Nov 26

travel highlights

Or lowlights, depending on your perspective. Let´s just call it an adventure.

1. We left Pucallpa at 9 last night, arrived in Lima and slept 4 hours before returning to the airport at 5 am the next morning.

2. We took a taxi from Juliaca, on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, to Desaguadero, the nearest town on the Peru-Bolivia border.

3. Desaguadero! What an adventure! I´ve rarely seen anything that seemed so authentic. No tourists in sight and lots of tricked out bicycle rickshaws. We made it out of Peru fine, but...

4. Bolivia. Turns out you have to pay your Bolivian visas ($135) in cash, but the nearest place to get cash is 2 hrs away. Somehow we forgot to stock up and only had enough for 2 people. That didn´t leave us with many good options. PLUS the immigrations experience entering Bolivia was the sketchiest I´ve seen yet. I´m pretty sure they were trying to get a bribe from us. I resisted. They basically claimed that all of our US bills were false.

5. We decided to drive to La Paz (2 hrs), get cash, and come back for Tim (then go back to La Paz again' 6 hrs). By God´s grace, we had a strange and wonderful turn of events when we got in the taxi. The taxi driver agreed to loan us strangers $100 (1 month´s salary) until we got to La Paz. With that cash, Tim was able to buy his visa.

6. We made it! We´re in a super hotel with lots of character, drinking our mate de coca for the altitude sickness, and resting up for the next 2 days of sightseeing. Yay!

In case you´re wondering how many forms of transportation it takes to get from Pucallpa to La Paz...