Bolivia

On Friday morning we caught the bus to Copacabana, Bolivia. Since it was a tourist bus, crossing the border was easy. After settling into our hotel and having lunch, we set out on foot to explore the countryside around town. Like in Arequipa, there were a few minor tourist destinations that were mentioned in our book that we were aiming for, but mostly we were just enjoying the walk. One of the destinations was an Incan spring (banos del inca), which was surrounded by beautiful gardens:

Later in the afternoon Taylor and I hiked up one of the hills behind town for exercise and some great views, but before that we wandered around in town. Copacabana has a very cute town square and a very ornate cathedral:

The most notable thing about the town of Copacabana is its extreme schizophrenia. One street leading down to the main docks is the epitome of gringolandia--tourist restaurants, artesania, and Argentine hippies-in-residence playing music. Another street leading up to the main square and the cathedral is all artensia aimed at the tourists. Those two streets seemed completely non-authentic and non-Bolivian--mostly they reminded me of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. But the next block down is full of small shops and street food, culminating in a big meat and produce market which definitely served the locals. And the rest of the streets in town were just that--small town streets that were quiet except of an occasional kid playing. While the gringo part was frustrating, the rest of it I really liked.

One frustrating thing--which was totally our fault but it's more fun to blame it on the overpriced tourist restaurants and the grungy Uraguayan playing the kazoo for tips at dinner--was that we ran out of money. We changed all our soles for bolivianos at the border, and we thought we had plenty because Bolivia is so cheap. Then we spent 160 bolivianos on dinner and dessert ($20 for the 3 of us, which included wine), and we had no cash. We thought we'd be ok because although our book said there were no ATMs in town, we saw one during the day and we figured it must be new. But it turned out the ATM only accepted cards from the Bolivian national bank. Fortunately, we had $12 between us, which we changed (after negotiating a special rate for the singles, which they normally do not change) for 93 bolivianos and 10 soles. That (plus a few more soles and bolivianos in our pockets) was our budget for dinner on Saturday and transportation back to Puno, 3 hours inside of Peru.

Meanwhile, on Saturday we took a boat (tickets purchased before the cash crisis) to the Isla del Sol, to hike from one end to another. It was a nice hike on a nice island, and pictures don't really do it justice, but here is one:

On Saturday night we found good but cheap pizza and took advantage of the free entertainment of wandering around town instead of drinking. On Sunday, thanks to our careful budget and changing every last coin we had, we made it to the ATM at the Puno bus station with less than 1 sol between the 3 of us. That's about 20 cents. Not bad, eh? Heh, I was totally stressed and bitchy about it at the time, but now it's a great story. :-)

Lake Titicaca

On Wednesday morning we left Puno early for our 2 day tour of the islands on Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is the world's highest navigable lake at 3820m (12,500 feet), and tourists mostly visit for its wide vistas and its various islands.

The first stop on our tour was the floating islands of Los Uros, which are the only islands that many tourists visit. About 1000 years ago, the Uros people left the shores of the lake and built floating islands out of reeds to escape various competing cultures. At this point they pretty much only still live there because of the tourist industry, but its still pretty cool to walk on their "land" that is really a big natural raft and learn about how the islands are built and maintained. In fact, I was expecting the islands to be **so** touristy that I was pleasantly surprised when we got there--we were basically the only group visiting, the people were offering artesania for sale but not being overly pushy, and the islands were just a neat place to see. Here's a picture:

After Los Uros we continued for another 3 hours on the lake until we reached the island of Amantani, where we would be spending the night. We all got distributed to host families, and somehow we ended up in the town mansion--our house had a solar panel and thus electricity at night. After meeting our family and having lunch, we hiked to the top of one of the two hills on this island. Here we are:

In the evening they dressed us in traditional clothes and took us to the main hall to dance. It was of course totally cheesy and a silly tourist gimmick, but it was still pretty fun. I do wonder, however, when they actually do these dances for real.

Our family was super sweet--it was actually 2 brothers with their families living together, so 7 children in total. The men were stone workers by day and fisherman by night, so here they are at breakfast picking last night's catch out of the nets:

After Amantani, our last stop was the nearby island of Taquile. Since Taquile is an island you can visit on a day trip, it was way more touristy and it annoyed me. In comparison to Amantani it was overpriced and fake. So I could have done without the visit, but other than that I was happy with the tour. We met some cool people, and spending the night on the lake was definitely the best way to visit--more time on the islands and out-of-synch with the day trippers.

Thursday night we had dinner and drinks in Puno with some people we met on our islands tour. It was a fun relaxed way to end that segment of the trip. We didn't end up "seeing" much of Puno other than a couple restaurants and the bus station, but I still liked it well enough--aside from the 1 street of tourist restaurants and bars, it was clear that it's a city where real people live, a working city more than anything else.

Arequipa

The first stop on our trip was the city of Arequipa. Arequipa is a city in the foothills of the Andes, at 2330m (~7600 feet). It is known for its colonial architecture and its rolling countryside, as well as for some natural wonders we didn't experience due to time and/or weather constraints.

When we arrived, we first explored the Santa Carolina Convent, which is a huge and still operating convent. It's a beautiful colonial structure and basically a city within the walls. It was full of streets like this:

and courtyards like this:

We also saw many tools of past domestic life, such as the laundry:

Our second day in Arequipa we rented bikes and set off on our own to the countryside. Once outside the city traffic, we enjoyed a nice bike ride and visited several small sites, including a still-operating water-powered wheat mill and a colonial country mansion. Along the same lines as the laundry, we saw lots of old kitchens at both the convent and the mansion, and here's one of the best shots:

The countryside of Arequipa is also home to alpacas, which we enjoyed seeing by the side of the road and enjoyed purchasing their wool turned into sweaters, blankets, and scarves!

Our last morning in Arequipa we visited the ice mummy museum (even though the star mummy was in the lab) and another colonial house, finished shopping, and spent some last moments in the town square. Here's the Arequipa Plaza de Armas and Cathedral, on a sunny day:

Overall I liked Arequipa, although since it was the first stop its seems so long ago and distant at the moment. We saw pretty much all of the sites in the city and its immediate vecinity, but we didn't have any grand adventures. Arequipa seems like a nice place to live, especially for the Arequipenos who recoil in horror at the idea of living in Lima.

Anyway, after lunch we headed to the bus station, where after some delay we were on our way to Puno, our next destination...

Fotos

Since blogger won't let me post photos in my entries any more (or from here? maybe it's Peru's problem), I'm trying posting them from outside, but the easiest way to do that is to start a new entry and post them all at once. It bothers my sense of order that they're not all with their stories, but oh well. There's only so much online fiddling I'm willing to do.

So, here are 3 pics from our Lomo's de Lucumo adventure:

four-fifths of the group


view of the valley from which we hiked


view towards Lima

Barranco excursion:

on the Puente de los Suspiros

And a bonus pic from our living room window: our neighborhood parakeets. We've been birding ;-)

El Centro

Last Sunday I finally went to downtown Lima, the old colonial center. It was great! Alexandra was hosting a visitor and wanted to take show her around, so the three of us met up and headed to the centro. We didn't do anything special, just walked around, but the weather was perfect to enjoy the various parks and pretty buildings along the way. Everything seemed to sparkle! The colonial architecture in Centro Lima is beautiful, and it's so strikingly different from both anything in the newer parts of the city where we live and almost anything in Santiago. You can just feel the former opulence of the various casas, iglesias, parques, and important government buildings, and on a bright Sunday afternoon it didn't even feel all that "former." I didn't bring my camera because I wanted to get a feel for things first, but I'm sure I'll go back and I also made a deal with Alexandra's friend to get her pictures. We walked through various squares and also to the river, which was significantly less opulent but still interesting, especially when we foiled some guy's attempt to open Alexandra's bag. We then walked over to the central market and to Chinatown, which was a one pedestrian street paved with fundraising bricks, but hey at least now I've been there. We also spent well over an hour at lunch (not in Chinatown, but rather at an upscale chicken outlet off the Plaza de Armas) discussing languages and linguistics, since Kate (Alexandra's guest) is an language teacher and studies language education. It was a fascinating conversation about teaching styles and the cultural aspects of language learning, although I still don't think I buy her argument that if I had been taught in a much more conversational style that my language acquisition would have been significantly easier.

In other news, this past week was crazy (thus not updating the blog until tonight). On Tuesday night there was a going-away party at my boss's house and I got home at 11. On Thursday there was a conference that the Bank was putting on to release some publications, and although I was only slightly affected directly I was definitely sucked in emotionally to the stress of all my coworkers. But at least we're all bonded now because we had a staff retreat the week before last! Seriously. I'm happy to report that I come out the same on personality tests in Spanish as I do in English--I am a logical thinker and a planner. But I'm also happy to report that after the retreat and the various events last week I finally feel like I know the people in the office better and therefore am more comfortable there (i'm talking about the whole office, not just the 3 other people I share a room with)

Taylor's also been super busy, with the election in full swing and him trying to accompany candidates on their trips. Tonight he's north of Lima with one of the candidates, after 2 unsuccessful attempts to catch up with him in 7 days. This time he neither had to get up a 3 am nor go to the airport without a ticket, and it worked!

Speaking of elections, we watched the inauguration of Bachelet on CNN en Espanol on Saturday, and it was pretty cool. Well, the ceremony itself was not that exciting (they signed paperwork for 5 minutes live on TV), but it was just cool to watch after being there for the campaign and the election. I chatted with a Chilean friend the other day and she said that people were dancing the in the streets and all the women were wearing presidential sashes. Pretty freakin' cool (or "mostro" as they would say here in Peru).

La Boda y La Cena

On Saturday night we went to the wedding of my coworker. It was quite interesting. First of all, it was in an Anglican church, and all the publications in the church--e.g. the monthly newsletter, etc.--were in English, which was kind of funny to see. But the wedding itself wasn't Anglican--the couple is evangelico (baptist maybe?), and it was by far the most religious wedding I have ever been to. So I don't know if this is standard at baptist weddings, but there was a lot of singing and it was really beautiful. The couple sang a duet together--a long one, not just a few lines--and then their attendants sang another long song while they had a private communion ceremony. It seemed very personal, and I enjoyed it I think more than I would have enjoyed an uber-religious wedding in english. Ironically, I was the only person from the office to actually see the couple get married. There were way more invitees than could actually fit in the church (despite the fact that I think they rented the Anglican church because it was the biggest one they could find), and so everyone who showed up after about 7:05 was out the door. The ceremony was scheduled to start at 7, it actually started around 7:15, and although at least 150 peruanos managed to show up on time, none of them were my coworkers. Now, it didn't surprise me so much that my officemates were late, because they are also friends of the groom's from college and they were invited to the reception afterwards, but I'm pretty sure the other 5 people who missed the ceremony were not going to the reception, and that I just don't understand--why get all dressed up and drive across town just to miss the event and turn around and go home? I'm glad we showed up at the hora gringa.
And I'm also glad we had dinner plans! Our fancy dinner was delicious, although not quite only $30 a person with pisco sours and a bottle of our favorite Chilean wine :-) But it was fun going out to dinner all dressed up and eating great food. Too bad we can't do it more often, even at Peruvian prices.
Sunday afternoon we headed down a suburban part of Lima on the coast, and enjoyed walking around and stuffing ourselves on ceviche. Especially since we had (uh, have) no food in the house. It was a nice little mini-excursion on a relaxed Sunday afternoon. Hopefully next weekend we'll do something similar.
Finally, we caught some of the Oscars on TV. It was partially really funny and partially really annoying to watch them dubbed "en vivo"--it was annoying because you could still hear the english under the dubbing and it was distracting, but it was funny to listen to the spanish-language commentary. I was all set to wonder if the awards would affect the black market price of Brokeback DVDs on the streets of Lima, since we still haven't seen it, but since it didn't win it's probably moot. I have no interest in seeing Crash.
Ug, for some reason I've been really tired all day, so I'll quit my rambling and try to post some pictures tomorrow.