Off to my new home (Salta, Argentina)

Salar de Uyuni - a magical place. 

I wanna blog, I wanna blog... I have so much to talk about but have no time. I'm about to take a 23 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, where they say people never sleep, they party all night, eat steak all day, do the tango, dress to the nines, and drink Argentinian wine. I can't wait to get to "my" apartment that I've rented for one month and unpack my bag, relax, and start life there... If only for four weeks.

That's me crossing into Argentina. 

Off to the Salt Flats (La Paz, Bolivia)

After almost four days in La Paz, trying to find some oxygen, trying to find a nice warm winter coat, and a whole bunch of wandering around the streets, sight seeing and chilling at coffee shops with Leticia, I've decided that I like this place. It is hard not to compare it to Lima where I fell in love with the city and it's people, but La Paz has its own features I suppose. Sadly, we are leaving in a couple of hours.

Leticia & I sightseeing in La Paz

We will be heading into the Salt Flats of Bolivia on a 3 day, 2 night excursion. I hear it will be bloody cold! I have given up trying to find a coat that I like, I had a bit of a blow up at store yesterday due to a price quote misunderstanding. That's all I'll say, I don't want to talk about it! Instead, I've purchased a touristy alpaca sweater, but it's nice, along with a toque that doesn't match. So anyway, I'll be offline for three days... man that's a lot for me.

This Bolivian boy is cute. 

W...i.....f........i (La Paz, Bolivia)

Ok fine, I'm in a developing country, I know, but it doesn't change my huge pet peeve and impatience for slooooow wifi! Ugh!! It's always a gamble of where you're staying if they're going to have decent wifi or not. Or sometimes it will be excellent but only for 10 minutes.

Last night I started to download this new J.Lo song (haha, I know), and I only got it now once I arrived at my new hostal in La Paz. But now I've realized I downloaded and paid for a "tribute" version which isn't even J.Lo or Pitbull singing. So now I'm buying the correct one and it's telling me it's going to take 246 minutes to download a 4 minute song. Great.

Let's just be grateful that wifi exists.

This graffiti shot from La Paz seems fitting here. 

Peru to Bolivia (Copacabana, Bolivia)

It's always sad for me leaving a country I've been in for a while. My last night in Arequipa, Leticia and I went out for dinner and reminisced on our time there. It's interesting, we have had so many temporary seperations through out our time together, but still continue to travel together. We have just realized that we've known each other for 6 months already. For dinner conversation, we made a bunch of top 5 lists; friends, places, memories, favorite things, etc.

Alicia, Dean, Jair, Mike - fooling around in Miraflores, Lima. 

LIMA! I love this city. 

The next day we took a day bus to where we are now, it took two buses and about only 11 hours. The views were amazing, going through the mountains, surrounded by clouds, lakes, rolling hills and trees.  I am still in awe sometimes of the natural views of South America. The border crossing was interesting. Leticia and I were the very last ones to go through the line up last time when we entered Peru and I told her, let's not be last again. Well, lo and behold, due to Leticia being an American citizen she was the only one on our bus that had to purchase a tourist visa. And me, I was taken into the Peruvian Police Office centre for a special check, in which I was oddly suspicious that the cop was too nice and was going to try and scam me for money, but nope.  I then took my obligatory border crossing photo to prove I've made it to the next country, but as I clicked away with a Japanese family, we were cut short and hurried into the Bolivian immigration office, to find about 3 immigration officers dressed up in their soccer gear, stamping passports like crazy so that they could get back to their outdoor game that they were called away from. Quite hilarious I think, they cared more about their football game than who was entering their country.

You gotta sleep when you can. 

So the last couple days here in Lake Titicaca have been great. Cold nights, sunny days. I'm back on the backpacker trail and on full tourist mode. Yesterday we climbed these cool rocks, or the 'horcas del incas' to get a great view of the lakeside town we're staying in. Today we took an incredibly slow boat ride to the 'isla del sol' and did a 3.5 hour hike through the island filled with sheep, donkeys, and spectacular lake views.  Tomorrow we're off to La Paz, the capital city. My time in Bolivia will be short, I've got an apartment rented for the month of June in Buenos Aries, Argentina so I've gotta get my ass down there. I'll probably have to take a two day bus at one point...

Lake Tititaca

Bean Terix (Cusco, Peru)

Back home from Machu Picchu, arrived at about 1:30am. The bus driver that picked me up had my name written down as Bean Terix, otherwise translated into Dean Derek.

Photo of a llama at Machu Picchu for amusement purposes only ;-)

Ticquetes, Boletos, Pasajes, Ingresos (Machu Picchu, Peru)

I admit, I don´t like to plan ahead when I travel. At home, I am forced to with my work and often with my friends. Lately though, because I have to be in Colombia by June 28th, I have had to plan what I am doing in th next couple of months so that I can see what I want to see. Machu Picchu, one of the wonders of the world, is on that list. Albeit, I was very tempted to cross off the list, just because I have been so anti-tourist lately and it seemed like such a hassle.

Some random friends I met in Cusco.

So yesterday I decided that I wanted to go today, so I finally started researching on how to get there, costs, etc. Who knew it was such a process, some tourists plan it months in advance, me, less than 24 hours. And of course, I tried to plan it all out on a Sunday, Mother´s Day in fact, when most shops and restaurants are closed in Latin America. So I found one travel agency, and also spoke to my hostel´s travel agency. The external agency quoted me $170 to go in one day and the hostel quoted me $190 for the same thing. Both told me that it was a rapid trip, whereas most people will go for 2 days, 1 night. In the end, I went back to the external agency and after much discussion and bargaining I finally agreed to take her offer, but then found out they don´t accept credit cards, but they pulled a deal for me and charged me an extra $10 to pay by credit.  Then... like 3 hours later at 6pm, I get a call from the agency telling me to come back with my passport and that´s when they went to go purchase my train tickets. Turns out that we were too late to get the cheaper tickets and so they then asked me, in a very roundabout manner, to pay more or to not take a bus that is part of the trip and walk instead. I said I´d walk and save myself some money, although if I were in Canada, if I could have expressed myself in english, I am sure I could have swindled it around that I didn´t have to do anything more, but get what I originally paid for.  But, the lady was really nice, she spoke really clear spanish for me, and it was mother´s day, so I agreed.

So the original plan was this...
5 - 5:30am the travel agent would pick me up from the hostel
6:00am take a bus to this town 2 hours away
8:45am board a train to the town which sisters with Machu Picchu
11:00am take a bus (or walk) up to the entrance of Machu Picchu
6:30pm take bus, train, bus back towards Cusco, arrive at 11pm (ish)

So the first thing that changed was that the 6:30pm return train was fully booked, so the next one available was at 9:30pm.  (That´s why I´m here right now... killing time, waiting for my train). I won´t get home till about 2am now.

My travel agent didn´t come and pick me up until 6am on the dot, I was up at 4:50am and got ready. By 5:55 I was laying in bed with my eyes closed, almost hoping that she wouldn´t show up because everything seemed like such a hassle at this point.  Once she finally arrived, we had to wait outside in the cold for 30 minutes for the bus to arrive and she didn´t really know what was going on. I was then introduced to another man who told me how I would get my entrance ticket to Machu Picchu, by a man holding a white flag named Pedro waiting for me at the train station.  Well, once I arrived, there was no ticket waiting for me, and my travel agent was calling my cell phone asking if everything was okay, etc. In the end, I got my ticket that they paid for me, and I had to purchase my own bus ride up, as previously agreed on.  Then we finally met our official tour guide and waited around for awhile as all the group got together and assembled ourselves. As this all happened, loads and loads of tourists kept rushing through the entrance gate, all in the same boat, all looking for their guides, putting on sun screen, putting on bug spray, and adjusting their camera settings.

 
As we finally started the tour, the guide pulls me aside, and kept calling me Stream by the way, as that is what was written on his piece of paper, and tells me his going to bring me to another guide because that tour will be in English. He didn´t even ask if I spoke spanish and just assumed. So we rush through the crowds of people as we left the original group behind waiting. We then PASS through the prime point where you get the best view of Machu Picchu! We keep walking and walking... and finally get to the English guide and his 25 person group, I get pass on like a sheep... er I mean tourist, and that´s that. I then express that I´m late to my original guide, but he doesn´t seem to care, he runs away and the english guide tells me that he´s 15 minutes into the tour. At this point, I was so frustrated that I was tempted to just ditch the whole tour, turn around and get my infamous shot in front of the view. It seems that every backpacker I´ve met who´s been through Peru has this exact same photo in the exact same shot, and I wanted one of my very own!  Anyway, I stick with the tour, huffing and puffing for a bit.  Eventually, I ease into things and settle down, listen to some of the interesting historical and scientific facts about the Incas and the ruins.

Once the tour was done, 2 hours later, I had time to kill. So I went back through the entrance and started over, back to that primal spot. I got various other tourists to take my picture, knowing that at least one of them would know how to use my camera and get a good shot. In the end, I got one. I´m satisfied.  I then found a nice quiet spot on the grass, with the ruins as my backdrop, plugged in my ipod, and finally ate two energy bars that I had packed away in my backpack since early that morning. One thing that the whole travel agency didn´t add in the itinerary was time for lunch! I´d hardly eaten anything since I´d been awake at 5am.  Anyway, at this point, most of the tourists had left, probably to catch their early trains and I felt at peace. My music was relaxing. The sun was heavenly. The grass was welcoming. The view was majestic. My thoughts were indepth and filled with gratitude. 

So, all in all, everything was worth it.  Let´s just hope I get back to Cusco alright...

Murphy's Law (Hauncachina, Peru)

I have been wearing the same underwear a third time now, before that I was wearing another a pair for three days in a row. I went this morning to go buy a bus ticket to leave this place later today, but due to some protests along the highway I was told I couldn't leave today. So I decided to hand wash my underwear, finally. Then, as I was walking by one of the travel agencies, just to strike up conversation with the cute Peruvian guy working there, I asked if there were still no available departures. It turns out, one bus is leaving tonight, and I was able to buy the last ticket, right beside the on board washroom!

So now, I've just done a late checkout, which is better than paying full price. But I've had to pack up all my clothes, including my wet underwear! Ugh... So once I arrive in Cuzco, about 24 hours from now, I still won't have clean underwear!!

PS - I haven't brushed my teeth today. I lost my toothbrush and haven't gotten around to buying a new one. Right... Off to the store I go...

My last night in Huancachina - we had a blast!

For This (Huacachina, Peru)

A lot of goodbyes yesterday, my final day in what began to feel like my own city, Lima. I just received this skype message from my pal Jair... it's things like this that makes goodbyes so bittersweet.

"algun dia nos volveremos a ver amigo! y saldremos a discotgecas! la pasaremos bien y veremos pelicuas subtituladas y me ayudarasa con el ingles !"