Journey to the Andes: April 2006

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Juliaca...AWESOME

I've gotten out of Cuzco and I'm in the Kelowna-sized city of Juliaca. I've only been here for a few hours, but I really love it so far!!! It's my idea of what Jakarta would be like...throngs of bicycle taxis roam the streets, with street markets, many dirt roads, and action around you all the time. Walking around here is like being in a dream...not a really nice and pleasant dream (not to say the city's not nice and pleasant), but one of those ones where you wake up and you can't help but ask "What the hell was that?" I've really only been here for a few hours, but I love what I've seen so far. I'm all by myself now, and probably will be for the next little while, so it should be an interesting adventure. I havn't seen a white person here yet, and most of the other people in my hostel appear to be south american. Richeous! I'll likely stay here a day or two and then off to some small villages and then back into Bolivia. Mrs.Beaven, I hope you havn't forgotten about our tea date when we get back! See ya later!

PS: Read this article on US intervention in Columbia!!!

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20&ItemID=10031

posted by Ben @ 5:14 PM 7 comments

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Cuzco...SUCKS.

So after 13 hours on a bus across the Antiplano I arrived from La Paz to Cuzco, the main tourist artery of the whole continent. And I have to say that I HATE THIS CITY. I'm surrounded by tourists everywhere I go, and every building seems to house either a trendy restaurant, café, internet cafe, souvinere shop, or nightclub. You can't walk anywhere without being hasseled to buy something or go somewhere, and I'm freaking sick of it. And there are so many idiot tourists too, it bugs me. Last night I went out to an "Irish Pub" with my buddies (I had nothing else to do) WHY WOULD YOU COME TO FREAKING SOUTH AMERICA TO GO TO A GOD DAMNED IRISH PUB!?!? ARE YOU RETARDED!?!? STAY IN EUROPE, COCKS!!! It really bugs me...there are so many people here that just come here to party, who make no effort to learn spanish, who only go to tourist places and talk to other tourists, and take some nice guided tours and take some pretty pictures. Idiots. It's just so culturally insensitive, and totally defeats the purpose of coming to South America.

That said, I've met a lot of really cool travelers on the road, and hope that I will continue to meet more. I hunch the people that I'll meet in the next few places that I'm going will not likely be "typical" tourists, so I'm a little optimistic about that. I'm keeping with my old travel plans, untilately up to Guyamariné, and then who knows where. I leave tomorrow morning to Juliaca (on train! my first train ever!!!)

Any a note to everybody: I AM NOT FLUENT IN SPANISH YET!!! You cannot learn a language in 3 months, unless you are a brilliant linguist. Sorry, this city makes me temperamental, I'll be so happy to get out of here...

I do the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu on July 8th, and it should be the last thing I do here in South America. Should be cool! I'm paying way too much for it, but it's in huuuge demand, and the government only allows 500 people on the Inca Trail at a time...July 8th was actually the earliest I could make a reservation! Crazy!!! That's one more thing I hate about Cuzco, you feel like a sheep. You have to buy a "tourist ticket" to be able to visit all of the "tourist sites" around the city, and you're expected to just kind of walk around with your camera and sun hat and take pretty pictures of the nice things that they want you to. Bah humbug.

Anyways, just thought that I'd give you all a quick update on where I'm at. The next time I'll have internet is probably passing through La Paz or maybe all the way in Trinidad, so I'll talk to you whenever!!! Wish me luck.

posted by Ben @ 5:18 PM 3 comments

Friday, April 21, 2006

Off to Peru, off to the Amazon

Hola changos! Damaya, what the hell are you talking about, I'm not "almost done" my trip, I just crossed my halfway point. I don't even want to THINK about being done yet.

I've finally left the bustle and chaos of La Paz, the world's highest capital city. I made it across the world's most dangerous road in a minibus at dark in the fog and rain...which was not one of the best things I've done in my life (at least we couldn't see down the thousand foot drops...) but I've made it to Coroico with my buddies William and Anna. Coroico is a nice city in the tropics, I don't know if you'd call it in the Amazon basin or not, but there's palm trees enough. Kind of reminds me of Costa Rica but way less freaking humid. William had to go home to La Paz, which was too bad, and Anna is leaving tomorrow to Rurrenabaqua (how the hell you spell that, I don't know, but it's in the jungle) I finally got some travel plans myself, which I will add map aids to those whose Andean geography is not up to par.

Here is a map of Peru:
http://go.hrw.com/atlas/norm_htm/peru.htm

Here is a map of Bolivia:
http://go.hrw.com/atlas/norm_htm/bolivia.htm

Coroico isn't on the Bolivian map, but it's a little bit northeast of La Paz, just enough to be in the Yungas. Tomorrow or the next day I'm going to head back to La Paz (west) where I'll take a bus over to Cuzco, the ancient capital city of the once-mighty Incan Empire (doesn't that sound cool? Too bad it's a touristy garbage heap) I'll spend a day or two there, mostly just because I have to leave Bolivia to renew my visa. I'm going to make my reservation to walk the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu sometime in June (it'll be one of the last things I do in the south) following this, it's to a city on the shore of Lago Titicaca (that means "Lake Tits and Shit" in spanish...actually no it doesn't...but I wish it did) named Juliaca, where I'll hop along the small villages on the northern shore of the lake (hardly anybody goes there) into Bolivia. Back to La Paz to extend my visa (if I can't get it extended right at the boarder crossing) I'm not sure how I'll get there, but then I'm going to go to the city of Trinidad in the north center (the land of shit-covered boa constricters swimming in open sewers!!!) and take a week long boat trip up the Rio Mamoré to a city SLIGHTLY larger than Summerland called Guayamarine, on the boarder with Brazil. Then probably to Riberalta, and then God knows where. I'll probably do some jungle tours up north, as I'm sure there's little else to do, hahaha.

Eventually I hope to make it down to Tarija, but that's kind of on the other side of the country, heh.

I send my love to all my friends, who are doing exams (hehehe) and my family, who is surely quite worried about me. When I leave Trinidad I'm sure I will have little to no internet access for probably weeks until I get into a less remote location, just so you all know in advance!

Today I'm off to do some horseback riding, also reminiscent of Costa Rica. Just thought I'd update you all on my travel plans. Keep on rockin in the free world! Best of luck to my buddies traveling the world right now!

By the way: Check out this video...

http://www.filmshooting.com/participate/projects/pulseoflife.php

posted by Ben @ 8:38 AM 1 comments

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Final hours in Peace City

QUE PASA CHANGOS!? That, roughly translated, means "What's up dudes!?

Funny spanish word of the day:

Did you know that the spanish word for "lips" is, in fact, "labias"!? If they only knew!!!

Today I went to the market in El Alto. El Alto is the city above La Paz. 20 some years ago the whole city didn't exist, but now it's one of the fastest growing cities on the continent, as poverty increases and migration to major urban centers follows suit. Every Thursday and Sunday the better half of the city it transformed into a neverending market, selling everything from jackets, cell phones, televisions, tables, sofas, monkeys, severed pig legs, books, sewing materials, soccer balls with holes in them, rusty car parts, and everything in between. My Norweigan buddy Anna and me walked around for hours all morning and probably didn't even see half of it. El Alto is a really fascinating city, like La Paz but more chaotic and with less paved roads. The market there is likely one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

So I leave La Paz on Tuesday and I'm going to a village in the Yungas (basically jungle) called "Coroico", which I hear is one of the most beautiful villages in all of Bolivia. I'll likely stay there until my visa is just about up (ends on the 25th) and then I'll be heading across the boarder into Peru to Cuzco, the ancient capital city of the Incas, where I'll book my trek up the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu (you have to do it months in advance in the busy season...the busy season being most of the year. Every gringo in the known universe goes to Macchu Picchu) Then I'll return to Bolivia, get my visa extended to 60 days, and head to a city called Trinidad in the central north, where I plan on doing a week long boat trip down a river in the amazon basin to a town in the Beni (other jungle area) whose name escapes me right now. After that, it's up in the freaking air, but I'll likely be in Bolivia until early/middle june, when I'll go to Peru and do hell know's what, outside of going to Macchu Picchu and Lima (which I hear is one of the most polluted cities in the known universe)

William is going with me to Coroico, which I am happy about, because he's the best friend I've made here. He's a great freaking dude, 36 year old drunken englishman, a "spot on lad" as he would say. It's a shame that I have to leave La Paz...I'm happy to leave Alalay finally, but leaving my newly made friends here is saddening. I can see myself living here...doing labour activism with the "Jovenes Revolucionario" (Revolutionary Youth) which is a activist organization my buddy Marc is involved with...hanging out with Ron and Dianne, the old hippie couple, partying and shooting the shit with William, playing pool with Chris, spending the evenings with Patricia...the people at my hostle know me by name I've been there so long, haha. I think one day I would like to live in South America. In any case, though, I am excited to start traveling.

Other cities on my hit list:

Sucre

Potosi

Oruruo

Yotala

Tarija

Santa Cruz

Random villages in the jungle

My experiences so far here have already shifted my views on certain things...and I'm sure that moving around more will only do more for me. I've talked to a few people about traveling, and they've told me that coming home is so strange, because you and your whole existance have altered so dramatically, but you return home and everything is still just how you left it. I'm looking foreward to coming home, but sure as hell not before my experiences here are sufficiently awesome, hehe.

Best wishes to Robyn on my sister continent, and Clare/Sage/Zoe in their journies further north of me in latin america.

VIVA LA REVOLUCION!!!

posted by Ben @ 5:32 PM 5 comments

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Weekend of Awesome

edit number 2: Hahaha Dad, you make me laugh. As if I *had* any so-called "travel plans". Psssh. Honestly, I don't even know where I'm going Monday when I leave La Paz!!!

Edit: Alright! So I'll explain a little more! Wanting to go to the salar before the end of the rainy season, I took 3 days off work to go on a 4 day trip around the Uyuni district of Bolivia, seeing the salar and several other beautiful things. In the middle of the salar there's a little island full of large phallic cacti where we ate lunch at, which was really pretty. And we stayed in some really middle-of-nowhere towns, moreso than Summerland, if you can believe it! Actually I'm kidding, Summerland isn't anywhere close to middle of nowhere in comparison to these places...as in only like a few hundred people live in them and there's probably an hour or two drive until the next village. Really beautiful though.

As for Evo Morales, yesterday was International Children's Day (which, unlike Canada, seems to be celebrated here) and the little ones from Alalay and the staff went to a park in Zona Sur (South Zone, where all the white rich people live here) where there was music and clowns and other children-like activities, and all of a sudden they annouced that the president was here (I had no idea beforehand) And there he went up on stage, Mister Evo Morales and his vice president. Evo talked about how when he was a kid he didn't even know what a park was, and how lucky (joderme...oh my god, a guy in my hostel is playing that Red Hot Chilli Peppers "city of angels" song...RE RE RE RE RE!!!!) the kids in La Paz are to have such a nice park and playground. He talked about how important children are and how they should listen to their parents, haha...later when everyone was hanging out in the park with their kids, Evo walked through the crowd, media following suit, shaking all the kids' hands, and he walked right by me. It was pretty cool. That was actually one thing I wanted to do here in Bolivia, see him, so it was pretty neat. Add that to the fact that on my first day I saw Hugo Chavez...now all that's left is Kirchner, that Chilean woman, likely the new Peruvian president (if he wins the election, fingers crossed...) and almost every other political leader on the continent. But I got the two most important ones done :)

Tomorrow is my last day at Alalay, and I think I'll probably be leaving La Paz on monday,where to I don't know. There's a few things I want to do here before I go, one of which is send *another* package home as well as snap some more photos of the city, and I'd like to go to the sunday market in El Alto...in any case, I'm glad that I'm finally done at Alalay, and start doing what I came here for. Boat trip down a river in the amazon basin, here I come!!!

La Salar de Uyuni

Lagoon in district Uyuni

Another Lagoon, with the British couple that I traveled with

Flamingos! Yay!

Red lagoon....yes, it's natural! Minerals in the water make the water red when the wind blows the right direction.

Stone tree in the desert.

La Salar de Uyuni, where salt is mined

Outside Uyuni....nice eh?

Whilst you were all either...

a) Studying for final exams in university
b) Working
c) Not travelling in Bolivia

I was

a) Seeing some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen
b) Seeing Evo Morales
c) Traveling in Bolivia

This weekend I went to the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world...which when covered in a layer of water, is turned into the world's most giant reflecting pool. Today I also saw Evo Morales at a gathering celebrating international children's day...he spoke and then walked through the crowd, shaking the hands of all the children...I was within spitting distance of him...not that i¡d actually spit at him, the lovely guy. The vice president was there too. I gotta go now so I can't say much more, but just know that I am likely having a much better time than all of you in school and work. HAH! I'm such an ass...

posted by Ben @ 1:04 PM 9 comments

Sunday, April 02, 2006

A Yunga Weekend

Between almost getting in a bar fight, traveling over the andes, and visiting a cave where ledgend has it tons of ancient Incan gold is buried beneath the underground lake, I'd say I had a pretty awesome weekend. I went to Sorata with William, Ron, and Dianne, some buddies of mine from La Paz. Sorata is a beautiful little village on the edge of the jungle (called "The Yungas" here) with an amazing view of the Andes. Haha, so you're probably wondering about the bar fight....William really likes drinking at sleazy bars, which are totally fun because honestly, Bolivian drunks are the most funny/friendly/psychotic people I've ever met...they'll just go up to you and start a conversation even if you've never seen them before. Usually it's all good, but at the one sleazy bar in all of Sorata (the village only has 1000 people) there were two incredibly annoying guys that wouldn't leave us alone. We also couldn't understand what they were saying because they were slurring everything so badly. To make a long story short, they wanted us to buy them beer (which is odd, because most Bolivians are the ones that buy YOU beer) and they got pissed off at us and tried to start a fight. Fortunately the owners of the bar interveined and saved the day.

Also, Sorata is officially beautiful. Us 4 rode in the back of a truck for about 30 minutes on a long, windy dirt road to this old cave (redundant? maybe) and the whole way had the most incredible scenery of the Andes...which rule. Ledgend has it that the Conquistadoras (spanish conquerors) captured the last Incan emperor in Peru, and the Emperor said that if they didn't kill him he would fill the room they were in with gold. They agreed, and a bunch of gold started to be brought up from Bolivia. For whatever reason, the spanish killed him regardless before the gold arrived, and somehow the incas heard about his death. So rather than surrender the gold to the spanish, the Incas buried it in this underground lake in this cave near modern day Sorata. Cool!

There is also at least 6 italian restaurants in Sorata for a town of 1000 people, not one of them being remotely italian. Weird.

Sorata used to be a really touristy place, but in 2003 there were tons of protests against the government, which always involve road blockades. A bunch of tourists got stranded in Sorata, and the government, to discredit the campesinos (indigenous farmers) who were doing the blockades, they portrayed the tourists as "hostages" and presumably to intimidate the social movements, brought in a huge military operation to "rescue" the "hostages". The army, in their always careful fashion, ended up killing a bunch of people including a teenage boy and a 9 year old girl, and shit hit the fan (thankfully we have a different government here now). Ever since the fiasco tourism has plumitted.

In other news, I met the author of the Bolivia: Between a Rock and a Hard Place book, and also went to a Bolivian Solidarity Group meeting, which is like a little social activist group here (made up entirely of white people...strangely enough)

So, I present to thee, FOTOS!!! (that's spanish for "photos")

The antiplano at sunset...taken from the window of my bus, so its foggy

Driving to La Paz from Sorata

Yes, those are snake skins.

The road to the cave.

My bud William on the back of the truck to the cave.

The cave...full of anciant incan gold!!

Market in sorata.

Main plaza in Sorata

Typical road in Sorata (its sooo poor)

The view of La Paz

Dia del Mar (Day of the Sea) Bolivia's a landlocked country, which means it has no access to ocean. It used to until it got it's ass kicked by Peru in the 19th century. Oh snap!

posted by Ben @ 7:10 PM 6 comments

Ben Martin's log of his 6-month journey to the South American Andean nation of Bolivia.

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