Travel E-mails
An archive of e-mails from my Centeral/South America trip.5/10/2006
PART...Y? because you can't get away from it!
So, Welcome to another e-mail par le Zac. Please remember to fasten your seatbelts during take off and return your seats to the upright position. Refreshments will be served at 0700 hours. Enjoy the flight!
Well then, I last left off in Cuzco... or was it Puno? Well, I had just finished the Inca Trail. The night before that last e-mail I had quite a Peruvian experience. I had arrived mid day in Puno, on Lake Titicaca -- after settling in I headed downtown and met a random peruvian in the street who invited me out for a drink.. We went into a bar and ordered some kind of warm grog and met up with some of his friends. From there the group of us made our way through alleys and streets to a random unmarked bar, where we bought liters of rum and bottles of coke for $7 and jammed... Guitar, singing, percussion on the table.. All the drinks were mixed in a pitcher, and we had one glass between us -- once you finished it, you passed it on. We were up till the wee hours of the morning just chatting, singing, drinking, and mingling with other people in the bar... Quite an experience and I consider it to be one of the most memorable of the trip thus far.. (Editor's note -- it turns out that the last e-mail must have been from Puno, where the aforementioned story took place)
I stayed in Puno for a few days, as it was the Virgine de Candelaria festival and I was told that Sunday was to be quite a festival. As it turns out, that very sunday happened to entail a solid 10 hours of parades throughout the center of town. The heartbeat of massive base drums accompanied by dozens of banboo flutes, the traditional ponchos and numerous costumes, the age old dances... all in all it was a great day... Little did I know that these festivities would unrelentlessly follow me. After Puno I headed to Copacabana -- in Bolivia, southern lake Titicaca. It just so happens that in Copacabana there are also massive celebrations of the Virgine de Candelaria, which started really going the monday that I arrived. Parades throughout town, but this time the outfits differed -- men in buisness suits, or in puffy armed costumes with strange devil-man masks... Trumpets played to the drums as opposed to so many flutes (though the songs were largely the same). The dances, though similar, also differed. The biggest difference though was the drinking. In Puno no one was really drinking much, but in Copacabana every block had at least 4 beer-booths -- old ladies selling liters of beer and locals chatting it up while consuming them. I managed to pull myself away from the festivities for a day and see the Island of the Sun and Island of the Moon -- Ancient ruins on Lake Titicaca.
After a bit of Fiesta in Copacabana I headed to La Paz -- the highest capital city in the world (3600 M... I havn't been below 2000 M in weeks!). While in La Paz, and knowing Carnival was up and coming, I checked around to see where 'the place to be' was (other than Rio). As it turns out Bolivia has quite a massive fiestival as well; in Oruro (Damned hard to pronounce properly). I found a bed online-- sharing a room with an israeli and a brit -- at $15 USD per night... damned expensive when you're used to paying about $2.50, but that's Carnival... Friday, Saterday and Sunday were spent there, and I must say it was one hell of a time. Saterday consisted of 20 hours of parades! Sunday of about 18 hrs. The parades went through nearly the whole town, with baseball-field style benches on either side of the streets, vendors selling just about everything you might need (including "Alcohol Potable"... 96%). Regardless of the fact that there wasn't much rain until Sunday night, the constant barage of spray-can foam, water ballons, water guns, and buckets of water was enough to keep you wet all day. Rain-Ponchos were an absolute necessity, especially sitting in the bleachers, as there were often 'wars' between the two sides of the street. Amoung all of this was, once again, lots of those good'ol festive songs that I now nearly know by heart, lots of colorful and traditional costumes, lots of drinking, and lots of dancing. Dancing at 4:00 AM in the streets, beer in hand, chatting with locals who have suddenly become best friends, constantly asking "where are you from?" and "do you like Bolivia?" -- sometimes the same two questions at least 10 times from the same person... But such is the joy of being a drunk in the company of drunks!
After a few long days of fried chicken and beer, dancing and water fights, I came back to La Paz, and it is from here that I write you. Today and tomorrow are the big festivities here, so it seems that ever since leaving Cuzco I have been in the middle of a Fiesta. After tomorrow I head to northern Bolivia, into the Amazon Basin for a 4 day tour. After that it's making haste to Lima and back to Panama.
Quite a detour South America has been.. There is so much to do, so many places to see... I wish I could stay longer... But in the end, this trip was intended as a Centeral America adventure, and South America is just a detour.
Well, I apoligise if any of this e-mail seems disjointed -- I have been holding multiple conversations online while writting it, and so my stream of though is not as uninterupted as usual, though I am sure that no one noticed :p
Well, that concludes this e-mail. Likley the next will be coming to you from Lima or Panama. Until then!
Zacharias.
Well then, I last left off in Cuzco... or was it Puno? Well, I had just finished the Inca Trail. The night before that last e-mail I had quite a Peruvian experience. I had arrived mid day in Puno, on Lake Titicaca -- after settling in I headed downtown and met a random peruvian in the street who invited me out for a drink.. We went into a bar and ordered some kind of warm grog and met up with some of his friends. From there the group of us made our way through alleys and streets to a random unmarked bar, where we bought liters of rum and bottles of coke for $7 and jammed... Guitar, singing, percussion on the table.. All the drinks were mixed in a pitcher, and we had one glass between us -- once you finished it, you passed it on. We were up till the wee hours of the morning just chatting, singing, drinking, and mingling with other people in the bar... Quite an experience and I consider it to be one of the most memorable of the trip thus far.. (Editor's note -- it turns out that the last e-mail must have been from Puno, where the aforementioned story took place)
I stayed in Puno for a few days, as it was the Virgine de Candelaria festival and I was told that Sunday was to be quite a festival. As it turns out, that very sunday happened to entail a solid 10 hours of parades throughout the center of town. The heartbeat of massive base drums accompanied by dozens of banboo flutes, the traditional ponchos and numerous costumes, the age old dances... all in all it was a great day... Little did I know that these festivities would unrelentlessly follow me. After Puno I headed to Copacabana -- in Bolivia, southern lake Titicaca. It just so happens that in Copacabana there are also massive celebrations of the Virgine de Candelaria, which started really going the monday that I arrived. Parades throughout town, but this time the outfits differed -- men in buisness suits, or in puffy armed costumes with strange devil-man masks... Trumpets played to the drums as opposed to so many flutes (though the songs were largely the same). The dances, though similar, also differed. The biggest difference though was the drinking. In Puno no one was really drinking much, but in Copacabana every block had at least 4 beer-booths -- old ladies selling liters of beer and locals chatting it up while consuming them. I managed to pull myself away from the festivities for a day and see the Island of the Sun and Island of the Moon -- Ancient ruins on Lake Titicaca.
After a bit of Fiesta in Copacabana I headed to La Paz -- the highest capital city in the world (3600 M... I havn't been below 2000 M in weeks!). While in La Paz, and knowing Carnival was up and coming, I checked around to see where 'the place to be' was (other than Rio). As it turns out Bolivia has quite a massive fiestival as well; in Oruro (Damned hard to pronounce properly). I found a bed online-- sharing a room with an israeli and a brit -- at $15 USD per night... damned expensive when you're used to paying about $2.50, but that's Carnival... Friday, Saterday and Sunday were spent there, and I must say it was one hell of a time. Saterday consisted of 20 hours of parades! Sunday of about 18 hrs. The parades went through nearly the whole town, with baseball-field style benches on either side of the streets, vendors selling just about everything you might need (including "Alcohol Potable"... 96%). Regardless of the fact that there wasn't much rain until Sunday night, the constant barage of spray-can foam, water ballons, water guns, and buckets of water was enough to keep you wet all day. Rain-Ponchos were an absolute necessity, especially sitting in the bleachers, as there were often 'wars' between the two sides of the street. Amoung all of this was, once again, lots of those good'ol festive songs that I now nearly know by heart, lots of colorful and traditional costumes, lots of drinking, and lots of dancing. Dancing at 4:00 AM in the streets, beer in hand, chatting with locals who have suddenly become best friends, constantly asking "where are you from?" and "do you like Bolivia?" -- sometimes the same two questions at least 10 times from the same person... But such is the joy of being a drunk in the company of drunks!
After a few long days of fried chicken and beer, dancing and water fights, I came back to La Paz, and it is from here that I write you. Today and tomorrow are the big festivities here, so it seems that ever since leaving Cuzco I have been in the middle of a Fiesta. After tomorrow I head to northern Bolivia, into the Amazon Basin for a 4 day tour. After that it's making haste to Lima and back to Panama.
Quite a detour South America has been.. There is so much to do, so many places to see... I wish I could stay longer... But in the end, this trip was intended as a Centeral America adventure, and South America is just a detour.
Well, I apoligise if any of this e-mail seems disjointed -- I have been holding multiple conversations online while writting it, and so my stream of though is not as uninterupted as usual, though I am sure that no one noticed :p
Well, that concludes this e-mail. Likley the next will be coming to you from Lima or Panama. Until then!
Zacharias.
# 12:59 PM 
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