Journey to the Andes: Off to Peru, off to the Amazon

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:

At 12:31 PM, Andrés Paz said…

Ben, if you get this before you head off into the great unknown, can you email me the approximate cost of your trip, im thinking of going to Ecuador next year, but I have no clue on how much it's going to cost, especially plane trips, and if anyone should know about that stuff, i'd be you