Pete+Rochelle

Sat 3rd- Thurs 9th Dec

We hopped on the bumpiest four hour bus ride ever to get to La Paz which wasn’t the most comfortable, they should make a Disney themed ride: Buses of Bolivia; then make franchise movies staring us both and Johnny Depp as the crazed, daring bus driver. We did however have to hop off the bus halfway through to get a boat over a river crossing, while the bus went on a wooden barge powered by an outboard motor! We really expected to not see the bus again or our luggage!

The bumps on the road were soon forgot as La Paz came into view. We were cruising about taking in the piles of rubbish and ramshackle trade buildings when this mammoth city that hugged the valley walls literally took our breath way (to quote lonely planet) as its 3660 meters above sea level. There was no land, space, nook, outcrop, spared. The city consumed the landscape. La Paz truly is a sight to behold. It took us off guard as it was the biggest city that we had seen for a while.
As we made out decent into the city, the streets got smaller and smaller, and the near misses with cars, other buses and people became more frequent- call Jerry Brockheimer now. I don’t know if we’ll ever get used to the traffic over here by-the-way! Again, the drivers here are Loco! We were let off and found our way to the nearest hostel. The reception was on the second floor overlooking a café downstairs and as we were checking in we looked over the balcony and just happened to see Liz and Louise having a coffee!! Getting good at the stalking thing! We chilled out for a bit and met the girls out for dinner later.

Sunday morning we went for a walk around our area in search of a cheaper hostel. The place we were staying in was pretty cheap already, but when your in Bolivia you know you can get cheaper. We walked around for ages in search of one particular hostel we had heard of but couldn’t find, and ended up walking past government house at the same time as a big band was making its way down the street. We stopped and watched for a while and one of the uniformed men in the procession was carrying the Bolivian flag, folded up in a glass box. It started raining and these poor guys were stopped in the street for some unknown reason, so I took some photos and we left it at that. We found the hostel in the end, but ended up choosing one that was around the corner from where we were staying.

That afternoon we were supposed to go watch an exhibition soccer game with Liz and Louise but decided on going to a once-in-a-lifetime event. It was called Cholitas Wrestling. Cholita is the name of the traditional skirt that the local women wear that symbolises libre-freedom. That noted, it wasn’t a fashion event it was much more in vogue for a touristy arvo- a bunch of surly, mouthy, bunch of local ladies wrestling in a shabby ring…or so we thought. We went with a bunch of other tourists in a bus to a concrete stadium that looked like a bomb shelter on the out’skirts’ of La Paz, where we got free popcorn and a ringside seat. There were heaps if gringos there, along with a whole bunch of locals, with a big wrestling ring in the middle. A man got up and started to talk, everything was in Spanish so we couldn’t understand any of it, but next thing he was calling up the contestants and they were men!! With masks and caps!! It was just like WWF wrestling on telly, except these men weren’t as fit or as good at acting mean or hurt- now that’s saying something! It was so funny, we laughed so hard, and of course each match was rigged and the ’bad’ wrestler had the help of the referee. When a girl (Cholita) finally came out to fight, she was up against this pooncey guy, and even though you know the fights are staged we still couldn’t help wincing a few times at how bad she was getting beaten up.

Between each fight they played ’Eye of the Tiger’ over the PA and they even had the token speech about something or other by a wrestler and group fights, with some of the wrestlers ending up in some of the tourist’s laps!! We were a bit over it by the time it didn’t end, it went on a bit long. The majority of the fighters were men, with a couple of guys verses gals fights. We got right into the cheering and booing and yelling with everyone else. Afterwards we went to a restaurant for dinner and bumped into Liz and Louise again!! No need to correspond with these two, we always find them! We compared stories of wrestling and football and they went on their way.

Monday was pretty quiet. We moved hostels and I went to café to work on the blog (I really need to catch up!) While Pete played guitar in the hotel room. He joined me in the afternoon and we ended up spending a bit of time at the café talking to other travellers which was cool. We ended up at place for dinner that served Thai, Indian and Chinese food that had been recommended by Liz and Louise. We shared the best dim sums and an alpacha Indian dinner with beer and were served by the greatest waiter who charmed our pants off and made us laugh. It was a great night and great food.

Tuesday saw us going for another walk around and making our way to the museum of music. Now I’m not sure if I made you aware of the money issues we had in Peru, but we were having them here also. ATMs give you 100 boliviano notes ($14 dollars), and most things on the street cost between 4 to 20 boliviano so you’re guaranteed that the vendor doesn’t have change for a large note. It’s really quite stupid. This happened at the music museum. For example it was 5 boliviano each for entry, and we only had 100 bs. So we walked around for ages trying to find a cash machine just to get out a smaller note. We finally made it back to the museum and the whole thing would’ve lasted us 45 minutes at the most. It was filled with heaps of instruments however, mostly of South American origin, and a lot using animal shells and skins. There was even instruments you could play much to our amusement.

After our renditions of Twinkle Little Star on the ‘water bottles’ and Radiohead/Violent Femmes on the xylophone, we walked up a cute little alleyway and looked in all these little boutique stores which had some gorgeous handicrafts. On trying to purchase something we had the same money woes! We ended up having to go and have lunch at the nearest place we could find four blocks away so we could get some change to go back with. It can be such a mission at times.
That night Pete wanted to great dim sums again, so we went back to the same restaurant and had exactly the same food and the same entertaining waiter!

Wednesday we had organised a day tour around to some of the sights around La Paz. We were picked up by the most crammed mini bus ever. They had put way too many seats in it and poor Pete had no where to put his legs, which you know longer and more precious than Jamie-Lee Curtis‘!! We spent most of the tour in the damn thing to, which was loads of fun…right.

Check out the ice!!

Our first stop was to a mountain called Chacaltaya in the Royal mountain range just outside of La Paz. Its peak being 5430 metres above sea level. The bus took us to 5200 metres, we had to walk the rest. That was really hard going. The altitude made it feel as though our hearts were going to jump out our mouths. We got puffed heaps quicker and our heads started to hurt, but we made it, right to the lofty top (only five of us did it) and it was bitterly cold. The wind whipped at us and it even started to lightly snow. The view was amazing we really felt out in the middle of nowhere.

5430 meters above sea level!!

Once back in the van, we made the bumpy ride back down the hill on these one lane volcanic rock roads, past some little villages and through to the other side of La Paz. There we went to Valle de la Luna, the The Valley of the Moon. It let us tell you all it was out-of- this- world! The whole rock valley was limestone, and due to years of wind and rain erosion, parts of the limestone structure, and it’s ultimate future, had been washed away, leaving huge canyons and holes. There was a walking track to follow which took us through and over and around the canyons. It really didn’t look real…really. Our guide explained to us that the rich people lived out in this part of the city- the weather was nicer than in the city of La Paz. There was even a golf course! The highest in the world.
After a big day of mainly driving around in a hot little van, we ate pizza biggest pizza in La Paz and called it a day.

Valley of the moon

Thursday we went and organised a red-eye bus for that night to get us to Potosi-the mining town. It wasn’t leaving till eight pm, so we had quite a few hours to kill and no room to go back to. So we decided to go for another walk around to try to find the cinema. We got a little lost, but not such a bad thing when you have hours and want to see a city. When we did find the cinema, it only showed one movie and it wasn’t even one we knew, and not even in English! So we slowly walked back up the main strip. La Paz has a busy centre, with high rises and business and people all around, a real actual city!

We walked past a contemporary art museum, so we decided to go look. I remembered reading that this building is another of Mr Effiles creations, he has the tower in Paris, a corner building in the main plaza at Iquitos and a house in La Paz. It was a beautiful house, and the paintings and sculptures were great too, Pete thought they were shit. I hadn’t been feeling brilliant all day (I think the altitude from the day before was getting to me) so it nice to be in the quiet and just sit for a while.

Coca absenth

We made our way back slowly to the hostel that was holding our bags, and came across the Coca museum! The coca leaf is a huge part of everyday life and culture for Bolivians, and the Peruvian to be fair. It was only when the westerners got hold of it that its stigma was born. Because most of Bolivia is at such high altitude and due to their main industry and economic support being the mining industry, they use the coca leaves to chew on to help relieve: fatigue, the effects of the altitude sickness, and to subdue hunger, so they are able to work for longer down the mines without any real sustenance. The qualities of the leaf aside, the Spanish and the Catholic church started calling it the ‘devil’s leaf’, when they invaded South America and subsequently banned the chewing of it. That is until they discovered its benefits and the effects it had on their now slave population’s productivity in the silver mines. Being the benevolent souls they were they made an exception- let the people chew coca- happiness is a worn gum, and lifted the ban. It was interesting to read about the history of the coca leaf and afterwards we went to the café that was fixed to the museum where I had “She don’t lie, she don’t lie- coca tea” (which we drank lot of in Cusco and the Inca trail with the altitude) and tried coca chocolate cake. Pete the stupid gringo had coca mixed with absinth, which turned out to be, you guessed it, a disgusting, vile, putrid, uber-strong shot. Apart from tasting a tad of Pete’s drink I I actually felt better afterwards.
We then called in at a restaurant to have some tea and passed the time playing cards which has been our saviour of late. It was then off to the bus station to get our eleven hour bus to Potosi happy times!!

22nd-25th Nov

We have just experienced probably some of the most challenging days of our lives, but wow, we saw some of the most spectacular scenery though. Let us take you on the journey that had been the Inca trail and Machupicchu.

The trail is only 33km long, but takes three and a half days to walk , because the tracks are on the side of the mountain range. On Tuesday we were picked up at 6.30am for a long bus ride to where the Inca trail started. On the way we stopped for breakfast at a cute little place surrounded by hills with guinea pigs and cats and we got to know the people that we were spending the next four days with. From Australia there was Chris and Lauren, father and daughter team and friends Liz and Louise. There was Montse from Spain and Ben from Switzerland. After getting each others stories and filling up on scrambled eggs and bread, we were on our way again.

Roch, Chris, Montse, Pete, Ben, Lauren, Liz & Louise

There were several other buses and locals trying to sell us all sorts when we reached our destination. We got our backpacks, bought some walking sticks (which were the best investment ever), dosed ourselves in sunscreen and went to the first check point to get our passports checked and stamped. Then we were off!

It was an easy start, small uphills and flats next to a river with the very majestic and snow capped Mount Veronica looking down at us. We looked down on the ruins of Q’anabamba and also Q’entimarka, situated at the base of the foreboding mountain range. This was meant to be the easy day in terms of walking, but we struggled a bit as we each had our backpacks and had not conditioned our flabby bodies for the hike. What were we in for! We walked about five hours that day and arrived at our camp- we were the last ones there.

Our tent was already set-up thanks to the ninja like porters and dinner was getting prepped. We were up on a mountain next to a little settlement and there were mountains all around us, oh yeah and the worst toilet EVER. You smelt it way before you saw it, and when you saw it you wished it wasn’t a squatter. The worst toilet so far. We had pre-dinner popcorn and hot chocolate (soon to be known as Happy Hour snacks) in the dinner tent followed by a great spread then an early night. For being on a camping trip and having all our food, cooking utensils and even the gas bottle being carried by the porters, we ate some amazing food that was unexpected.

Pete's face says PAIN

Wednesday: Day Two. This was the killer. We had already organised a porter to carry one of our backpacks as we knew we wouldn’t cope. We took half hour turns with the pack, it was so much harder with it on trying to walk up the incredibly steep steps. The funny thing was, we would be having a little rest on a rock every so often and these porters would run past us, uphill, with fifteen to twenty kilos on their backs. They were so amazing and strong and made us look pretty pathetic. The peak was on Abra Warmiwanuska which reached 4201 Metres above sea level, so of course the big problem was the fact that the higher we got the thinner the air got. A double whammy. When we weren’t looking down at our feet concentrating on breathing and not collapsing, the scenery was beautiful and changed so much the higher up that we got. There was a stream running over rocks and trees would make a canopy over the stairs that just went on for ever. Towards the top of the mountain the canopy opened up and we could see specks of people that were the rest of our group, and in the last half hour, even though we were so close we still couldn’t go any faster up hill, in fact we probably went slower as our bodies were protesting and oxygen was sparse. As we got close the guys were cheering us on, and reaching the top was the best sense of relief! We took celebratory photos and rested the legs and then spent the next couple of hours walking down the other side!!!! Our legs were screwed!!

We arrived at the camp about 2pm, had a late lunch then chilled for the rest of the day. Everyone was so tired but no one wanted to risk a nana nap for fear of being awake all night. We had a little lie down in the tent though and when I got up and went outside, looking over the valley a hummingbird flew right in front of me and started to drink the nectar out of some fuchsias. It was so elegant and graceful and simply suspended itself in air whilst dipping its beak into the long flowers. Beautiful. We spent the afternoon telling jokes and Chris taught us some party tricks and we played charades and had a relaxing but very funny evening. We watched a fog come up fast through the gully which was neat, had dinner and pretty much passed out straight away. Oh, and we had real toilets this time too!! Yay!!

Thursday morning we awoke as normal to: ‘room service’, which is a touch on the tent (or as the guides would say, we will ‘torch’ the tent) a cup of coca tea and a couple of stiff legs. We had been warned that the walk that day would be the longest, but far easier then the day before. We went past the ruin of Runkuraqay before a great deal of steps uphill, which got the legs stretched and the lungs working. We had another Inca sight to visit, Sayaqmarka, a place that would’ve held a few families and also a place to stay for pilgrims and Incas. It was high on a mountain and quite mysterious with the low cloud and was defiantly safe from harm with the only way to get to it being these extremely steep steps.

We then had the easiest and for me the most beautiful part of the walk, through the Cloud Forest. It is at cloud level and because of the constant moisture has beautiful colours, textures and flora. There was also constant cloud so there was no view, only a bit in front and behind and a little down, where we could see the edge of the path and the cliff that did not look very forgiving. It was so peaceful and mysterious and not that strenuous so we could really take in our surroundings.

We had another great lunch and to top off our nine hours of walking we had to go down 3000 steps to make it to the camp site. The last half hour of that walk was the longest! The camp was a big one and all the groups doing the trek were there and you could buy beer, although we didn’t as we knew it would put us on our arse, but best of all we could have a shower!!! It was brilliant to be able to take off the layers of sunscreen and insect repellent and sweat. We had dinner and finished off the evening with a small ceremony where we presented all the porters and the cooks with tips and thank you speeches. No one in our group had any idea what was going so it ended up being quite funny. Pete tried to start things off but was told to stop, to allow one of the guides to take over, ‘The Super Cool Guy‘ , he referred to himself as.

Super cool guys and our porters

As we were going to bed there was thunder and it started to rain. It rained all night and it dripped on my head while I was sleeping and came into the tent. By 3.30am came around we were woken for the early start and we really hadn’t had much sleep, and it was still raining. This didn’t dampen our spirits though. It did finally stop raining not long after we got up and, well, we were going to see Machupicchu!! The end of our pain was nigh and excitement and anticipation took over. We were all very quiet in the morning, but as the rain dried up and the fog started to lift so did the moods and we were ready to go. It was a 2 and a half hour walk to our destination, and we were all so ready to be there. It was a beautiful walk as normal, Pete and I had our own backpacks to carry, but we had gotten ourselves well seasoned by then and it defiantly wasn’t as bad as the first day. Pete powered on ahead on this morning. He came into some power surge and was off. I was too busy taking photos of orchards and the fog around the mountains.

Our first view of Machupicchu was completely covered on fog. We could see the tip of Yunapicchu and that was it. As we got closer the cloud started to lift more, so by the time we reached the point of looking down at it we could see the city and it locked very airy but so peaceful. It was amazing to finally reach it and the view was breathtaking. The city is high on a mountain, and all that was surrounding it was these mountains with shear cliff faces and clouds dancing in between. Just standing there and taking in the whole view was absolutely magical. We completely get why we injured ourselves now!!! Photos and footage are never going to do this place justice. They are never going to show just how magnificent and big and high it really is. Or give you the feeling of just how small you really are.

Made it!!!

Machupicchu is the only place that the Spaniards didn’t get to and fuck up. It’s the only Inca sight that still has all the buildings and its sun dial in tact because this fact. It is in the shape of one of the Incan gods- the condor. It was where Incan royalty lived and always held a position of power. So much history has come from there, and sadly much history has been lost forever from the lack of documentation to unlock the mysterious relationship these ancient peps had with this majestic land. All we know is that the Incas were quite smart, a strong race that erected their monuments and temples in alignment with either the moon or the sun because they were lunatics. We were given a tour of the area by Bearnie and Sol and afterwards sat on the terraces with the alpaca and looked out over the magnificent mountains.

Our first beer

In the afternoon we caught the bus to the nearby town to have a last lunch with the group and the guides. We had our first beer for a couple of weeks which just about made me fall asleep, but was worth every drop. We got a train and coach home, ending up back in Cusco with just enough energy to shower (now that one was sooo good-clean hair!!!!), grab a pizza and pass out. Trust us when we say you must visit Cusco and Machu Picchu.

Trips:

Shorthand link:

The big city

La Paz, Bolivia

What blog?

Tupiza, Bolivia

Cusco to Puno 30th Nov

Puno, Peru

LAKE TITICACA- GRANDE LARGO

Puno, Peru

Welcome to Bolivia!!!

Copacabana, Bolivia

Last Cusco days

Cusco, Peru

The Inca Trail

Machupicchu, Peru

High flying

Cusco, Peru

Just chilling

Lima, Peru

Computer nightmares

Cusco, Peru

Heading South?