San Jose, Part I

Just a quick note before racking my brain to update some of earlier May.
I have arrived in Costa Rica!!
I made it to San Jose without a problem, it was actually even better than I would have expected because I found a short term travel buddy. Silvana, a girl from Santiago, was on my flight with me and she had a layover in SJ so she came and got lunch with me and helped me find a hostal. It was nice to have a fluent Spanish speaker with me to help me navigate my way to this crowded, bustling city.
After she went back the the airport I did some walking around, there are so many people everywhere but somehow everything works in the chaos. The sidewalks are too narrow for everyone to be on and the cars don't like to yield any space to pedestrians, but somehow it all works out, even with all of the street vendors selling socks and the men that stand in the doorways of the clothing stores and do karyoke as an INCENTIVE for you to come in to their store, no joke. It is a crazy busy city but it seems to have everything you could ever want. I do not expect to spend much time here in the next few months, but I think as my Spanish improves and I get more used to the system, I could handle day trips from Atenas.
Tomorrow I am heading off to the cloud forests of Monteverde to do some hiking and relaxing. I am digging this warm albeit balmy weather, a very nice change from the freezingness of Bolivia.
Cheers! Julie

Santiago

It has been so long since I wrote anything, I am dreading bringing this up to date. Internet was not as plentiful or as cheap in Bolivia and now in Chile, and for 4 days we were out of any sort of contact with the real world anyways. Here goes:

I am in Santiago, Chile right now. This is day two of Julie traveling solo, because Annie had to fly home because of a family emergency (things are looking ok now though). We were able to do the Salt Flats in Bolivia together, and then to take the 24 hour bus from San Pedro de Atacama to Santiago. It wasn´t as painful as we would have thought. Chile is nice, it is so different from the rest of South America. There is garbage pick up, you can flush toilet paper, the streets are all labeled, you can eat the fruits and vegetables, there is hot water (really)...it is like a different world, coming from Bolivia and Peru before then. Santiago is nice, it reminds me a tiny bit of Paris with some of the streets. It is not that cold, although this is the winter here. Everyone is dressed in enormous winter coats, hats, and scarves, though, it makes me wonder if there is a huge snowstorm coming that I don´t know about. The smog is really bad, sometimes you can´t see the Andes, even though Santiago is at the foothills. I heard that sometimes it is so bad that they do not let the children go out and play at lunchtime, they have to stay inside because the air is so bad. Scary.

Yesterday I went to Viña del Mar to the University of Valpariso marine bio lab to meet with one of Gilly`s (from Hopkins at Monterey) collegues. It was very cool to see the station, and to see a familiar face, although this was the first time I had met her. We had been exchanging emails, and it was great to see someone in sea of other Santiagoans. She was so cute and sweet, and tested my Spanish skills because she wanted me to practice. It is coming along, surprisingly well for never having taken a formal class. Anyways, today I have just been bumming around the city, and tomorrow I leave ridiculously early for San Jose, Costa Rica. I will have about 10 days to travel around before my program starts. I am excited for warm weather!!

La Paz and Biking to Coroico

La Paz is a great city. It was nice to be able to leave all our stuff in the hostal and just walk for hours. We headed along the main street towards the Student Plaza, although we had to go the long route because of a short lived protest that was going on. Having boycotted any and all museums after our overdose of Peruvian ones, we contentedly shopped and walked around all day. The black market is cool, it has everything you could want and is not the shady black market that comes to mind, rather it is just called El Mercado Negro. But I am sure you can find shady things there if you want.
Our hostal was right near the witches' market, which sells incense and wierd idols and, most disturbing of all, dried llama fetuses. The superstition is that you need to sacrifice and bury a llama under your new house for good luck, and if you don't have the money to do so, the fetus is good enough. We did not like walking past the witches' market.
The next day we went mountain biking, and it has got to be the most life-threatening thing I have ever done, it even tops the death hike that we did in Moorea. The ride is known as 'the world's most dangerous road', and wow, it is. It goes basically from La Cumbre to Coroico, about 60 km, and it is so scary. It is unpaved, with very loose gravel, and it is only one lane wide. The lane is bordered on one side with steep, unforgiving cliffs with waterfalls that flow onto the road and wash it out completely in the rainy season, and a 1000 meter drop off. So scary. Oh, and uphill traffic has the right of way, which not only means that it is downhill traffic that has to back up to find a bay in the road if there are two oncoming cars, but it also means that uphill traffic gets the side closer to the cliff, which means that you on your little dirt bike have to be closest to the dropoff. The road is scary enough without traffic, but then most of the curves are hairpined and blind, and it is basically only enormous trucks and buses, along with pickups and ambulances, that go on this road. And every 100 meters or so are little crosses, reminders marking where drivers did not make it. Needless to say, I was terrified of falling off the cliff and it is against every survival instinct to then be on the very edge of the road, so that you can fall of the cliff instead of being hit by a truck. Scary.
It was so beautiful though. We were in cloud forest for part of the time, and there were waterfalls and amazing trees and vultures that would sweep down close to you (probably not a good omen) and the clouds and sun were gorgeous. At the end of the ride we got beer and an all you can eat buffet and a shower, which was key because the last hour or so was so dusty that our eyebrows were covered and uniform with the dust on our faces. We have a great picture of the two of us, we look great.
But there was more scariness to be had: we had to drive on the same road back to La Paz. Yes, we had the right of way, which was nice, but it was after sunset (which was incredible) and so the black void that I didn't want to fall in was just right there, and I couldn't help but stare into it the whole time. We stopped for 20 minutes at one point because there was a pile up as 2 trucks met at a blind corner but then couldn't back up because of the line of cars.
Needless to say, we made it back with everyone we had started with. It was so cool, and the stars on the way back (it was a 4 hour drive back, so biking was all day) and then the sea of lights from La Paz was beautiful. More fun to be had!

Into Bolivia

This morning we made it to La Paz in good time, despite the road blocks and the over all hassle of getting here. There are strikes going on in Bolivia, mostly around La Paz, so many of the roads are blocked and none of the regular buses are running. We knew this last night, so we were packed and waiting for transport at 5 am in the main square of Copacabana, a little beach town just across the boarder from Peru. We got into a collectivo, which is basically bigger than a minivan with about 15 seats in it but they will cram over 20 people in, no problem. All gear gets put up on the top of the van, which means that someone needs to climb up and unload each time we had to change collectivos. It was pretty interesting. We took our first one to Tiquina, where we had to take the tiniest motor boat across the lake to another town and all of this was before dawn. We boarded another collectivo which took us as far as the road block--we then had to walk through it and board another collectivo on the other side, which thankfully took us all the way to La Paz. We had had a pretty full day by the time we arrived at our hostal at 9:30, but that did not stop us from spending the whole day walking around and shopping--this place is so cheap!!

Our time in Copacabana was short but sweet. We had no problems crossing over into Bolivia from Peru, and the town is a cute little beach town with the aspirations of being a resort town. We went to the Isla del Sol one day and got to see some of the Inca ruins and hike from the northern end to the southern end. They are discovering ruins underwater around the island which is pretty cool. The lake is so blue and with the high islands it really reminded me of the Mediterranean.

Tomorrow we are going to go mountain biking in the greater La Paz area, we are really excited!! I have to update this better, because I still have to write about our hike through the Salkantay valley and into Machu Picchu, it was incredible. Soon!

Sacred Valley

Today Annie and I walked through the Sacred Valley just outside of Cuzco. There are four sets of Incan ruins nearby, and we took a bus to the furthest one, Tambomachay, and then walked the 8km back to town. It was a beautiful day, with clouds over all the hills and valleys, and we had a clear view of one of the highest snow-covered peaks, it´s more than 6000 meters. Tambomachay has an irrigation system with channels that still has water pouring out of it. The next was Pukapukara, and then down the road to Q´enqo, which was amazing. It is an enormous rock formation that the Incans carved out into a series of caves and alleyways and staircases, and they also made channels running over the top so that, again, the blood would pour down in various paths after the sacrifices. It´s so cool too because from afar it just looks like an enormous rock--the caves and tunnels are hidden unless you are right next to them.
All of the Incan walls are so amazing--the rocks are huge octoganal shapes that all fit into each other perfectly--so tightly that even today not enough dirt has collected between them to support plant life. The most impressive of all of the ruins was Saqsaywaman (pronounced the way it looks: ´Sexy Woman´). This is on the hill overlooking Cuzco and used to have three towers and was more powerful than Machu Picchu during the time of the Incas. Although when the Spanish came they destroyed most of it and took the stones down to Cuzco to make their churches, the ruins are incredible. The stones are enormous, the highest one is 9 meters above ground but extends 2 meters below ground. The heaviest one is estimated to be over 120 tons, and they moved all of these from the mountains using logs as rollers and ramps to stack them on top of each other, to make them up to 20 meters high. The Incas did everything with 3 levels in mind, symbolizing the afterlife, life, and the spiritual life. They made a lot of designs with zig zags because the thunderbolt connected the earth with the heavens. The three tiers also represented the serpent (intelligence), the puma (strength) and the condor (spirituality), and llamas can also be found in some of the stone work. We had a guide around Saqsaywaman, and he led us through these tunnels that the Incans also made, where women would give birth with the symbolism of coming out into the light with new life.
Annie and I slid down these huge slides made of stone--they were carved by lava flowing in the same way that glaciers usually carve rocks, and then they have been smoothed over the centuries of people sliding down. The myth is couples would slide down the rock to see if they were meant to be together. It was meant to be if magically they had a baby 9 months later...I don´t think Annie and I are meant for each other.
Tomorrow we will visit more ruins, and then we are off on our 5 day trek through the Salkantay valley to Machu Picchu--it is going to be amazing. There are hot springs along the way to break up all of the hiking-I´m excited!!

Colca Canyon

We just got back from a two day adventure in the Colca Canyon, which is right outside of Arequipa. We stayed in the town of Chivay, which is in a valley surrounded by incredible green peaks and rivers. The drive there was so beautiful, we could see five or so of the snow-covered volcanoes and all the green mountains studded with villages, and vicuñas!! These are like llamas but wild, and they are so cute! We also saw a llama that had only been born a few hours before, and it walked very awkwardly, like it was an insect with long legs that it had to unfold. So cute!! The people of the valley have formed terraces in the mountain so that the water coming down from the melting snow will channel itself across and water all of their crops, so all of the hills and mountains have these stone walls and terraces across them, it is so incredible. To think of how much work went into doing all of this...wow.
Our tour group was so great, both the things we did and all of the people who we met. Our tour guide, Gladys, was the sweetest woman who spoke Spanish very slowly and then also translated into English using hand motions to help get the point across. She reminded me a lot of our relative in Slovenija, Paula.
The people on the tour were fantastic too--we met Daniel from Lima, Anders from the Basque region of Spain, Mauricio from Mexico city, Alex from Sydney, Lucy and Lindsey from London, and Yoshi from Japan. We all had a great time together, on the bus and around all the sites, and hopefully we´ll be able to see them all again, somewhere in the world!
It was a Sunday, but it was also a religous holiday for the Quechua people and we went to one of their parties, one which had been going on for quite awhile. Men and women, old and young, were falling down drunk. Really. There were huge pots of chicken and rice soup, which everyone ate with their hands, and the band was playing brass instuments, which we did not expect (we have seen a lot of woodwind instruments, drums and guitars). Everyone was in their full Quechua dress of bright colors and skirts and hats, and everyone wanted us to dance with them. One older woman fell in love with Anders and formed a human blockade so that we couldn´t leave unless he came back to stay with her, and she was strong!!
We hiked up to see some of the terraces, and we were surprised at how many different species of cactus there were all over the place. There is so much agriculture in the soil that naturally provides for cactus? After the sunset we went to the hot springs and bathed in the outdoor pools under the stars--the night was clear and it was so beautiful, but then freezing when we had to get out!!
At five the next morning we hopped in the bus and went to this spot in the canyon where we hoped to see wild condors. Gladys told us that she usually only sees about 5 on a good day--we saw over 20!! The filled the sky above us, the canyon below, and also perched on rocks nearby. Their wingspan is 3 meters across--they are huge!! They never flap their wings, they just glide in the wind tearing through the canyon, and they can defy gravity so easily, using their tails as rudders. It was so incredible. The juveniles are a brownish color, while the adults have white backs and besides a collar of white around their necks, they are all black. It was so amazing to see so many of them, and so close!!
Now we are in Cuzco, aclimatizing. We are at 3300 meters, and so far we haven´t had any problems with the altitude. We have been hanging out all day with Anders, and hopefully we will meet Mauricio when he gets back from Machu Picchu, if we have not left on our hike yet. We are going to be staying with Tammy, a girl who I went to elementary school with and played AYSO soccer with--we ran into her on the street here in Cuzco!! She is teaching English here for a few months before she goes to grad school in EE at UCSB, where Annie is also going in the fall. Small world, no??