two more weeks or so until we are reunited. Jill should be enjoying Copacabana at this time, continuing on to points unknown, at least to us.

When last we spoke, we were heading out of La Paz, Bolivia on a bus to Juliaca, Peru. After a fitful night´s sleep, where all of us felt the return to altitude, Sara and I left early in the morning for the bus terminal. I, unfortunately, appeared to have (which is now confirmed) the malady other than theft that befalls travellers to this part of the world. I won´t elaborate, other than to say that I was a frequent visitor to the bathroom. Combined with a touch of nausea, this promised to make for a very long bus ride.

After travelling through the high Andes for a couple of hours, we saw part of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, as well as several new species of birds. Then, the fun part of any trip across borders: crossing the border. This was by far the most uncomfortable to date, because it went right through a busy marketplace in one of the dirtiest cities I have ever seem. My guess is that trash pick-up must be every other year, and we came in the off year. We were let off in the middle of this maelstrom to go through customs on the Bolivia side. After this, we were left to our own devices to work our way across the border, with the bus following slowly behind, and find the customs office on the opposite side. Most of the people crossing the border were not going through the customs office as they probably pass back and forth several times a day. We ended up paying a little boy one Boliviano to act as our guide, though I´m not sure he really helped out. He did offer to take my passport, an offer that I quickly and firmly turned down. Finally, after both customs offices had left their marks in our passports, our bus turned up and let us back on. It took our driver 30 minutes to drive what took us 1 minute to walk, though he may have stopped for lunch on the way.

Regardless, we were back on task, with customs taking the obligatory 2 hours and considerably more discomfort due to the hustle, bustle, and trash. The journey went much faster from this point forward, with great views of Titicaca and the moutain scenery. We quickly reached Puno and then an hour later our stop, Juliaca. We managed to wave down a cab as we came in to town from the bus, and 10 minutes and $2 later, arrived at Hostel Don Carlos. Hostel was a bit of a misnomer, as it cost twice as much as any other place in town, but it seemed safe and our guidebook recommended it. It was more like a hotel with cable TV, a private bathroom, and tea served in our room. Unfortunately, the walls on all sides were extremely thin, so every conversation on the street was heard, though not understood. My fights with that unmentionable traveller´s disease had not been so bad that I could make it through the bus ride, but much of that was due to not eating OR drinking. The altitude didn´t help at all, as I was feeling a bit light headed, so some Kool-Aid was required for calories and liquids.

After another fitful night of sleep, we woke early the next morning (mostly because of the one hour time change) and headed to the airport. The Juliaca airport was much nicer than any in Bolivia that we took off from, as our luggage was actually scanned! Of course, when Sara failed two tests through the metal dectector, the guard with the metal detected wand just waved her through. Our plane showed up on time and was a very modern Boeing plane. We took a short hop to Cusco, with a brief layover during which Sara picked out an alpaca coat to go with her scarf and sweater. Another short jump, and we landed in Lima, a rather smoggy city on the Peruvian coast. Think Los Angeles without the movie stars. We picked the first cab company to approach us, which was probably also the most expensive, so we rode to our hostel in style in a brand new Acura. Classy. We reached out hostel in the ¨upscale¨Miraflores district which was nice, but mostly by Lima standards. The hostel owner of Albergue Miraflores showed off his prolific knowledge of the best restaurants in town as well as good museums, giving us a full tour of the city without leaving the hostel.

Of course we did leave the hostel, as Sara continues on her search for bird books that don´t exist, namely Peruvian birds, finding only a guide for the Andes of Peru and for Machu Picchu. We are currently wasting time in an internet cafe while they attempt to burn a DVD of all our pictures. I´m beginning to wonder how successful this attempt will be, as we have been here over an hour. Let´s hope for the best! I believe this is now official my longest entry about nothing, so hopefully next time I will have some actual ¨meat¨ to write about.

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