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We breathed a collective sigh of relief as we crossed the border into Peru, hoping that our final country would offer relief from the problems that had plagued us in Senor Morales’ socialist mountain dominion. For the first few days we lived in idyllic ignorance and soaked up the flavors of Puno, the gritty city perched on the northwestern shore of the world’s highest navigable lake, Lake Titicaca. We had hoped to view the lake from the more picturesque location of Copacabana, Bolivia, but there was no way we were going to risk getting trapped behind strike lines again. So we resigned ourselves to our less charming yet politically more stable location and settled into a wonderful little hotel complete with a fireplace in the lobby to stave off the bitter nighttime chill and a windowed 6th floor dining room that offered sweeping views of the formidable waters.

Almost everybody who tours Peru passes through Puno, but I’m not sure anybody really likes it. We found the people reserved, the food bland, and the weather dreary, something unusual for this time of year. In the midst of the sleet and gloom, we booked the city’s one obligatory tour–a boat trip to the floating islands of Uros. In the waning light of the afternoon, we boarded a motorboat along with about 15 other tourists for the 30 minute ride to the islands. Our guide, Herman, pointed listlessly to a map and explained in a nasal monotone that Titicaca means “puma stone” in Quechua. “But be sure to pronounce the ‘c’ as a hard ‘k,’” he explained. “If you say the softer ‘c’ “or you’ll be saying ‘puma poop.’”

The Uros Islands were first constructed over 500 years ago by pre-Incan people seeking refuge from invaders. They constructed the islands out of the lake’s ubiquitous, buoyant totora reeds by anchoring them to clods of root-enmeshed dirt. In times of calm, they anchored them to the lake floor using ropes and sticks, while in times of danger, they simply cut them loose and floated away. A few hundred descendents of the Uros remain on the 43 islands today, but most of their relatives have chosen to take up life on the mainland. Those who have stayed do so mainly to cater to tourists who find their squishy, bobbing existence baffling.

We found the islands interesting but recognized that the steady stream of visitors over the years has permanently altered the lives of the inhabitants. They did not so much feel like a people untouched by time as a group cloying for the money of tourists. The women hawked wares shipped in from Puno, the men offered rides on boats woven from totora weed, and the children madly colored on tiny pieces of paper which they then begged us to buy. It would be naive to assume that any people could preserve an ancient lifestyle in a modern, commercialized world, but it’s still disheartening to encounter a people so clearly defined by their catering to passersby.

Titicaca has many permanent islands which we did not visit and we hear the people there live lives more consistent with those of their ancestors. The Isla del Sol off the coast of Copacabana is one of the most spiritually significant sites in South America both for Catholics who revere it as a pilgrimage site and indigenous people who view it as the birthplace of Inca culture and mythology. The most intriguing thing for us about Titicaca, however, was the fact that Bolivian Navy (yes those two words are indeed an oxymoron) uses the lake for training exercises since their country is landlocked, i.e., they have no ocean shores nor access to naval waters. The Bolivians have never really gotten over losing their coastline to the Chileans in the late 1800s and many still harbor dreams of winning it back. When zany Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez visited a few months ago, he stoked Bolivian delusions by claiming he would one day lounge on a Bolivian beach. We’re not putting any money on Bolivia staging a comeback anytime soon, especially since its people can’t seem to move beyond hurling sticks of dynamite, demanding free gas, and throwing rocks, but I suppose stranger things have happened. In this part of the world, nothing should come as a surprise.

Back on land in Puno, we noticed the town square was filled with noisy, banner-toting folks, who we thought might be part of a religious procession (they were gathering outside a church) or institutional celebration. Little did we know, a storm was brewing that would make our Bolivian troubles seem trifling and wash away our Peruvian peace in a flood of political discontent.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Floating Islands, Lake Titicaca, Peru, Puno, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Uros Islands

It seems it has become my job to write posts about busses. I have written about busses in China, Thailand, Turkey, and now South America. As you probably know if you have read our previous posts, the Devil’s bus company, Todo Turismo, chucked us in the middle of Bolivia at 3:00 in the morning with no immediate way out. After our fight with them, which got us absolutely nowhere, we decided that we would skip La Paz entirely and hop a couple busses through Chile to Peru, a task much easier said than done. Joining us on our excursion were Simon and Bluesy, a couple of Oxford guys doing a South American tour and a Frenchman who we think is named Stephan but aren’t quite sure because he rarely if ever talked. Our plan consisted of hopping a bus from Oruro to Iquique, Chile then getting another to Arica, Chile, another to Tacna, Peru, another to Arequipa, Peru, and finally a last to Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca.

Our first task would be to find a way out of the dreary mining town of Oruro, so a contingent headed over to the bus station as the sun was rising around 7:00 am. Unfortunately for us the first bus out of Oruro wasn’t until 11:30. We managed to stage a sit-in in the Todo Turismo office until this time. The employees were not happy since they had planned on forcing us all into cabs and leaving at 3:00, but Simon and Dad made it clear we weren’t going anywhere. The employees just played cards while we hatched our escape plan, ate the Oreos we were supposed to receive on the bus, did internet research on their computer, and continued to question why they had abandoned us in this unseemly town.

When the appointed hour arrived, we hopped on the bus to Iquique and bade a bitter and not so sweet farewell to the challenged country of Bolivia. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t the most pleasant of busses. (Bolivian busses are not known for their comfort.) It had little leg room, and I swear the bus driver must have been drunk or just out of Bolivian driver’s ed. He dodged and weaved on the mostly unpaved roads and we struggled to keep our Oreos down. Four hours later in the middle of the desert, we made yet another unpleasant border crossing, which took quite some time due to Chile’s super strict customs restrictions.

We finally arrived in our first stop, Iquique, at 9 pm. We immediately booked a bus to Arica and went out to find some food. The best place we found was a pizza parlor that was open late. The rest of the town was already closed for the night. We ate heartily due to the fact we had eaten nothing earlier in the day, watched some of the Copa America Cup, and waited for our 1:00 am departure.

We left the pizza place around 12:30 and started to make our way to the pickup point…not the actual bus station but a hole in the wall across from the central market. A street sweeper warned the us the way we had chosen to walk was “peligro” so we changed our route. It was eerie wandering through the silent, graffitti-ridden, Chilean streets, but we had little choice in the matter and figured if nothing else, there was safety in numbers. Our motley crew arrived early with high hopes for our first real Chilean bus. When we boarded, however, we were utterly disappointed. We had heard Chile had some of the world’s best busses, but this one was more like a Greyhound from the 50’s that had at one time or another been abandoned in the middle of the desert only to be found again and put back into service. Fortunately we managed to sleep through the majority of this bus ride and awoke around 6:00 am to another sunrise and the sight of the Arica bus station. From here we attempted to find a ticket to Tacna across the Peruvian border, a difficult task. Everyone had a different story. One misguided desk worker trying to sell us a ticket all the way through even told us that the ride from Arequipa to Puno was only one hour (it turned out to be closer to seven).

We found a nice tourist information guy who hooked us up with some cars to take us to the Chile-Peru border. These colectivos cost $6 for each of us (more expensive than a lot of bus tickets) and were mostly old 1980’s Chrysler K cars, something I never knew existed but my vintage ’80’s parents found funny. Our driver was really nice and guided us through one of the oddest border crossings we’ve encountered. It involved being dropped off by the colectivo on one side, waiting in a long line and then getting stamped out of Chile, getting back in the taxi and waiting in another line and getting stamped into Peru. Once in Tacna, yet another dreary desert town, we split up with Stephan, who had booked the expensive bus from Arica, and took a local bus with Simon and Bluesy to Arequipa.

As soon as we got on the bus, we noticed something strange. There was a woman spreading clothes all over the bus and spraying them with some liquid from a bottle. An old man sitting in the back started placing bags on the overhead shelves in the front and middle of the bus, creating a perimeter around us. We started moving his bags back towards the back of the bus where he was sitting. As soon as we were finished doing this he moved them right back. Suspecting a thieving scheme in the works, we confronted him and asked “Why are you putting your bags here?” He responded, “My wife!” We then moved the bags once again, and this time he didn’t try and move them back.

This bus, although brand new and equipped with TVs, was full of locals doing weird things. We decided we would be better off to keep our eyes open and stay awake the entire ride just to be sure none of our bags walked away. This turned out to be a good strategy because every 10 minutes or so the bus would stop and a long line of salespeople would board. They would walk up and down the aisle displaying their goods, usually bizarre food items and warm drinks. The steward showed three movies–Benchwarmers, Firewall, and Assault on Precinct 13–which helped us stay awake during the 6 hour ride. We arrived in Arequipa with all our possessions in tact but were tired and sick of busses (we had been on them for almost 2 whole days). Here we split up with Simon and Bluesy; they continued on to Puno while we decided to take a rest and stop over in Arequipa for the night (don’t worry…we would run into them again in Cusco). We were finished with busses for the moment, but our plagued relationship with these giant pieces of steel would all too soon resume.

Technorati Tags: Bolivia, bus, Bus travel, Chile, Family travel, Peru, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

After a long, long three days of traveling through the Andes and the Salar, we arrived at a small office that belonged to our tour agency, Estrella del Sur. Everyone else from our tour was planning to go to Potosi and Sucre, but there were no buses going to those places that late in the day, so they were going to have to wait a day in Uyuni. We were also going to have to stay an unexpected day in Uyuni because we hadn’t reserved the bus to La Paz. There were multiple companies, but all of them only had between 2 to4 seats. Mom and Dad found this out on their expedition while the kids stayed and ate lunch in the tour office. Because we had no idea we would be staying in the small town Uyuni, we had nowhere to stay. Everyone else in our group went to a hostel with no heating. We couldn’t stand another night of no heat so dad went to go check out the only one in the book with heat, The Tonito Hotel, while the rest of us waited in the tour office for his return.

Dad returned unsuccessful: the Tonito Hotel wasn’t bad, he just couldn’t find it, but while he was out he checked all the other ones he passed. They were all lower than hostel level Dad said, and once again asked the lady at the desk in broken Spanish where the Tonito Hotel was. It wasn’t dad’s fault that he didn’t find the hotel, it was just that the first time the lady at the desk sent him to the Tonito Tours building, the same company as the hotel, just a block down the street the other way. Dad set out again with me and Kieran this time. We found it like 5 blocks from the tour office, and right next to the national guard base. It was really maybe 10 feet from all the marching, yelling, and singing national guards. It was the only place that looked like it would be warm enough for us. So we went back to the tour office and got our bags and made the trek to the hotel.

It was somewhere around 4 or 5. We had already eaten some food that our driver prepared for us, so we weren’t hungry. We just mostly hung out in our room and did school until dinner The dinner was pretty good and we had some pizza and garlic bread at the Minuteman Pizzeria, that according to the Rough Guide was the best food in town. It was inside the hotel we were staying so we could have it for dinner the next day right before the bus too! It turns out that the restaurant was owned by a Bolivian woman and an American man who had met in Boston and got married and opened up shop in La Paz, but with all the riots they decided to move to Uyuni with their 4 and 10 year old sons. Mom and Dad talked with the owner for a while and found out that she and her husband also owned the hotel.We finished eating and I went back to doing school. I thought Mom, Kieran, and Asher were still in the restaurant, but when Mom came back to the room alone I was confused. I asked Mom where the little kids were and she said that they were up in room 14 with the owners’ kids. I went upstairs and found them playing in the boys’ playroom. Kieran was playing PS2 alone, but he wasn’t trading off. I convinced him to let the kids play to and told him that the system wasn’t his to hog.The 10 year old put in another game called Tekken Tag that was two player so all of us could play and switch off. I was pretty bad because I hadn’t played in so long, but I slowly progressed until it was time for bed.

The next morning we woke up, had some breakfast at the restaurant, and did school until it was about time for lunch. We went downstairs to the restaurant but it was closed; it’s only open for dinner and breakfast. Dad and I went out to find some lunch. We found a crowded restaurant we thought we might try, and to our surprise sitting at one of the tables was about 2/3 of our group from the Salar tour. They were supposed to go that morning. Why were they still here? We went and asked them, and it turned out that the miners were striking blocking the roads to Sucre and Potosi. This worried us because it meant the road to La Paz might be blocked too We hurried and ordered our food and ran to the bus office. On the way we ran into someone from the hotel. She was a tour guide who comes to Bolivia with the big trucks parked outside the hotel. She told us that she heard that maybe there was a strike was blocking the road to La Paz, so we ran even faster, but of course it was siesta and the bus office was closed. There had been some people already waiting outside for it to open. We asked them about the strike and they knew nothing. So we went to go get our food. We payed the kids at the restaurant (it was run by an old woman and all the cooks and waiters and waitresses were kids). On the way back to the hotel we ran into the tour guide again. She said that the strikes were for sure. Dad knew that mom would be devastated since she had so much planned. We got to the hotel, and of course mom was crushed. The rest of the day she planned on what we should do.

_________ and Kris the 4 year old returned from their Grandma’s house while I was gone, and Dax, Kieran, and Asher were all already playing with them so I joined them. Later that day the bus called us and said that they were running the bus that night after all. We had dinner at the Minuteman again and tried some of their Death by Chocolate (a chocolate cake) and some really good cookies. We said good bye to our new friends and set out to the bus station with a bag of the excellent cookies. We got to the bus office to find a big crowd outside. We went to see what was going on. The riots had gotten stronger and all the rioters were very drunk so it was extremely dangerous. Some of the tourist still wanted to go but the driver was too scared, because sometimes the rioters pull the drivers out and beat them up. They told us we would have to wait two days to go. So we made the walk back to the hotel and luckily got the same room.

The next day we had breakfast and did some more school (Dax and I really have to get our stuff done). Mom and Dad went out to see if there was another bus that we could take but they didn’t find one. We did some internet and played some more Tekken. It wasn’t a very eventful day until the bus company called and said that they could make it through the roadblocks, so once again we got a huge bag of the cookies (this time a gift, thank you once again! : ~ ) ) and set out to the bus station. Once more there was a huge crowd at the office. Dad went inside and heard what they had to say. While he was inside a Peruvian tour guide came outside and told us what was really going on, while on the inside they were lying to everyone. The tour guide said that they were going to stop in a mining town called Oruro, and from there they would figure out what to do. Inside they said that we would make it all the way to La Paz by going around the strikes (like all the other bus companies were doing) or turn around and come back to Uyuni. Dad came out and we all got on the bus. Mom and I yelled at him not to go but he had heard the fake story and insisted for us to go. So we set out for a journey that wouldn’t end for 3 long miserable days.

Technorati Tags: Pizza, Playstation, Kids, Strikes, Uyuni

At 16, one of my prize possessions was my dark room. Well, it was really my mom’s laundry room that I commandeered with my trays, canisters and chemicals. I never was very good at taking and creating my own pictures but that never lessened my enjoyment of seeing something I created emerge on a paper. One of my favorite techniques was creating a picture by double exposing the photo-paper. These ghostly or unreal images gave me the feeling of creating something interesting, even if the photos were not that noteworthy. When I went away to college, I put photography as a hobby on a back shelf and didn’t pick it up again until this trip. It was pretty easy to convince myself that going around the world was justification enough to purchase some decent equipment and take photography a little more seriously. I am glad I did. Our photos of the trip will be the greatest part of Asher and Kieran’s memories when they get older. Even Dax and McKane embrace photo time on the trip. At first everyone would moan and complain any time I took the camera out. Now I have four little birds who often ask to have their picture taken with a certain building, landscape, or funny sign. They don’t even complain about the pyramid pictures and can get up in and out of the pyramid in about 5 seconds.

One of the most anticipated photo-ops of the trip has been the salt flats in Bolivia. For weeks other travelers had been showing our family their creative optical illusion photos. The salt flats are so monochromatic and the air so thin and clear that it is easy to lose your depth perception. This allows people to create some of the most creative pictures possible without Photoshop. As the family saw others pictures they started planning their own. They gathered props to use and planned out their different shots. The more excited they became the more worried I became. You see, I have a dirty little secret. All of our time in the many deserts, the many days spent on sand dunes, and an ill-advised cleaning attempt have speckled my camera’s sensor with a significant layer of dust and smutz. If I have my camera on the wrong setting, a picture of a polar bear will look like an angry, burly Dalmatian. Fortunately I know how to get around my camera’s limitation. For the last 4 months I have been avoiding wide depth of field and cheating to hide my filthy sensor, however, to pull off the pictures the kids were talking about, I would have increase the depth of field making the things in the foreground and the background both be in focus.

The more everyone talked about it the worse I felt. These kids were basically following us to the ends of the earth, braving frigid nights, and traveling hundreds of miles over dirt roads so we could see one of the world’s great natural wonders. I was going to let them down when we got there and there was little I could do about it. A few times before we got to the actual salt flats, I took some test photos to see if there was any way to pull this off. There wasn’t. I tried to explain beforehand and lower their expectations. To them it was all crazy talk. How could my expensive camera not pull off shots that people with their little point and clicks could do with no problem? There was no explaining; I just had to try my best.

We arrived at the middle of the worlds largest salt flats at around 10 am and were amazed by our surroundings. For 360 degrees you could spin and see a sheet of white extending tens or hundreds of miles. Small mountains in the distance were the only thing to break up the monotony of the white and blue. This was one magical place. In fact these salt flats are about half the size of England. We took our props–a Pringles can and a stuffed penguin–and started setting up our shots. Everyone had their own ideas of what they wanted and we struggled for about 30 minutes to take the first few shots. I was angry about my camera and it showed as I yelled at the family to get into position. Kieran decided he would rather not take direction from me and started setting up shots with his little $70 point and shoot camera. Any hopes I had about his camera replacing mine were quickly dashed. Unfortunately, his camera had its own problem. The picture you could see through his eyepiece was not the picture his camera took. Part of taking optical illusion photos is lining the subjects up appropriately, which would be impossible with his camera. It was going to be my camera or nothing.

I calmed down and everyone was much better about getting into position. We tried getting shots of kids jumping out of a Pringles can, kids running from or standing next to a giant penguin and the family taking turns eating miniature versions of each other. We took turns being the one in the foreground and enjoyed setting up the shots, regardless of how they turned out. I thought back to the many double exposure shots in my dark room. Nearly all of them failed. I couldn’t tell you about any of the failures, but I can still remember the few that worked. All we needed from this day were 5 or 6 good shots. With that in mind, I went a little shutter happy. If I took enough shots perhaps a handful could at least be fixable in Photoshop. Of the 350 pictures I took in the next 45 minutes, we did get some that are acceptable. We got pictures of Dax, eating McKane, Asher and I holding the Toyota, Asher wearing McKane’s shoes and a few others, but the highlight of our funny shots has to be Kieran relieving himself on Anne’s head. I don’t blame the little guy: there weren’t any trees for miles and when a little man needs to go, he needs to go. Anyway, a mother can never be too mad at her diminutive son.

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Technorati Tags: Bolivia, Optical Illusions, Photography, Uyuni, Solar, Sossusvlei

The salt flats of Bolivia are world-renowned and nary a traveler to this part of the world can resist the urge to visit them. Assuming you don’t want to risk certain death by driving yourself through this forbidding terrain, there are two options for doing so: 1) a quick half-day trip from the southern Bolivian town of Uyuni or a 3-day tour ending in Uyuni from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. The 3-day version (the reverse of which is also popular) includes the Eduardo Averoa Nature Reserve, a pristine mountain wilderness punctuated by mineral-stained, multicolored lakes, steaming volcanoes, and mysterious rock formations and populated by flamingos, Andean fox, and herds of perhaps the world’s most adorable animal—the vicuna.

Taking this tour was perhaps the most difficult decision of the trip for us. We knew the scenery would be magnificent and the experience unforgettable…BUT the potential hazards involved were many. Here’s what my Rough Guide had to say:

Bear in mind that wind-chill temperatures can drop to anything from -25 C to -40 C and that you should bring sun block and sunglasses to counter the very real possibility of snow blindness, as well as a good sleeping bag and plenty of warm clothing.
It’s difficult to recommend any particular agency: all offer pretty much identical tours, but are prone to the same problems—late departures, dangerous (and often drunk) drivers, insufficient food prepared in unsanitary conditions, inadequate accommodation and vehicle breakdowns are all possibilities no matter which company you choose…Despite all the hassles and potential pitfalls, however, these tours are well worth the trouble.” The Rough Guide to South America, 2004 edition, p. 259

You’ve gotta love this kind of endorsement: “You’ve absolutely got to go, but we’re not responsible if you die along the way.” Fortunately in the three years since the Rough Guide was published a few more tour companies have come onto the scene. Based on recommendations from fellow travelers and dozens of reviews in the San Pedro de Atacama Tourist Information Office, we felt confident that Estrella del Sur offered safe, sober drivers and decent food. Our problem would be the cold.

Anyone close to me knows my wintertime mantra, which slips out any time I experience the slightest chill: “I hate the cold.” My distaste for low temperatures was a big factor in setting our itinerary to follow the sun and also made our packing much easier. Never encountering winter meant we didn’t need to pack bulky parkas, hats, gloves, and snowpants. It did mean, however, that we were sorely underequipped for the altiplano where we would sleep in a primitive shelter with no heat in temperatures well below freezing. We stocked up on a few woven essentials in Argentina, but I wasn’t confident they were enough to prevent us from turning into human popsicles in the Bolivian wilderness. Ever the optimist, Tom assured me our motley assemblage of clothing layers when combined with rented sleeping bags and wool blankets would keep us alive.

The only thing now preventing us from going was fear: not of freezing or dying but of bad parenting. If a meteor should strike, an earthquake hit, or aliens descend from on high, we would be the parents who had hauled young children into one of the world’s harshest environments so they could see some pretty birdies and take some cool pictures. I emailed another RTW family from Belgium who had made the trek one month earlier and they assured me that their two children—ages 8 and 10—had not only survived the excursion but loved it as well. We were sold. We booked with Estrella del Sur, bought some oxygen tanks in case anyone contracted altitude sickness (we’d be ascending to 5,200 meters or 17,000 feet), cleaned out the town’s supply of 5-gallon water bottles, and hoped for good weather.

The Estrella del Sur bus arrived at our hotel just a few minutes after 8:00 am on the first day of our tour. So much for late depatures. We picked up the 12 other travelers—all twentysomething Canadians and Europeans–who would be our companions for the next 3 days and were on our way. After about an hour we reached the most primitive and yet strangely efficient border post we’ve encountered in our 23 land border crossings. We forked over $2 each—an illegal yet common charge assessed by third world immigration officials—and in exchange got computer coded tourist cards and stamps in our passports.

While we waited for the rest of the group to be processed, we each absorbed the barren, surreal setting in our own way: Tom grabbed his camera and began snapping pictures, Dax checked out the ramshackle government buildings, McKane wandered over to inspect the carcass of an abandoned bus, Kieran and Asher trampled through a pile of snow which soaked through their sandals into their socks and soon were both yelling, “My feet are freezing!” and I jumped up and down in a futile effort to stay warm. Estrella del Sur earned big bonus points with the entire group when they set up a table boasting a hearty breakfast of ham and cheese sandwiches and a variety of warm drinks including coffee, hot chocolate (always our choice), and the local favorite coca tea (it does wonders for altitude sickness—just don’t take a drug test for two weeks).

While we shivered and ate, our 4×4 drivers, who would also be our guides and cooks for the next 3 days, loaded our gear onto the roofs of their Land Cruisers. Our driver was Simon, a round-faced, gap-toothed, 31-year-old Bolivian who spoke as much as English as we do Spanish and consistently greeted us with, “Vamos, amigos!” Simon proved to be everything the guide books warned us he would not: sober, cautious, friendly, and a master chef.

We knew that we were lucky to have Simon and even luckier to have Estrella del Sur when we pulled away from the border post. There we left a group of freezing, angry travelers whose company had abandoned them in this bleakest of venues. The bus that had been promised to take them down to San Pedro had yet to materialize and for all we know, they could still be there today…waiting.

Over the next three days we witnessed a mindboggling variety of landscapes and spent quality bonding time with a few dozen fellow travelers. Together we shivered away our first night in the shelter (where we awoke to ice inside our rooms and struggled to keep our noses from getting frostbitten), chatted away our second night in the Salt Hotel (yes, it was really made of salt blocks—the kids licked the walls to be sure), and scarfed Simon’s most excellent pancakes at Fish Island after watching the sun rise over the Salt Flats on our third day. I could write an entire book describing the many things we saw and did, but once again I’ll let Tom’s pictures do the talking. (We took over 350 in the flats alone, so he’s devoting an entire post to it.)

For those considering a similar tour, please, please, please use Estrella del Sur. Of the five Bolivian companies operating in San Pedro de Atacama, they were the only one to receive positive ratings across the board. Cordillera received mixed reviews, but one of their drivers fell asleep at the wheel while guiding a group we hung out with the first night. Another group (we don’t know which company they used) got so fed up with their driver’s drunkenness that they begged him to stop and “sleep it off.” Instead of heeding their advice, he threw their luggage off the roof and left them in the wilderness. Ouch.

Estrella del Sur has no idea I’m writng this, nor did they offer us any discounts or special treatment. They simply delivered on all their promises and through careful preparation and prudent hiring eliminated all of the problems that seem to plague other companies. The fact that they had a hot lunch waiting for us in Uyuni when we arrived was just icing on the cake!

Technorati Tags: Adventure Travel, Bolivia, Chile, Family travel, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Salar de Uyuni, Salt Flats

I’m interrupting the flow of posts again…we’ve got three in the pipeline about Bolivia and Peru…because I just have to tell you about our day. Last week we fled Bolivia because of strikes, road blockades, and dynamite/rock hucking by angry miners, teachers, students, and anyone else with access to projectiles. Our ultimate destination was Peru, our final country, where we figured things would go more smoothly. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Today we left Puno at 8:00 am for the 6-hour bus ride to Cusco. We made it about 10 minutes outside of town before we came to a screeching halt. Our bus, along with every other that had left Puno, was blocked by a combination of rocks strewn across the road, chanting protestors, and burning tires. All I could think was that this was going to be Bolivia all over again.

Tom jumped off the bus to take pictures and I followed with the videocamera. The protestors seemed friendly and unconcerned by our presence. I chatted with a nice family using my approximately 100 words of Spanish which now include the words for blockade, anger, and bad president. They told me that the blockade spanned the next 14 kilometers and had been started by Puno’s schoolteachers who wanted more money and a new president.

30 minutes later about 100 riot police arrived armed with shields, tear gas canisters, and shotguns. Slowly, boldly they began clearing the road of rocks and dispersing the protestors. The job was not an easy one. As soon as they cleared 50 feet, the protestors descended and start throwing the rocks back. When the teachers, an army of 4′10″ middle-aged women wearing baseball hats, got too aggressive, the police would give chase and toss a tear gas canister forcing them to flee for the hills. Gradually, the police succeeded in their mission and we were able to lumber at a snail’s pace along the debris-lined street.

We were approximately the 15th vehicle in the police-fronted caravan and at one juncture fell out of view of our protectors as they rounded a corner ahead. Immediately, scores of angry teachers appeared at the crest of the hill and came scurrying down the side toward the bus. Some tossed rocks toward the bus, others positioned them on the road, and still others darted out and placed them under our tires. Tom and a few other big guys on the bus jumped and began clearing our path. They quickly reboarded, however, when the protestors began yelling at them. The police returned, dispersed a few more tear gas canisters, and we resumed our crawl.

14 kilometers and two and a half hours later we had passed the blockade and were on the way to the strange city of Juliaca. The bus gained enough speed that many of we weary travelers dozed off. Our rest was shortlived, however, because the bus once again screeched to a stop. Now the blockade we faced was not mineral but human. Hundreds upon hundreds of agitated teachers were coming straight at us carrying banners, waving flags, and chanting anti-presidential slogans. The bus turned off the main road down a dusty sidestreet to wait out the protest. We all took turns watching the parade and buying snacks at the corner store. (This was the cheap bus that didn’t serve meals.)

At this particular 90-minute stop we learned that the reason the teachers are so angry is that President Alan Garcia is requiring them to take a competency exam. Many have already taken the test and of those who have, half failed the basic arithmetic section and a third couldn’t answer basic reading comprehension questions. Garcia wants to replace the low-performing teachers with better ones but the unions question his motive. He claims it is to improve Peru’s educational system, they claim it is to pick on them.

Whatever the real reason, rumor has it tomorrow the whole country will be on strike. We managed to arrive in Cusco five hours late, but we’re not sure we’ll be able to do anything. No one seems to know what’s really going to happen. Some say no busses, planes, or trains (including the obligatory ones to Machu Picchu) will run. We’ve got 9 days until we go home and are planning on camping out here as long as it takes to get up the Sacred Valley. It’s Machu Picchu or bust for us!

…….In a fitting epilogue to our Bolivian experience, we ran into many of the folks from the bus that stranded us in the middle of the night. The group that took the dodgy taxis to the blockade made it to La Paz, but only after 7 hours of slogging through roadblocks and protestors, most of them ON FOOT. They said it seemed a dangerous undertaking, and we felt vindicated in our decision to split the troubled country. We bumped into our British traveling companions, with whom we split 3 days ago in Arequipa, at dinner. They made it all the way back to La Paz and succeeded in getting their money back from Todo Tourismo. The company initially refused and even called in the Tourist Police to mediate. The Brits said as soon as the police learned the exorbinant amount the company charges customers, they came down firmly on the side of the jilted tourists. We’ll see how far I get via email and without the benefit of police by my side.

Technorati Tags: Blockades, Bolivia, Family travel, Peru, Protests, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, South American travel, Strikes

After three days of bus travel and one rejuvenative night in the fabulous city of Arequipa (we’re headed back there next week), we finally arrived yesterday at the shores of Lake Titicaca in Puno, Peru. We heard that President Morales brought in the army to break the Bolivian blockades a few days ago, so hopefully travelers are once again moving freely throughout the country. Though Bolivia is not without its charm and natural wonders, the sheer instability of its political system and the ever fragile balance between order and chaos make it a difficult place for those on any kind of a schedule to visit. Unfortunately, with only 13 days to go, we’ve joined the ranks of those under time constraints.

Now that we’ve got a moment to catch our breath, we will be publishing a flurry of posts to get you current with what we’ve seen and done over the past three weeks in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. To those of you who have expressed sadness that our travels are rapidly coming to an end, I can only say stay tuned. Our adjustment to life back home in the States will be every bit as interesting as our time on the road, if not more so. We simply cannot fathom how we will ever be able to do or see things in the same way again. Tom and I discuss trip number two, tentatively scheduled for 2014, daily and will probably start planning the day we get home.

In the meantime we’ve got two more weeks of freedom and adventure in country number 31 and are going to make the most of them. Feel free to send in a few last words of encouragement for our Peruvian hurrah. We’re going to need them as the minutes until our final flight count down.

Technorati Tags: Blockades, Bolivia, Family Travel, Lake Titicaca, Peru, Puno, Arequipa, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW

Our very expensive luxury tour bus dropped us in the mining town of Oruro at 3 am saying the road blocks were too dangerous to confront. They attempted to herd everyone onto cabs which for 100 Bolivianos each would deliver a group of 4 to the roadblock, where we were instructed to cross and then catch another “quite expensive” cab to La Paz. Many jumped in, needing to catch flights today or just not wanting to wait things out in this dreary town. I exited the bus to find Tom had already loaded our things into a station wagon. We boarded, but I was wary. Cabs in Bolivia are shady to say the least. Tom felt there was safety in numbers and was adamant about staying with the group. Our cab took off last and quickly took a detour from the group´s route. I shouted ¨no,¨swung open my door, and yelled to Tom to get the kids out. The driver stopped and we insisted in our broken Spanish that he stay in the convoy with the others. Again he took a turn away from the group, and again I flung open my door. Tom demanded he return to the bus office and thankfully he complied. The fact that his cab wreaked of pot was just another strike against him.

We joined a pair of Brits and a Frenchman who also felt taking dodgy cabs in the middle of the night to a roadblock of drunken, dynamite-wielding miners was a less than desirable alternative. One of the Brits, an Oxford law student, made a compelling argument for a refund to the Todo Tours staff since they had many times promised to get us to La Paz despite the roadblocks. The owner refused and is in for an ugly media campaign from our new friend. I can´t say Sixintheworld will recommend Todo Tours to anyone and depending on our future communications with the owner, we may advise others against using them as well. We now realize they never had any intention of taking us all the way to La Paz and only drove as far as Oruro because they were being pressured by a tour group. Instead of being up front with us, they stranded us in the middle of the night in a town not known for its safety.

We´ve holed up in their office and are refusing to leave until the nine of us board our bus to Iquique, Chile and then another onto Peru. We should be to Puno by tomorrow night if we´re lucky. Bolivia will have to wait for another trip. Right now we´re too fed up with her antics to hang around.