Onward!!! Bolivia and Cusco - Round Two

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Well, you all have read or at least received the last blog from Kyle of which my travels pertain to. As Kyle mentioned, our crew of 4 officially disbanded in Salta with Burton heading into Bolivia at a slow pace, Kyle heading back in the general direction of BA and Montevideo, and Drew and I intending to speed through Bolivia and southern Peru on our way to the northern Peruvian coast. Despite you receiving this blog from me, I´ll preface this entry by saying that in no way am I committing to blogging for the rest of my trip nor do I expect or intend to be as funny, entertaining, or well-written as Kyle. Kyle was also constantly taking photos with his fancy camera, and my pocket sized camera that I got sophomore year of college with the dime-size LCD screen just doesn´t compare. (Kyle´s blog is just too popular; I needed to put those excuses out there since I´m following one of the most prolific and popular travel bloggers of all time!) With that said, IF I keep this up, you´ll be able to see and read the latest of Drew and my adventures. If I dont keep it up, I promise that I will still send my love!

So after a thrilling Super Bowl in Salta, Drew and I headed North - back to Bolivia. The final days in Salta and the first few back in Bolivia brought on more emotions than expected. After wishing Kyle bon voyage, it really felt like the trip was coming to an end, and for the first time since I started traveling, it felt like I had been on the road for a long ass time (4 and a half months). This was the end of the original travel itinerary, the end of our group that had been standing side by side for the last several months, and the beginning of a brand new trip - Northern Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Panama.

Since Drew and I had both already spent a substantial amount of time in Bolivia, we planned to pretty much pass through, but as anybody who has been to Bolivia knows, Bolivia can be a bit of a black hole. From Salta, Argentina we headed to Potosi, Bolivia, formerly the wealthiest city in South America and currently famous to backpackers for its exhilirating mine tour. Kyle and I stopped in Potosi on our first pass through Bolivia (perhaps some of you remember my Halloween outfit), but since Drew never made it there on his first go and it was a practical place for us to stop, we holed up here for 2 nights to adjust to the altitude and so Drew could blow up some dynamite with a crazy Bolivian. From Potosi we caught a bus to Oruro. To be honest, Oruro was nothing special and quite similar to Sucre and Potosi, but I felt compelled to see at least one new city in coming back through Bolivia. Oruro, however, is famous for hosting Bolivia´s largest Carnaval celebration. Though the Carnaval celebration doesn´t start for still some time, the festivities begin in January where kids have a city-wide water balloon fight everyday when school gets out (this apparently goes on all across the country). Extra points for hitting gringos in the face! As we walked down the street, amused at the trenchwarefare surrounding us, we didn´t realize that we were part of the fight until a fat orange water balloon came whizzing right past my already broken nose splattering a few feet in front of me. Drew and I turned around to see a chubby Bolivian kid chuckling and pointing at us. I don´t know why, but for some reason he reminded me of my college roommate Sonny. I think its because I envision Sonny taking a city-wide water balloon fight very very seriously. Anyway, being the tough guy that I am, I dared him to throw another, and of course, no other balloons came our way.

From Oruro, we headed back to La Paz. I never would´ve thought I´d be back in this crazy city, but just as last time, it was an absolute blast. We spent 5 days here, enjoying the cheap cuisine and the wild nightlife. The first new experience of this go around was exploring San Miguel, which is one of the wealthier neighborhoods of La Paz. San Miguel is shockingly different from downtown La Paz, yet only a few kilometers away. It literally reminded me of suburban NJ, specifically Montclair for those familiar with Jersey. The second new La Paz adventure was getting a tour of San Pedro Prison, which is a federal prison in the downtown area. San Pedro is famous for being run by its inmates. Women and children come and go freely from the prison and many entire families call the prison their home. Wealthy inmates buy real estate within the prison and then rent the cells out to other inmates to generate income. There are restaurants, markets, stores, bars and clubs all within the prison walls. There are basically few rules, yet the prison is so functional and the inmates so civilized. Most of the inmates within the prison are murderers or big drug pushers. Now I don´t think I have ever spoken to a murderer before, and I certainly don´t defend the actions of any of the people there, but it was an enlightening and unique experience to speak to these people who were so polite, humble, compassionate, and SO human; you would never know they were murderers if they didn´t tell you. Once again, I´m not defending them in anyway. I´m simply reflecting that, while many of them are drug addict crack heads, many others of them could pass as you or me on the street... it was truly sad.

But onto happier things! Once again we survived Bolivia, and from La Paz, we caught a direct bus to Cusco, where my first adventure of this journey began 4 and half months ago. Drew and I planned to stop here to white water raft the Apurimac River, but as we soon found out, the river closes in February when the rains come and the water level rises beyond a safe level. Since we found ourselves in Cusco with nothing to do, we decided to splurge on $8 massages. This was my first 3rd-world massage, and considering it was $8 for an hour of work, it was MUCH MORE than I expected. Now if you´re thinking I implied something by capitalizing ¨MUCH MORE,¨ I wasn´t. (However, during the entire massage I couldn´t help but think about the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode in which Larry unsuspectingly says ¨yes¨ when his masseuse says, ¨Would you like me to finish you off?¨ Larry´s friends are subsequently impressed that he was able to stop her after 12 pumps, but Larry is worried that Cheryl will learn this secret during her appointment with a psychic later that day. That is really a great episode and it gave me a chuckle during my massage.) Well, our Incan massages ended innocently, and the next morning we set off to the beaches and waves of Northern Peru, where we are now!

I only just added some of you to the list when I noticed you were never on Kyle´s blog list. For any of you who want to read about past adventures, here is a link to Kyle´s blog which covers from the start of the journey in Lima through Salta, Argentina. Enjoy. http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/The-Bernard-Brothers/page-1.html

Also, for anybody who isn´t blogged-out at this point and knows Drew, here is a link to his blog: http://seedrew.com/blog/

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Photos

La Paz
My favorite city in South America

Plaza de 10 de Febrero, Oruro
Another plaza!!! WOOOOO!!!!