Ok, so we admit, it´s been awhile since we last blogged.... We are still in Cochabamba Boliva and we love it here! We plan to leave on monday for Buenos Aires, Argentina....! We have to leave at 5 in the morning and the bus ride is 5o hours long! Ay Dios Mio! But good news, Jo got her passport, so we are free agents and getting ready to cross the border into Argentina.
We have been very lucky to make some awesome friends here in Cochabamba, Gama, Alejandra, Vinnie, and ¨Fish¨. They are awesome! We have spent hours at their house listening to their band practices and eating traditional Bolivian food (delicious!) called Pique Macho. Their band is awesome and mostly covers Greenday songs... (with a few originals...shoutout to Vinnie and the Black Star). We have officially become groupies..and are remembering our punk rock days of years ago. They had a concert the other night at this place called the Ratabar..and we def. had an awesome time singing along! (Thanks Gama for the drumsticks.... we will keep them forever and probably use them in the new band we are planning on starting back home!).
That´s all for now. Thank you all for the messages about the earthquake in Chile, no worries, we are ok! We are actually going to log on to cnn or bbc right now to check it out.
Until next time....Adventure is out there!!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Pigeons and Police
We never thought that we would be so afraid of birds like we are here. The other day, while enjoying our extended stay in Cochabamba we decided to go to one of our favorite parks, the same one where we met our little friend Alejandra. The park yesterday was less crowded, definitely less people, BUT WAY MORE PIGEONS. A cute family decided to share the bench we had been occupying and we gladly offered up some seats. But with them they had brought CORN, the object of ever pigeons desire.....as they began dumping the corn on the ground, the birds crept closer and closer to us.... let´s just say we ended up being surrounded by them. Did we mention earlier that the Carnival festivities also involve lighting firecrackers and sometimes even dynomite in the street? Well, needless to say that the birds don´t like this very much and everytime there was a loud boom they flew up around our heads onto the rooftop of a nearby church...but not to worry, they of course returned for the food. Pigeons can never resist delicious corn we have learned.
The situation escalated as the birds became less and less afraid of us and crept closer to the bench. We were partticularly concerned because some seemed to have unusually large snaggle beaks that could surely take us down and /or give us some sort of disease. The first offender merely slapped Jo in the leg with his wing. The situation however quickly escalated with one flying up and sitting on Aly´s foot....then again another slap to Jo´s leg...this time by an angrier flying pigeon. Needless to say, everyone in the park was laughing at us, but really, those birds were out of control...! We finally had to leave our bench...the birds were just too much for us, especially the bird who looked like he was a carnivore. We haven´t returned to this park since, but maybe tomorrow? Actually, we are totally going to go tomorrow.
Now.....today we definitely hung out with the police a lot. Not to be alarmed, we did not commit any crimes, just needed to report Jo´s stolen passport. The day began with going to the U.S. Embassy bright and early..... we actually got in touch with a guy who works there who was super helpful. The first thing that he told us though, was that we needed to go make a police report so that the US government would know that Jo was not trying to sell her identity on the streets of Bolivia for thousands of dollars. What? Who would do this? Well... now we might start up a business.....haha j/k!!
We ended up going to two different police stations. The first one refused to write a report for us.....while the second one on our first try turned us away on the first try. Needless to say it took some deals between the US consulate, ourselves, and the police to get us in there.....it was seriously like a movie. After many hours of waiting inside the police station Jo finally got her report and we made it back to the consulate´s office. We managed to fill out all the paperwork...which is the good news.... the passport will probably take until monday or tuesday though. However, we are thankful for the help that we recieved and for our new consulate homie that went the extra mile for us, it is much appreciated.
So now, we are still hanging out in Cochabamba....we found a whole other side of town today and have to admit that we ate at a Burger King. For reals though, it was the best comfort that we could have asked for since we have been yearning for delicious food and after spending hours in a police station sweet talking officers it was the best thing that could have happened!! And yes, Jo ate a double cheeseburger....the first one in 11 years....it had to be done though!!! We have decided that we never go to Burger King in the states, but tomorrow....we will return for some more delicious food!
This weekend is the actual Carnival celebration in Cochabamba, so we are excited for that. Still counting our blessings, and doing our best to avoid water balloons and pigeons!
We love and miss you all!!! Until next time, adventure is out there!!!
The situation escalated as the birds became less and less afraid of us and crept closer to the bench. We were partticularly concerned because some seemed to have unusually large snaggle beaks that could surely take us down and /or give us some sort of disease. The first offender merely slapped Jo in the leg with his wing. The situation however quickly escalated with one flying up and sitting on Aly´s foot....then again another slap to Jo´s leg...this time by an angrier flying pigeon. Needless to say, everyone in the park was laughing at us, but really, those birds were out of control...! We finally had to leave our bench...the birds were just too much for us, especially the bird who looked like he was a carnivore. We haven´t returned to this park since, but maybe tomorrow? Actually, we are totally going to go tomorrow.
Now.....today we definitely hung out with the police a lot. Not to be alarmed, we did not commit any crimes, just needed to report Jo´s stolen passport. The day began with going to the U.S. Embassy bright and early..... we actually got in touch with a guy who works there who was super helpful. The first thing that he told us though, was that we needed to go make a police report so that the US government would know that Jo was not trying to sell her identity on the streets of Bolivia for thousands of dollars. What? Who would do this? Well... now we might start up a business.....haha j/k!!
We ended up going to two different police stations. The first one refused to write a report for us.....while the second one on our first try turned us away on the first try. Needless to say it took some deals between the US consulate, ourselves, and the police to get us in there.....it was seriously like a movie. After many hours of waiting inside the police station Jo finally got her report and we made it back to the consulate´s office. We managed to fill out all the paperwork...which is the good news.... the passport will probably take until monday or tuesday though. However, we are thankful for the help that we recieved and for our new consulate homie that went the extra mile for us, it is much appreciated.
So now, we are still hanging out in Cochabamba....we found a whole other side of town today and have to admit that we ate at a Burger King. For reals though, it was the best comfort that we could have asked for since we have been yearning for delicious food and after spending hours in a police station sweet talking officers it was the best thing that could have happened!! And yes, Jo ate a double cheeseburger....the first one in 11 years....it had to be done though!!! We have decided that we never go to Burger King in the states, but tomorrow....we will return for some more delicious food!
This weekend is the actual Carnival celebration in Cochabamba, so we are excited for that. Still counting our blessings, and doing our best to avoid water balloons and pigeons!
We love and miss you all!!! Until next time, adventure is out there!!!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
South America is BiPolar
Okay so we have decided that South America has been a BiPolar experience. Our highs are so high and our lows are so low. Everything is extreme! One day you are swimming with monkeys at an awesome ecolodge and then the next you are sitting waiting for a bus in La Paz and your backpack gets stolen. That´s right folks on Thursday night we were waiting for a bus in La Paz for Sucre and as we were checking our emails at an internet hub Jo´s backpack was stolen. Jo´s back pack had everything important in it from her passport, to credit cards, camera, camp good times patch and even license. This theif must have been a ninja because we were sitting on our packs. Before we go on you should all know that we are okay! We are in a safer city, Cochabamba, and in a really nice hostel. We have even found a cool little French Cafe that is meeting our needs of not consuming another fried chicken meal. Okay so back to the horrible backpack incident. So we called the embassy and were told to go the next morning with two pictures and they would take care of it. Jo also called her banks and everything is good. So we decided to hunker down for the night in a Hostel next to the bus station, that luckily had cable TV and we got to watch MTV Made, to us MTV felt like comfort food. Other than being shaken and it being probably the worst traveling thing that could happen we were okay.
So the next morning we went to the Embassy bright eyed and bushy tailed thinking the U.S. Embassy would surely solve all our problems and possibly even give us a free call to home or at least a cup of coffee in the movies. We were bitterly disappointed when the Secretary informed us that due to Carnival the Embassy was closed and would be until Wednesday! We felt a little betrayed and decided that the best thing to do would be to get out of La Paz. That morning with a bad taste in our mouth and an eagerness to get out of the city that wounded our little traveling hearts, we boarded a bus to Cochabamba. Cochabamba is a smaller city that also has an Embassy so we thought this would be a good location to camp out until we could get a replacment.
As we travelled to Cochabamba we had our first encounter with the immigration police. What awful luck right? Luckily Jo remembered more Spanish than she ever thought she knew and we made it through. We got to Cochabamba and found a really nice Hostel to stay in and our happy with our locale. We are really close to a little park where we have already made friends with a three year old named Alejandra. She loves ice cream (which we bought for her), coca cola (that she grabbed from us and started drinking) and us swinging her into groups of birds (which kind of freaks us out cause the birds come flying at our heads). Meeting Ale and her Mom has been a high.
We have also decided that Carnivale is the worst holiday ever because in Cochabamba it means no Embassy till wednesday and dodging water balloons like we are in a war. We seriously have PTSD now from it because as it turns out water balloons hurt! Everytime we hear a car we turn and pray that we won´t get pelted in the face. They also have shaving cream type stuff that they spray you with... who came up with this tradition cause we are about to punch them right in the face!
Okay so we have a little story to tell you about a monkey now that we are done purging! So we are having an awesome time swimming with monkeys at this awesome animal refuge place. All of a sudden we see this cute little monkey come up to the pool, Aly alomost pet it and Jo was too distracted by a monkey pooping in the pool. One of the guides at the refuge had a scared look on his face and told the owner to take a look at who got out. We were suddenly asked to quickly but calmly back away slowly because Cicerelo the alpha male mokey had chewed through his clothe leash and would attack if felt threatened. We quickly walked to the other side of the resort where we were told awful horror stories of Cicerelo giving people stitches and chewing through peoples ankles! We went back to our cabin and laughed for like twenty minutes because the monkey was about the size of Jo´s backpack that was stolen. It was so funny to think that we were all held hostage by a tiny monkey. Needless to say we made it out okay and he fer must have beem realy because this place has a bear that they aren´t as scared of.
Speaking of Monkey´s we should tell you one more funny story about a long jeep ride and a monkey tail dread. So for those of you that don´t know Aly is a little freaked out with big long dreads that look like monkey tails, no offense all you dreaders I think they are cool on your head not on my arm during a four hour jeep ride. So as we drove out of the amazon another guy on our trip had a big dread and was sitting right in front of Aly. His dread kept flicking her the whole ride and even hit her face, Jo feels like a horrible person because she couldn´t stop laugh. Actually both of us were busting up about this dreadful situation.
So there you have it folks we are happy, well fed and counting our blessings. Thanks for thinking of us and wishing us safe and happy travels. We are happy to leave Bolivia and go to Argentina once Jo is legal again! MOM´S we are okay and we love you! Until next time adventure is out there!
P.S. Brian Crater we were eaten alive in the jungle by Mosquitos and Sand flies, but we have no bugs in our brains yet, at least we don´t think so!
So the next morning we went to the Embassy bright eyed and bushy tailed thinking the U.S. Embassy would surely solve all our problems and possibly even give us a free call to home or at least a cup of coffee in the movies. We were bitterly disappointed when the Secretary informed us that due to Carnival the Embassy was closed and would be until Wednesday! We felt a little betrayed and decided that the best thing to do would be to get out of La Paz. That morning with a bad taste in our mouth and an eagerness to get out of the city that wounded our little traveling hearts, we boarded a bus to Cochabamba. Cochabamba is a smaller city that also has an Embassy so we thought this would be a good location to camp out until we could get a replacment.
As we travelled to Cochabamba we had our first encounter with the immigration police. What awful luck right? Luckily Jo remembered more Spanish than she ever thought she knew and we made it through. We got to Cochabamba and found a really nice Hostel to stay in and our happy with our locale. We are really close to a little park where we have already made friends with a three year old named Alejandra. She loves ice cream (which we bought for her), coca cola (that she grabbed from us and started drinking) and us swinging her into groups of birds (which kind of freaks us out cause the birds come flying at our heads). Meeting Ale and her Mom has been a high.
We have also decided that Carnivale is the worst holiday ever because in Cochabamba it means no Embassy till wednesday and dodging water balloons like we are in a war. We seriously have PTSD now from it because as it turns out water balloons hurt! Everytime we hear a car we turn and pray that we won´t get pelted in the face. They also have shaving cream type stuff that they spray you with... who came up with this tradition cause we are about to punch them right in the face!
Okay so we have a little story to tell you about a monkey now that we are done purging! So we are having an awesome time swimming with monkeys at this awesome animal refuge place. All of a sudden we see this cute little monkey come up to the pool, Aly alomost pet it and Jo was too distracted by a monkey pooping in the pool. One of the guides at the refuge had a scared look on his face and told the owner to take a look at who got out. We were suddenly asked to quickly but calmly back away slowly because Cicerelo the alpha male mokey had chewed through his clothe leash and would attack if felt threatened. We quickly walked to the other side of the resort where we were told awful horror stories of Cicerelo giving people stitches and chewing through peoples ankles! We went back to our cabin and laughed for like twenty minutes because the monkey was about the size of Jo´s backpack that was stolen. It was so funny to think that we were all held hostage by a tiny monkey. Needless to say we made it out okay and he fer must have beem realy because this place has a bear that they aren´t as scared of.
Speaking of Monkey´s we should tell you one more funny story about a long jeep ride and a monkey tail dread. So for those of you that don´t know Aly is a little freaked out with big long dreads that look like monkey tails, no offense all you dreaders I think they are cool on your head not on my arm during a four hour jeep ride. So as we drove out of the amazon another guy on our trip had a big dread and was sitting right in front of Aly. His dread kept flicking her the whole ride and even hit her face, Jo feels like a horrible person because she couldn´t stop laugh. Actually both of us were busting up about this dreadful situation.
So there you have it folks we are happy, well fed and counting our blessings. Thanks for thinking of us and wishing us safe and happy travels. We are happy to leave Bolivia and go to Argentina once Jo is legal again! MOM´S we are okay and we love you! Until next time adventure is out there!
P.S. Brian Crater we were eaten alive in the jungle by Mosquitos and Sand flies, but we have no bugs in our brains yet, at least we don´t think so!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Most Dangerous Road in the World!?? Oh....that totally makes sense now.....!
It´s been a while since our last blog. We last left you in La Paz, Bolivia. A rather GIANT city, but quite pretty due to the fact that it´s located in this giant sprawling valley. We also made some friends in our hostel and managed to find this awesome local hang out that likens itself to Hollywood karaoke.... (shout out to the Tinga Tinga lovers out there)!
The next morning we hopped on a bus....preparing ourselves for a 20 hour bus ride, our longest ride to date. We are getting better at these long rides, but each one ends up being an adventure and a half. For example, once our bus got going in La Paz it decided to stop and let this guy get on (who by the way had the best mullet ever!) and give the longest speach...(we are not really even sure about what...the engine and the smoke billowing through the window from the exhaust was distraction enough. But not to worry Chad, as promised we captured this and many other moments of this bus ride on video.
Once we made it out of town, we quickly noticed that the road was becoming smaller and smaller....less than one lane in some parts. The scenery was beautiful, however, with waterfalls and jungle alike. But did we mention that the waterfalls were ON the road, and the bus was sliding everywhere in the mud!?? We realized about 2 hours into it, that we were on what the Bolivians call the Death Road, the most dangerous road in the world... due to the fact that it is one lane, on the side of a cliff, in the middle of the jungle, and that giant trucks and buses have to pass eachother frequently. We however were the only travelers on the bus, as well as the only people who were freaking out when the bus had to reverse on the tiniest piece of road we have ever seen. People kept laughing and telling us how funny we are...but that was real my friends, we really were scared. Nevertheless, we made it to Rurrenbaque, our destination, and the gateway to the Amazon.
The next few days were spent in the Pamapas (kinda like grassland and jungle mixed together) swimming with Pink River dolphins, seeing alligators, and anacondas. It was awesome, totally worth the bus ride to get up there. Our guide, ¨Negro¨, was a true baller naturalist, and Jo was definitley given ample opportunity to ¨nerd out¨ and learn about the native plants (that one was for you Braidy!). Aly still thinks that swimming with the dolphins is the best and that mosquitos really do love her.... (don´t worry, those Malaria pills are being taken!)
After our trip we spent a day chilling in Rurrenbaque, and by chilling we mean SWEATING due to the humidity and the hot weather. We loved it all the same though. Last night we endured another long bus ride....on a bus with NO shocks whatsoever. Imagine 20 hours of Indiana Jones. Throughout the night we would be woken up by crashing into the window, the seat in front of us, or by catching air in the ailse. We do hope that these rides are earning us street cred when it comes to bus rides! This morning we were dropped off on the side of the road with some of our other travel companions from Chile. We managed to catch a cab to Corico, a tiny town that has tons of character and an animal refuge that we are going to try and volunteer at for a few days. We love monkey turns out, and there they let us hang out with them all day long!
Love to you all! Until next time, Adventure is out there!!
The next morning we hopped on a bus....preparing ourselves for a 20 hour bus ride, our longest ride to date. We are getting better at these long rides, but each one ends up being an adventure and a half. For example, once our bus got going in La Paz it decided to stop and let this guy get on (who by the way had the best mullet ever!) and give the longest speach...(we are not really even sure about what...the engine and the smoke billowing through the window from the exhaust was distraction enough. But not to worry Chad, as promised we captured this and many other moments of this bus ride on video.
Once we made it out of town, we quickly noticed that the road was becoming smaller and smaller....less than one lane in some parts. The scenery was beautiful, however, with waterfalls and jungle alike. But did we mention that the waterfalls were ON the road, and the bus was sliding everywhere in the mud!?? We realized about 2 hours into it, that we were on what the Bolivians call the Death Road, the most dangerous road in the world... due to the fact that it is one lane, on the side of a cliff, in the middle of the jungle, and that giant trucks and buses have to pass eachother frequently. We however were the only travelers on the bus, as well as the only people who were freaking out when the bus had to reverse on the tiniest piece of road we have ever seen. People kept laughing and telling us how funny we are...but that was real my friends, we really were scared. Nevertheless, we made it to Rurrenbaque, our destination, and the gateway to the Amazon.
The next few days were spent in the Pamapas (kinda like grassland and jungle mixed together) swimming with Pink River dolphins, seeing alligators, and anacondas. It was awesome, totally worth the bus ride to get up there. Our guide, ¨Negro¨, was a true baller naturalist, and Jo was definitley given ample opportunity to ¨nerd out¨ and learn about the native plants (that one was for you Braidy!). Aly still thinks that swimming with the dolphins is the best and that mosquitos really do love her.... (don´t worry, those Malaria pills are being taken!)
After our trip we spent a day chilling in Rurrenbaque, and by chilling we mean SWEATING due to the humidity and the hot weather. We loved it all the same though. Last night we endured another long bus ride....on a bus with NO shocks whatsoever. Imagine 20 hours of Indiana Jones. Throughout the night we would be woken up by crashing into the window, the seat in front of us, or by catching air in the ailse. We do hope that these rides are earning us street cred when it comes to bus rides! This morning we were dropped off on the side of the road with some of our other travel companions from Chile. We managed to catch a cab to Corico, a tiny town that has tons of character and an animal refuge that we are going to try and volunteer at for a few days. We love monkey turns out, and there they let us hang out with them all day long!
Love to you all! Until next time, Adventure is out there!!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Hasta Luego Peru... Hello Bolivia!
So we made it across the border with a four hour bus ride and a million stamps in our passports. Thankfully the VISA process wasn´t as scary as we thought! Except we had a little snag on the Peruvian side with Aly´s exiting stamp and Jo almost had to say goodbye... Just kidding we would never do that to eachother. Unless there was a queso empanada on the other side! Side note today the object of our desire was a queso empanada and we could not find one anywhere, luckily we live on cake corner and had a variety of sweets to wet our palate. Okay so we made it! We are in Bolivia. Booya!
We are happy to be in Bolivia but sad to leave our new friend Ambra! Ambra was our third musketeer in flirting our way into more morning pancakes and possibly the Puno Bothy Hostel Website! We hope we will get to meet up with Ambra in Argentina, She was our voice of reason!
Our first two days in Bolivia were spent in a little Coastal town called "Copacabana" it is the hottest spot South of Havanna! But really it was pretty hopping. We happened to be there during one of the biggest festivals of the year. We have some awesome pictures of little old ladies in traditional gard getting hammered at 10am. It is a blessing festival where you can get anything blessed for the year including your car/bus... which luckily the one we rode in today was blessed! We considered getting blessed ourselves since blessing consists of getting showered in Champagne and flower petals (Just kidding Mama Leavitt, Mama Vance wish you were there to partake!). P.S. you can buy three cupa libras for three dollars!
So the first night we ran into some of our friends from our Lake Titicaca Island expedition! They are the greatest little Indie Family from Argentina. We had very little money because there is no ATM in Copacabana... we will talk more about this later! They helped us find the KFC of Bolivia and we had a good old fried chicken dinner for about two dollars. We had our very own emergency chicken... sorry Dot we ate this emergency chicken and it was delicious ( but no Roscoes!). We are hopefully going to meet up with them in Buenos Aires... they were lifesavers. All the people we have met from South America have been so awesome.
As the night continued we came upon a group of musicians, we´ll just call them the Bolivian Backstreet Boys. They had colonial looking outfits with mowhawks... we may become their new groupies and follow them across the country with shiorts of their faces and signs saying "America Loves You"! but seriously they were pretty fun to watch and the other people in the crowd were jamming. We danced with some Bolivianos who offered us a drink from their bottle...Drinking was a huge part of this festival. We continued on to another stage with an instrumental band and jammed with some more locals in traditional clothing. We are totally famous with the older men of South America!
The next day we decided to walk around as we waited for the ATM/Bank to open... it opened at 2:30pm. So there we were with no money looking at all the delicious food, and beautiful but cheap craft work being sold on the street. We were a little scared that we weren´t going to make it until 2:30 and started to scope out which street dog would be the best to eat. To pass the time we walked down to Lake Titicaca (hehe) and realized that the shore was covered with Bird boats and shards of glass of course we took multiple pictures. P.S. someone almost hit us with a glass bottle as they threw it from a taxi to the shore! As we began our climb back to the city we not only realized we were at even higher elevation, but that the street dogs were starting to look pretty good!
Luckily we made it to the bank along with about a hundred other backpackers! We felt a little better about our situation, knowing that we weren´t alone in our unplanned hunger strike. As we got closer to the bank doors there was a young guys policing the situation, there are so many cops in Bolivia! He didn´t let us stick together at first... Jo was left outside with some smelly backpackers as Aly was stranded without a translator in the Bank. We finally got our money and felt like Ballers because 7 Bolivians equals one American Dollar! Woot Woot we had money in our pockets and we celebrated by finally partaking in some delicious trout!
As we sat in the Restaurant eating our $3 Trout we noticed a little Boliviano torturing white female tourists with water balloons! He stood on his balcony found his target and then bam they were wet and he was nowhere to be found. Needless to say he was our favorite entertainment of the night!
The rest of the night was spent in our Hostel due to heavy rain, hail and lightning. We might have watched some Simpsons and Friends we are not going to lie. Who knew the summer in South America was also the rainy season? Not us!
Today we got into La Paz after a scetchy bus ride which started with hitting a pedestrian with a loose rock (or street brick) and a stop at the Policias to document the incident. But from the sounds of it in our Hostel right now it sounds like Luck has been on our side. A girl just told us her bus tipped today... Hello crazy! We did however today made an unexpected stop were we herded like cattle onto a little boat to cross a pass on Lake Titicaca where the bus took its own boat over! It was kinda crazy seeing our bus floating next to us on the lake.
So we are now happy, feed and safely in our Hostel in La Paz. Tomorrow we are going to Rurrenbaque, which is a jungle! We are super excited to see pink Dolphins, monkeys and other wildlife... we are not as excited to start taking Malaria pills. Okay well we will try and write again in about five days after we are out of the Amazon! Till then Adventure is Out There!
LOVE YOU,
Aly and Jo
We are happy to be in Bolivia but sad to leave our new friend Ambra! Ambra was our third musketeer in flirting our way into more morning pancakes and possibly the Puno Bothy Hostel Website! We hope we will get to meet up with Ambra in Argentina, She was our voice of reason!
Our first two days in Bolivia were spent in a little Coastal town called "Copacabana" it is the hottest spot South of Havanna! But really it was pretty hopping. We happened to be there during one of the biggest festivals of the year. We have some awesome pictures of little old ladies in traditional gard getting hammered at 10am. It is a blessing festival where you can get anything blessed for the year including your car/bus... which luckily the one we rode in today was blessed! We considered getting blessed ourselves since blessing consists of getting showered in Champagne and flower petals (Just kidding Mama Leavitt, Mama Vance wish you were there to partake!). P.S. you can buy three cupa libras for three dollars!
So the first night we ran into some of our friends from our Lake Titicaca Island expedition! They are the greatest little Indie Family from Argentina. We had very little money because there is no ATM in Copacabana... we will talk more about this later! They helped us find the KFC of Bolivia and we had a good old fried chicken dinner for about two dollars. We had our very own emergency chicken... sorry Dot we ate this emergency chicken and it was delicious ( but no Roscoes!). We are hopefully going to meet up with them in Buenos Aires... they were lifesavers. All the people we have met from South America have been so awesome.
As the night continued we came upon a group of musicians, we´ll just call them the Bolivian Backstreet Boys. They had colonial looking outfits with mowhawks... we may become their new groupies and follow them across the country with shiorts of their faces and signs saying "America Loves You"! but seriously they were pretty fun to watch and the other people in the crowd were jamming. We danced with some Bolivianos who offered us a drink from their bottle...Drinking was a huge part of this festival. We continued on to another stage with an instrumental band and jammed with some more locals in traditional clothing. We are totally famous with the older men of South America!
The next day we decided to walk around as we waited for the ATM/Bank to open... it opened at 2:30pm. So there we were with no money looking at all the delicious food, and beautiful but cheap craft work being sold on the street. We were a little scared that we weren´t going to make it until 2:30 and started to scope out which street dog would be the best to eat. To pass the time we walked down to Lake Titicaca (hehe) and realized that the shore was covered with Bird boats and shards of glass of course we took multiple pictures. P.S. someone almost hit us with a glass bottle as they threw it from a taxi to the shore! As we began our climb back to the city we not only realized we were at even higher elevation, but that the street dogs were starting to look pretty good!
Luckily we made it to the bank along with about a hundred other backpackers! We felt a little better about our situation, knowing that we weren´t alone in our unplanned hunger strike. As we got closer to the bank doors there was a young guys policing the situation, there are so many cops in Bolivia! He didn´t let us stick together at first... Jo was left outside with some smelly backpackers as Aly was stranded without a translator in the Bank. We finally got our money and felt like Ballers because 7 Bolivians equals one American Dollar! Woot Woot we had money in our pockets and we celebrated by finally partaking in some delicious trout!
As we sat in the Restaurant eating our $3 Trout we noticed a little Boliviano torturing white female tourists with water balloons! He stood on his balcony found his target and then bam they were wet and he was nowhere to be found. Needless to say he was our favorite entertainment of the night!
The rest of the night was spent in our Hostel due to heavy rain, hail and lightning. We might have watched some Simpsons and Friends we are not going to lie. Who knew the summer in South America was also the rainy season? Not us!
Today we got into La Paz after a scetchy bus ride which started with hitting a pedestrian with a loose rock (or street brick) and a stop at the Policias to document the incident. But from the sounds of it in our Hostel right now it sounds like Luck has been on our side. A girl just told us her bus tipped today... Hello crazy! We did however today made an unexpected stop were we herded like cattle onto a little boat to cross a pass on Lake Titicaca where the bus took its own boat over! It was kinda crazy seeing our bus floating next to us on the lake.
So we are now happy, feed and safely in our Hostel in La Paz. Tomorrow we are going to Rurrenbaque, which is a jungle! We are super excited to see pink Dolphins, monkeys and other wildlife... we are not as excited to start taking Malaria pills. Okay well we will try and write again in about five days after we are out of the Amazon! Till then Adventure is Out There!
LOVE YOU,
Aly and Jo
Monday, February 1, 2010
Dancing in the Street!!!!
Last night we went to an awesome festival where people were dancing in the street pretty much continuously for like eight hours! In the afternoon, the festival was more like a parade. We sat on the stairs of a church for like 5 hours stuck in the same position. We were the only travelers in the bunch....we were squeezed together super tight and by the end all of our limbs and bums had fallen asleep. The families around us def. were amused by us!! We made some friends for sure!
Later that night, we returned to the festival. The dancing continued and we ended up being pulled into a dancing group (A dream come true!). In the dancing group there were the cutest little girls (who by the way had sweet dancing skills). We ended up dancing down the street with them and about 20 or so people were taking pictures of us. When we were done dancing they asked where we were from and if we voted for Obama. When we said : ¨Oh yeah, we voted for change!¨ The entire crowd yelled ¨OBAMA!¨ We kissed them goodbye and were given a little handkercheif as a souvenir, It was glorious. Basically, we are famous in Puno now.... hahaha This morning when we were walking down the street this guy said he remembered us from last night.
Now we are getting ready to go to Bolivia, where we probably wont have internet for awhile. We also hope that paparrazzi don´t follow us to the border...haha j/k. What we really hope for is to make friends with the Bolivians at the border!
Until next time! Adventure is Out There!
P.S. We included a picture of our family from the island and a festival crew picture.
Later that night, we returned to the festival. The dancing continued and we ended up being pulled into a dancing group (A dream come true!). In the dancing group there were the cutest little girls (who by the way had sweet dancing skills). We ended up dancing down the street with them and about 20 or so people were taking pictures of us. When we were done dancing they asked where we were from and if we voted for Obama. When we said : ¨Oh yeah, we voted for change!¨ The entire crowd yelled ¨OBAMA!¨ We kissed them goodbye and were given a little handkercheif as a souvenir, It was glorious. Basically, we are famous in Puno now.... hahaha This morning when we were walking down the street this guy said he remembered us from last night.
Now we are getting ready to go to Bolivia, where we probably wont have internet for awhile. We also hope that paparrazzi don´t follow us to the border...haha j/k. What we really hope for is to make friends with the Bolivians at the border!
Until next time! Adventure is Out There!
P.S. We included a picture of our family from the island and a festival crew picture.
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