Peru

Since I had already visited Peru in 2000 for a medical mission, I traveled pretty quickly through it in order to get to Bolivia and Argentina, both of which I was and am really excited for. One of the most enjoyable parts of Peru for me this time around was traveling in the luxery (at least compared with every other country so far) buses and seeing the landscape change so dramatically as we headed further south. I hadn't realized how much of northern and central Peru is desert, and since I traveled a lot of the time along the coast, one of my favorite aspects was how the desert would just disappear into the sea.
When I got to Lima early in the morning, I took a taxi to my friend Lisanne's house. She is from Holland, and we met in Cartagena at Spanish school. She is currently living in Lima for about 3 months, and I was happy to have another place to stay for free. Once I arrived there, my first priority was to find the Bolivian embassy and attempt to get my visa, especially since I didn't know how long it would take. Lisanne had to go to work, but one of her roommates, Lauren from Oregon, offered to accompany me. Since my Spanish is still pretty poor, and hers was basically perfect, and since I knew nothing about Lima, I eagerly accepted. We got into a taxi and proceeded to have one of the funniest and most annoying rides of my whole trip! The taxi driver was a teenager, and had no idea where the Bolivian embassy was. We soon came to find out that pretty much no one knew where it was, and although we had an address and map of it's whereabouts in my Lonely Planet, that didn't seem to matter to him. The driver pulled up literally at every corner and yelled over to another taxi driver to see if they knew where it was. Some did, or supposedly did, and they would tell him directions, while cars behind us were honking like crazy. He never seemed to believe what they said, so he would pull up again after another block and ask someone else. What should have taken probably 15 minutes ended up taking 1 hour, and eventually we arrived, but at that point Lauren had to go and she couldn't stay with me for the embassy anyway, which was the whole point! By the time I arrived and went in to talk to the consulate, they were about to close for the day (their hours are 0900-1300)! He spoke English (thankfully), and he told me that I would have to come back the next day since I wouldn't be able to complete everything by the time they closed. When I looked at him with sad eyes, he told me that yes, he knew it was hard, and that when he wanted to take his family to Disneyland, they had to go through a whole lot of rigamarole as well (as if I personally have anything to do with the rules my country imposes on foreigners). In other words, he wasn't sympathetic. Bolivia has begun requiring US citizens to get an expensive ($135) visa because of our requirements for their citizens to enter our country, not unlike some other countries I have been to on this trip (although this visa was the most expensive by far). Interestingly enough, I found out that most of Europe also requires Bolivians to obtain a visa to travel there, but that they do not impose the same on European citizens visiting their country. When I asked my Bolivian friend about this, she said that Bolivia needs Europeans to keep traveling here, for their tourist money, but that US citizens aren't so likely to come to Bolivia so they can afford to charge us. One of the requirements for me to get my visa was that I needed to have either proof of a hotel reservation in Bolivia, or to have a letter of invitation from a Bolivian citizen, stating that they invited me to stay with them in their country. My friend Liz, who I met in Cartagena, was happy to write me such a letter. I had hoped that the embassy would let me print it out there, but I was wrong. So I had to print it out myself and bring it back the next day. I also had to take my $135 US to a nearby bank and deposit it into a specific account, and then bring back the receipt. The next day, I decided to avoid taking an expensive taxi in circles again, and instead figured out the bus system (with a bit of Lauren's help again) and was able to find my way there in a fraction of the time, and for a fraction of the cost. I left the embassy that day with my new visa stamped in my passport! The other thing of note that happened in Lima was that the laundry lady lost my Green Bay Packer's t-shirt! I realized it only the next day, after unpacking my clean laundry. We went back and told her, and I even showed her a picture of me wearing it on my iTouch. She felt really bad, and told us to come back in two hours. When I did so, she said that they found who had the shirt, but that the person was gone and not coming back until the weekend. As I was leaving for my night bus shortly, there was no way for me to get it back. It was my favorite shirt, and the only one with sentimental value - of course, that is the one that they lost:(
My night bus to Arequipa took about 16 hours and again there were some movies, bingo, dinner and breakfast, and great views out the windows. I had originally not planned on going back there, since that is where I did my medical mission 11 years ago, but then I realized that it might be fun to go again and see how things have changed. When I arrived, I took a taxi to a hostel, and then walked around to see if I recognized anything. I didn't then or any of the rest of my time there. I think that where we did the mission was on the outskirts of town, and I couldn't remember the name of the area. I stayed in the center of town, and enjoyed sitting in the main plaza, where tons of locals also would go to hang out. Watching little kids feed the pidgeons was fun, and there was constant action there. Overall, I didn't do much in Arequipa beyond wander around. When I don't meet people at my hostel, a city can be more boring in general. The days there were warm when the sun was out due to the high elevation, but the nights were FREEZING! I definitely did not remember that from when I was there the first time. So once it got dark, I pretty much stayed inside and tried to get and stay warm. The hostel did have really nice views of the city and the surrounding mountains, including Misti, from their rooftop, so I braved the cold one night to try to get some good photos. I stayed an additional night longer than I had planned because I really wanted to try to watch a Packer's game for once, and the hostel had ESPN, and there was a chance that they would show the game. They did not, and so I tried to stream it on a Russian website, but the connection was too slow. I settled instead for a live blog on packers.com that updated constantly. That was pretty cool because some of the comments on the blog were from soldiers watching from their tents in Afghanistan and on the Indian Ocean - that makes Peru sound rather boring, I think! Needless to say, of course they won, as they are currently still the only undefeated team in the NFL this season! Can't wait to finally watch some games when I get home (my dad is faithfully recording all of them for me)!
From Arequipa, I took the bus to Lake Titicaca and the town of Puno, where I wanted to find a good tour to take of some of the islands out in the lake. Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world (not to mention, as my dad said, every 5th-grade boys favorite geographical name)! While I was wandering around the main street in town, I recognized a girl from my hostel in Arequipa, and we decided to find a tour together. We booked an all-day tour that would take us to Las Islas Flotantes (The Floating Islands) and to another island further away, Taquile. The next morning, we boarded the boat and headed off to the really unique floating islands of the Uros people of Peru. The islands are made entirely from the reeds that grow nearby in the lake. The Uros people gave a demonstration on how they make the base, and then how they pile the reeds on top of each other to make the ground. They also build their houses and beds with reeds, eat the reeds, use them for fuel to make fire and food, and make handicrafts with them. I have definitely never seen anything like it. The people were very warm and friendly, and the women and girls wear really beautiful colors of clothing, which makes them even more unique. I posted a picture of some of them on facebook, and several people wanted to know why the ladies are so overweight. Their diets actually seem pretty healthy - I doubt reeds have any calories (we tried them - they are white and tasteless, with a texture rather like celery), and they also eat eggs and fish. The reason is probably due to their sedentary lifestyle. Each island is very small, and while they have boats (made out of reeds, of course) to get from one island to the other, they probably spend most of their time on their own islands cooking and making crafts to sell to tourists. After visiting two of the islands, we took a 2-hr boat ride on to the island of Taquile. There, we climbed up a path while being very out-of-breath due to the elevation (12, 725 feet) to the central plaza for some good views, and then had a very overpriced but good lunch of trout, while learning about the people and their traditions. The men knit and the women weave, and when they are not doing some other task, they are constantly knitting or weaving. What was especially interesting to me is that the people are very peaceful and don't even have police - they just figure everything out amongst themselves, and the older men are usually the leaders in the community. Then it was another long boat ride back on the lake to Puno. The next day, it was finally time for me to enter Bolivia!