Day 1 (Friday- March 3, 2006)
Today we left Brevard at 12:30 in the afternoon. We left in 3 vans to the Atlanta Airport. It was a horrible ride that lasted 4 ½ hours. We arrived to the airport and literally jumped out and made our way to the check in because we were running late. While we were in the vans I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to check my luggage, because I didn’t want to risk loosing it in a foreign country. So everyone kept nagging me about it and saying that it wouldn’t fit…but guess what! I didn’t have to check it…HAHA! We had a layover in Miami, and we got there around 9:20 pm. Our flight to La Paz, Bolivia wasn’t until 11:30pm. We all were so excited and nervous at the same time. But we had a little while to relax and get our nerves in order. As soon as we got on the plane, I realized how close we were to being outside the COUNTRY!
They gave us in-flight meals –gross- we had the choice of pasta w/ chicken or beef. I chose the pasta because it looked the most appetizing. And yes I took a picture of it, because it was SO hilarious. I ended up sleeping most of the 7hrs on the plane. When I woke up, I got my first glimpse of the Andes Mountain Range. It was absolutely breath-taking.
When we got off the plane at 7:00am I had never felt so out of my realm. I went through customs, and waited with Jarrod until his luggage came out. It almost looked like it wasn’t going to come, but after 10 minutes it did. I took my first breath outside…WOAH. Talk about taking your breath away. There was so much pressure on my chest. But I got used to it rather quickly. It was the walking that got me. Never run on your first day in a foreign country that is 13,000ft.
Day 2 (Saturday- March 4, 2006)
Day 2 started the morning I woke on the airplane in Bolivia! But we checked into the Hotel Rosario at 10:00am. It took two extra hours before our rooms were ready. I roomed with Sarah and Kristen. We were allowed to explore the city until 2:30pm. Me and Sarah tried different ways on how to stash our passports; we couldn’t decide whether to keep them in the hotel or take them with us, but we didn’t know what to put it in. It was funny, but we decided to take them with us and we headed out with Jarrod. I was more terrified about walking around in La Paz alone; I didn’t know what was going to happen. But everyone seemed very friendly, and it was very interesting just to walk around and look at all the interesting things. Many women were camped out on the sidewalks selling their crops or selling sneakers and jeans. It was crazy. The worst street was the Witches Market. It smelled horrible! They had llama fetuses strung on their huts for sale. The story behind it was that you give it to someone as a gift before they move into a new house. They would bury it under their house and it would bring them good luck; but we all know it just brought a nasty stench.
We arrived back at 2:30pm for our tour around La Paz. Our tour guides Rose Mary and her brother and sister took us on a bus tour around the city for 3 hrs. We stopped at various lookout locations to take pictures and to just enjoy the views. We then visited the Valley of the Moon –it was a site where a lot of erosion occurred from the Andes, the formations were very strange and interesting. We then came back to the hotel and explored the city some more by ourselves. We figured out how to exchange money and bought a bunch of things and came back for dinner. We met up for dinner at 7:30pm; I had the chicken (playing it safe). But Jarrod tried the llama meat (it was good- doesn’t taste like chicken though). We all drank some amazing red wine at dinner and we were having such a great time we went across the street to a bar called the Luna Azul. We had a few drinks and we all talked about how the day went. The bar looked like a Brevard College hangout…and it was. The bar owners gave us some coca leaves to try, they were interesting –they just numbed my mouth…no relaxing occurred. We left for the night and passed out around midnight so we could wake up at 7:00am for the next excursion.
Day 3 (Sunday- March 5, 2006)
Today we woke up, had our breakfast downstairs in the hotel restaurant. We left at 8:30am to make our way to Tiwanaku. It was a 1 ½hr ride. You should see the way people drive down here! So close to the other person, so noisy, and no stop lights; they used their horns. It’s crazy, it was worse the NYC – La Paz was HUGE. You definitely couldn’t walk from one place to another. The roads were up and down, over and over. The women here are very interesting, they are huge. We stopped at Lloco Lloco, the highest point on the trip where there is access to roads. Rose Mary and her siblings gave us gifts that contained coca leaves. Rose Mary performed an Aymara ceremony to offer coca leaves and alcohol to Pachamamma (the goddess of the earth). It was a very emotional ceremony, and J.R. was the one who did the offerings. Rose Mary wanted him to do it because she knew how much he loved the Andes/Bolivia.
We then got back on the bus and continued our way to Tiwanaku, the oldest civilization/ruins in the western hemisphere. This is the PowerPoint project that I’m doing for class. So it was very neat to get to see it. They had been doing an excavation at the bottom of the pyramid called Akapana. Prof. Bauslaugh went over to the pile of dirt that was “supposedly” looked through and found GOLD! We made our way to the top of the pyramid where Drew (Chapin and Bauslaugh’s son) kept getting yelled at because he wanted to climb on the monuments. It was hilarious, the guards were screaming in Spanish and nobody knew what they were talking about, we just guessed. We made our way to the subterranean temple and then the main temple Kalasasaya square. The Gate of the Sun, the auditory hole, and the Kon-tiki statue are located here. There were some very interesting draining techniques around the subterranean temple, and there were a bunch of monumental heads sticking out from the walls. My guess is that they represent very important people. The Tiwanaku civilization was very spiritual and they were into astronomy and based their directions on astronomy. They seemed kind of hooky, and believe the stones are magnetic. There was green gravel stone located all over the sites, and when they are removed they apparently don’t keep their color because of the magnetism at the site. I tried it, took some rocks back to La Paz, and they were black. We stayed in the town and ate lunch (chicken again) and visited two museums. I also touched a sheep for the first time (wild ones).
We returned the hotel in La Paz and had some free time ‘til dinner at 7:30pm. We found some really great shops, and knew we had to go back. We had dinner in the hotel, I had beef (it was ok), drank some wine, but the altitude was starting to hit me. So I went to my room to pack my bags for Copacabana and an overnight for Isla del Sol. Me and Sarah wanted to go see the festival down the town, but it was too late and they were already across the city. We decided to hang out on the patio with Dan, Audrey, and Paige but we got kicked out because we were being too loud. So I left and went to bed around midnight.
Day 4 (Monday- March 6, 2006)
Well…today we got woken up at 6:45am. NOT FUN, me and Sarah rolled out of the bed and basically walked like zombies to breakfast. We loaded the bus at 8:00 am and made our way to Copacabana. The bus ride was around 4hrs I think, and we stopped at a lookout to see Lake Titicaca. WOW, I don’t think anything couldn’t have been more beautiful. Not even Brad Pitt is this pretty (j/k). I had never seen anything like it, so blue, so calm. We got back on the bus and continued on our way. We stopped again because we had to cross Lake Titicaca and there was no way around it. We road a ferry across the river, and our bus also took a ferry. We reached the other side, found a bathroom because we girls were DYING! It was 50 boliviano to use the bathroom and you were given pink toilet paper. It was gross; I’ve never in my life felt so dirty. No water the flush, and heaven forbid if you flush the toilet paper. There was a waste basket next to the toilet to put it in. YUCK! We reboarded the bus, and drove a little while longer. We stopped again just over Copacabana to see the view.
We entered into Copacabana and it was the last day of Carnival. We were stuck in town, so we decided to get off the bus and watch. There was amazing music and every elaborate dresses with people dancing and singing around the town square. After a pit stop to Hotel La Cupala to put our luggage in a storage room and we stopped and had lunch in town. I tried the trout and it was straight from Lake Titicaca; AMAZING! We shopped around and exchanged money because it would be one of the last times because Isla del Sol didn’t have much electricity.
We left Copacabana and got on a small boat for a 1 ½hr ride to Isla Del Sol. The boat only went about 5 mph, I was starting to get a little nauseas so I had to lie down. We reached the Isla Del Sol and trekked up the mountain to the Temple of the Sun. The view was breath-taking. We were the only ones out there, not a sole on the lake. It felt like I was on Gilligan’s Island. I found out that we had to hike a “little” to the Hotel Inkitala at the crest of the island. Yeah, a little…it ended up being over 2 miles at a 45 degree angle at 13,000ft. It was awful and I knew this had to be the worst part of the trip. I don’t even know how long it took us to get there, but it was a couple hours. It was so hard, 2 miles isn’t the far, but that was high in the air. I reached the hotel and had never felt more exhausted in my life. We sat outside at the hotel and looked across the lake and saw the ridge of Peru. We got our rooms and Jarrod and I ended up rooming together; we got the honeymoon suite. It was already about 7:00pm or later so we decided to get some food, so we walked ½ mile down the road and ate at this small restaurant, me and Jarrod were the last to get our food; pasta. It wasn’t great, all we wanted was to get back to the hotel and pass out. We walked back, pitch black and a flash light and I almost walked right into a donkey. But other than that it was beautiful and we could even see the reflection of the lake at night. We got back to the hotel and passed out, just to be woken up in a few hours.
Day 5 (Tuesday- March 7, 2006)
I got woken up by a knock at the door so I fell out of bed and got ready. There was no running water in our room to take a shower, so I felt disgusting. All that sweat and junk from the day before still on me, yuck. I woke up Jarrod at the last minute because I knew he would be cranky. We packed the night before so we could sleep just at least 10 extra minutes. We walked outside and we were both smitten. The view was absolutely amazing. Two rooms shared a patio that overlooked Lake Titicaca, the sunrise was beautiful. Jarrod grabbed his video camera and started recording because we knew we would never see something like this again. Jarrod tended to record all the places we stayed in just so his mom would believe that we actually stayed in hotels. She was scared that we were staying in ditches and tents. We had a small breakfast that consisted on bread, jelly and strong BLACK coffee –no sugar, and you didn’t want the creamer.
We all gathered up together and made our way down the other side of the mountain where our boat was waiting. We stopped at the fountain of youth. Rose Mary said that if you were to bring back a bottle to La Paz people would buy it from you for $100 American. It was also said that it kept you young and kept you in good health. Everyone drank from it but me, I was a little skeptical. We caught our boat and made our way to the northern part of Isla Del Sol and walked up the mountain to a site known as the Labyrinth (because of its Labyrinth-like rooms). It was so neat and we all went crazy trying to get lost in it. Rose Mary performed another ceremony in the center part of the Labyrinth (I think it was a type of baptism). We then participated in a pottery survey with Dr. Chapin. We all went around the Labyrinth looking for pottery or anything that looked interesting. Afterwards, Rose Mary performed a cleansing ceremony on the Altar of the Sun; I wasn’t interested, but I did it anyways.
Part of the group went on a hr. hike, while the rest of us took the boat. We met for lunch in a small town and had cheese sandwiches. It was good, but I didn’t want to know how old it was, or if it had been refrigerated. Sarah and I went on a hunt for a bathroom because the one in the restaurant was disgusting, we found one and returned to the boat where we made our way to Isla de la Luna.
It was about another hr. before we reached the island, so we all took a nap because we were exhausted. When we reached everyone was a little tired of walking, but this wasn’t that bad. We looked around the ruins called the Temple of the Moon and held a brief ceremony. We were running late so we left rather quickly and boarded the boat. It took 2 ½ hours to get back to Copacabana.
We checked into our hotel, I roomed with Sammie and Sarah. We had dinner at the hotel, I had a filet mignon and it only cost 4 American dollars! It was one of the best filet’s I had ever had. Jarrod and I had a great discussion with Bauslaugh and Chapin over some delicious red wine. Our rooms in Copacabana were the best we’ve had so far. We also had an interesting homo-erotic painting in our room. The shower was magnificent! You could move in it and it actually had hot water. It was a delight, instead of a usual 9 minute shower, it was more like 20. We didn’t have to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn to travel; we were able to sleep in.
Day 6 (Wednesday- March 8, 2006)
We woke up around 10:00am and got ready and packed our bags and went on an excursion to look around Copacabana. Sarah, Jarrod and I went out for a few hours before we had to load the bus to reach the Peru border. We bought some amazing jewelry, and I got a t-shirt for one of my favorite professors back in Brevard. I like Copacabana because it was much more exotic than any other part of Bolivia. They had hammocks to lie out in and enjoy the scenery.
We came back and boarded the bus, and headed towards Peru. Jay hadn’t been feeling good, so J.R. had to find some medicine to help him out. We got to the border and walked our bags over because the bus couldn’t cross the border. Rose Mary had to leave us because her babysitter fell through, so we continued with her brother Raphael. The crossing was horrible and very hectic but we made it through alright. It was a good thing we got there when we did because there ended up being a line all the way to the border. Peru was unsettling to me because when we arrived we left our luggage near the other bus and some small Peruvian girls were trying to go through them. Thankfully they didn’t get very far because Audrey saw them.
We got on the bus; I didn’t like our new bus driver either. He was rude and he hit either a dog or a sheep. The road was horrible and rough and it took about 3 hours. We arrived in Puno, Peru where we made our way to the bus terminal. This by far had not been one of the best days. Jay had gotten very sick, our luggage was almost stolen, our bus driver hit an animal, and we were in the worst part of Peru. The bus terminal was scary and we had to be in there for 5 hours. Some of us stayed in the terminal for dinner and some left for dinner. I decided to stay because I wasn’t too keen on leaving the terminal not knowing what was going to happen if I left. We finally loaded our overnight bus at 8:00 pm and it was terrifying. We stopped many different times during the night to let on the locals.
Day 7 (Thursday- March 9, 2006)
We reached Cusco, Peru at 4:30am and we checked into some rooms at the Hotel Koyllur. Our rooms weren’t ready yet so we just slept in some before we got up for breakfast. We all got back together around 8:30am and made our way to the Sacred Valley.
Cusco was a lot lower than La Paz, so everyone was a little excited because it was much easier to breathe. We had a Nazi of a tour guide. We would make pit stops in the Sacred Valley to do some shopping, but she only allowed us 20 minutes and if we didn’t get back on the bus in time they would leave us. We went to our first ruin to find out that I couldn’t complete it. I had gotten a case of vertigo. It was a straight drop of stairs with no type of rock guards and I couldn’t continue. Jarrod waited with me in the bus until the others returned. We went to another market in the town of Pisac. It had to have been the best one we have been to. Everything was darn cheap I wanted to buy everything!
We stopped at a buffet-style restaurant and had lunch. We loaded again and visited more ruins. The other ones weren’t as bad, so I was able to continue the tour. We visited Ollantaytambo and it was absolutely gorgeous. It took about 2 hours to complete the tour of it but it was worth it. We boarded the bus quickly because it was getting late and took the bus about an hour to Chinchero to visit an ancient ruin and church. Of course we got there took late to visit the ruins, but we got to visit the church. It was very ornate and large and just gaudy. The rest of the time we used to shop, but we had to get out of there fast because we were told that it wasn’t safe to be out past dark in Peru.
So we made our way back to Cusco around 7:45pm. We all met back up again around 8:30pm for dinner at the eccentric restaurant down the street. It was an inside/outside restaurant. We were seated underneath the stars and near some heaters. They cooked everything outside in an oven pit. I had the trout again for dinner, I was really enjoying it. They had some awesome mixed drinks there as well, and they gave you water in glass- which was very delicious. We then went back to the hotel and Kristen and I ended up with a room with only a queen bed in it. Interesting…so J.R. had to get that straightened out and Jarrod and I ended up rooming together in Peru. It was excited, only because I was getting home-sick and I needed him around to comfort me. I was particularly excited about the next day because we were going to visit Machu Picchu!
Day 8 (Friday- March 10, 2006)
We had a wake up at 5:30am and Jarrod and I were running LATE. We ended waking up around 6:15 that morning and missed the first bus. We made it for the second bus and thank goodness we weren’t the only ones late. It took 2 hours to reach Ollantaytambo to catch the Peru-rail. We unloaded and waited in line to board. Jarrod and I got to ride the train all the way to Machu Picchu backwards. It was a view, many photographic moments. We got to see a lot of things that couldn’t be seen by bus. Everything seemed to be getting jungle-like because we were much lower than before.
We reached the town of Machu Picchu where we had to catch a bus to reach the top of the mountain. It took 30-45 minutes to reach the top and with every winding curve my stomach dropped. You could look out the window and see directly down, nothing was stopping us from going over the edge. We reached the top and waited for the rest of our group to meet up. When they came we made our way to the gate to enter Machu Picchu. The first couple of feet lead you around the mountain and there it was – Machu Picchu. You would look around you and see everyone’s mouth wide open; we were all in “awe.” We had a great tour guide that told us everything and Machu Picchu. Cosmo, our tour guide led us around the most popular sites; the quarry, Temple of the Sun, Temple of Three Windows, the astronomical observatory, and the “Mortuary”. Machu Picchu was very stunning and it’s hard to believe I got to experience it. By 2:30pm the tour was over even though we weren’t ready to leave we were all starving.
We made our way back to the buses and made our way back down to the town of Machu Picchu. We grabbed lunch at a restaurant where a couple of people stored their backpacks (We weren’t allowed to take them). Our table loaded up on pizzas (not good for me, being lactose-intolerant and all). But it was still good- after we were done we looked around the town for a bit and made our way back to the Peru-trail before it left. We almost didn’t make it; we were like the Home Alone family running in the airport to make it in time.
We arrived to Cusco around 8:00pm; Jarrod and I were pooped so we decided to not eat at Pachapapa that night. Instead we packed some and took showers and then walked around the town at night looking for some snacks. We had to have watched Frasier and Tomb Raider about 3 times. But you’ll never guess what came on…my favorite show…TLC! I was ecstatic!! We had a free morning the next day.
Day 9 (Saturday- March 11, 2006)
Jarrod and I woke up and went around Cusco to shop. We bought some cool stuff and some neat luggage because we had bought so much we knew that it wouldn’t fit in the one bag we brought. Our city tour was a 1:30pm and we toured a lot of churches and museums. I found these to be the most interesting because I “fancy” it more. We looked in some crypts at the churches and looked at all the different ceremonial rooms.
We went into the one museum, it was the most boring and Jarrod got caught video-taping when he wasn’t supposed to. Afterwards we left Cusco and returned to the Sacred Valley and visited a couple of sites we didn’t get to before. We went to Saqsaywoman and toured there for a while and then the rest or the tours were optional only because it started raining. I went on the last tour and ended up loosing my necklace that I bought it Copacabana, I was devastated…it was so gorgeous. We left afterwards and went back into Cusco where we were dropped off at the hotel and rushed over to eat at Pachapapa for the last night before heading to the bus terminal. I had Alpaca Pizza. It was soooo good, it was like having beef jerky on your pizza. We rushed back to the hotel at 9:15 before our taxi’s departed for the bus terminal. We loaded up on the Marco Polo bus for the 14-hour ride back. This overnight bus wasn’t as bad, except for the fact that one of the students ended up being intoxicated and got into some serious trouble with J.R.
Day 10 (Sunday- March 12, 2006)
We reached the border at 8:30am and filled out our paperwork and got stamped to get back into Bolivia. A lot of us were excited to be back because we all really enjoyed it much better. We got on a bus to take us to the bus terminal in La Paz. We saw Rose Mary and we were all estatic to see her again. It was like singing the “wheels on the bus go round and round” we were so excited to see her again.
We arrived back at the Hotel Rosario and had our same rooms ready for us and Sarah and Sammie roomed with me. We were on our own for lunch that day only because it was so hectic. Instead we all just wandered around La Paz for long time! For lunch Jarrod had this crazy idea of Burger King. Come to find out they actually had one, but it was all the way across the city. Well Jarrod, Sarah and I made our way over there because we were craving some American food. And it was delicious! We were out for a few more hours buying things that we couldn’t get before because we didn’t have room. I came back with bag loads of stuff; I had never been so excited. I ended up spending around $175 American dollars the entire time I was down there. We came back to the hotel to get cleaned up because we had a night of partying ahead of us.
Rose Mary and the crew and prepared a farewell fiesta! We all got dressed up for the occasion, and we were out the door. There was a night full of dancing and original Bolivian music. We were all pulled out on the dance floor at some point to dance, it was so much fun. I was already missing Bolivia, I wanted to stay. We had an excellent dinner and we had a small ceremony for the professors and us. Chapin, J.R. and Bauslaugh were given Andean/Bolivian flags from Rose Mary and we (the students) were given the Andean/Bolivian flag in a patch. It was the end to a wonderful trip. J.R. ended up singing “The Weigh” that night, it was hilarious!
We went back to the hotel to get packed up, none of us could sleep because we were so excited about the night and upset about having to leave. But we all packed up and got some sleep because we had to be ready for the 4:45am wake up call.
Day 11 (Monday- March 13, 2006)
Sarah and I woke up in a flash and got ready and went downstairs. We all got into the bus to go to the airport. We were all so tired we didn’t know what was going on. We reached the airport and stood in the international flights line. Some of us got searched, but it ended up taking too long so they stopped. I ended up checking both pieces of my luggage, only because I already had a few carry-ons. We all gathered around Rose Mary, Silvia and Raphael and said our goodbyes. We got through and to the gates and sat and waited until our plane was ready to board. We ended up sitting on the plane for too long, it was an hour late. I had a window seat and got the see my last look of the Andes. I passed out for most of the flight and got woken up for food. This time around it was much worse and I hardly ate anything only because it was too gross to take a picture of. I fell back asleep and woke up for the last bit of the flight. We touched down in Miami 15 minutes late.
We got out, and had to go through customs. And let me just say American customs is much worse that Bolivian customs. It took us about 20 minutes just to wind ourselves around to the American window. It went much faster this way, but it was a pain in the neck. A lot of our group got done fast and went ahead to the gate. The rest of us got stuck walking around in circles because we had to take our bags outside and then bring them back in to check them. Our concourse was backed up, so we had to find another one and walked FOREVER to reach our gate.
When we finally got there we threw our stuff down and went looking for some food. I ended up eating some nasty wrap- but it was enough to keep my satisfied. Our flight ended up being delayed for an hour so we all camped out by the gate and waited.
We finally boarded around 7:00, and took off around 7:25. We all by now were ready to get back to Brevard, we were exhausted. But then we had to realize we still had a van ride ahead of us. I slept the way to Atlanta and we landed and we all ran off the plane just to get off. We were all so tired of traveling.
We all were waiting around to get our luggage, and mine came- I was surprised! But we all got in groups and piled up in the vans to make our way back to Brevard. I was so exhausted, all I wanted to do was sleep all the way, but it was hard because I woke up from being slung around the van. We had been going on a really curvy road, and I was getting car sick. Thank god it was almost over. We made our way to the college and I literally jumped out of the van and fell to the ground and just hugged it. We reached before a little before 2:00am. Jarrod and I packed the car and said our goodbyes and said we’d see them next Thursday in class. I didn’t want to go to class that next day but it was Chapin’s class and she, Katie and I showed up looked more rough than ever. We just knew that we had gotten back from a trip of a lifetime, I will never forget this. I’m already ready to go back.