la paz. amazon basin. bolivia.

la paz sucks. lets just get that out of the way from the start. im sorry if you have any ties to it or anything but it is true. the place sucks. the bus lets us off in the middle of the tourist heavy area. we´re not of the bus for more than 5 minutes (mind you we just read before getting off the bus a list of potential scams in la paz, one being where a dude spits on you and then points it out to you to try and distract you so his buddy can take your pockets) and were walking around trying to get our bearing to head in the right direction of a hostel that looks good in one of our guide books and we get stuck in a crowd. some dude starts grabing the waist strap of my bad and mumbling something, hes mumbling so hard that i cant understand or see what he is trying to point out to me. luckily natalie was walking behind me and saw this happening, she saw that the man was pointing to spit and just yelled something to me, we dont really remember but it was something along the lines of watch out, he spit on you. as she yells i turn to my other side and see a guy a few feet away walking away with my passport in his hands. we both yell and run and grab him. luckily with no trouble he just gave me the passport right away and we dipped out of there as quick as possible. now looking back on it im not very happy with myself for not decking him right in the face but it is probably a good thing i didnt. natalie is certainly happy i didnt. but yea so a close call but it worked out and we learned a pretty painful lesson pretty painlessly. the rest of time in la paz it was honestly hard to even relax. most of the food we ate sucked, the city is dirty, there wasnt much to do, and getting our brasilian visas was a pain in the ass. to be fair most of this hate is really just towards the two dudes who tried to rob me.

but as far as good things go, we had some good trips getting away from there. we spent a day and two nights in coroico, a small town in the yungas jungle, very relaxing and did some good hiking. then we also flew to rurrenabaque and spent 3 days 3 nights in the amazon in the madidi national park at an eco lodge called chalalan. it was nice because it is completely run by a jungle community as a way to make money so they can protect what has been there land since someone decided to live there. we got to see a good amount of wildlife, lots of birds, the largest rodent on the planet (dont remember the name), caimans, poisonous frogs, tarantulas, boa snakes, some other crazy insects and toads, and a bunch of monkeys.

after that we hated back to the worst city on the planet, picked up our visas for brasil, another fun 130$ visa, and got on the next plane to brasil.

copacabana. bolivia.

soooo bolivia doesnt like the united states of america. well the country that is, im not so sure most of the people really care that much. but yea on the bus into bolivia, it stops at the border, you get out of the bus and it crosses, while you have to get your exit stamps in peru then walk across and get your visa for bolivia on their side, a sweet 135$, real fun stuff. but anyways at the border you could sense mostly friendly vibes but there was def one dude that wasnt very happy. at one point he asked for a different 20$ because he thought it was fake, luckily we had 1 extra one. but yea our bus driver helped us out through the whole thing, not sure if we needed it or not but it was def a lil comforting as he basically promised us he would get us through.

copacabana is a small town on the south coast of lago titicaca which is another pretty magnificent place. its hard to realize at times your looking at a lake and not the ocean. again the altitude here was killer as your chillin around 3900 meters. one of the days here we got a boat out to the isla del sol, the largest island of the some 70 in the lake, hiked around it for the day seeing some ruins and the whole island and then spent one night on it. the next morning headed back to copacabana but not after begging for our two tickets to get on the boat back. theres no atms or anything in copacabana or on the island so when we were told that the tickets back only cost 10 bolis, we only saved 27, but the tickets turned out to be 20 each. but whatever the guy took my 27 and got us on. we spent another night in copacabana at our amazing german friend martin´s hostel and then got a bus to la paz. all of the germans we´ve meet are awesome so far on this trip. good job germany.

machu pichu

this place is amazing. honestly cant really put it into words and i wish i was able to throw some pictures up on here but as i didnt bring the cord for my computer i cant. we came into aquas calientes around noon and decided to just spend the rest of that day in the town checkin things out. stayed at a great eco lodge. the next morning we got up at about 4 am to start hiking up by 430am. we hiked up in the dark and got up to the entrance to watch the sunrise. the ruins are really something you have to see in person. its really hard to believe and its impressive how much is still there. pretty excited to read more about it and its history. of course we didnt spend the money on a guide or anything but did hitch on the side of a few tours once and awhile to pick up some good info. we spent a few hours there and then headed down to catch the train out. we cut the train to ollantaytambo, then jumped in a collectivo back to cuzco. then we opted to save some hostel money and take an overnight bus from cuzco to puno and then on to copacabana, bolivia.

cuzco

so after lima we flew over to cuzco. the altitude immediately hit us right in the face. every 20 steps we would stop and look at eachother wondering if it was for real. cuzco was a real nice city that we stayed in for two nights as a jumping off point to head into the scared valley of the incas and machu pichu. since its been a lil while since i updated this i dont really have too much to say other than it was beautiful and nice to just relax and roam around.

lima y cerro azul

landed in lima around 10am and before leaving the airport bought our tickets for cuzco. then due to talking to some fellow backpackers about going to brazil, realized that we need to secure a visa before entering brazil and unlike other countries we aren´t just allowed to grab one at the border, so we headed straight for the brazilian embassy. we talked to a great dude there who told us the whole deal and that it would take a max of 5 days there, which we didn´t have, but also mentioned to us that if we were going through bolivia on the way to brazil, we could do it there and they would be able to process it quicker than they could in lima. so as soon as he said that we smiled and relaxed a bit and figured we will go for that option. hopefully it works. then we stopped by a south american explorers clubhouse which is a pretty helpful place to get info on everything about the surrounding area and well, all of south america. after that we decided we wanted to get out of busy lima and were going to head down the coast to a small surf town. we went and caught a cab to the bus station and headed to cañete which is south of lima. when we got there we caught a cab to cerro azul. which turned out to be a pretty empty surf town as it wasn´t really the right season for it. but it was cool nonetheless, we had a room right on the beach and were able to look out over some pretty big waves and a still good amount of surfers. at dinner that night we randomly crashed a baby shower that was going on in the restuarant we ate at which was filled with foreigners who all work in the area. it was pretty amusing. the next day we walked around the beach for a bit, saw some dolphins playing in the waves next to surfers, walked out on a long pier and then went back to grab our things and head to the side of the road. we caught a little moto taxi which took us out to the entrance of cerro azul where the main highway is. from there we stood on the side of the road and just waved a buses with lima on their placards. this is very common in peru and really most of south america. after about 15 minutes a bus stopped and we hopped on and for only 8 soles each we were dropped off in lima, we definitely got some weird looks getting on it as it was a pretty local bus but everyone we talked to was great and one guy was very helpful and told us exactly where to get off once we got into lima. we got off and headed to the hostel which was this awesome house with some extra rooms in the neighborhood of barranco in lima. a very bohemian and chill area of lima, it was great. as we had to catch an early flight again, we just walked around a bit, grabbed dinner and went to bed. the next morning we work up at just before 4am to catch the plane to cuzco. i will update more a little later, natalie is pretty sick and laying in bed right now so im gonna head back to our spot. we´re currently in copacabana bolivia but yea more updates to follow from lima to how we´re here. peace.

bogota

sorry for the delay on starting this. landed in bogota around 9pm or so and hopped a cab to our hostel. it was a pretty immediate shock in a small cab flying through small streets with huge potholes and trucks a few inches a way. got the hostel and it was real nice with hammocks everywhere and a pretty cool kitchen and chill area. we spent the next whole day walking around bogota and seeing what the city was like. also jumped on a cable car which took us up to monserrat and a view over the entire valley that bogota sits in betweens ridges of the andes. not much else to say about it. a very busy city, pretty dirty but still a cool spot to see. woke up the next morning at 4am and headed to the airport to fly to lima.

south america

natalie and i are heading to south america, first stop is bogota columbia, unfortunately we need to get to the airport to catch are flight but we should be updating this as we go so check back whenever. later.