20 Oct, 2007
Finally I find the time and passion to drop some lines about what we did the last two weeks. From La Paz we started a 3 day trip to the saltsee near Uyuni and after that further on through the desert. The drive on the salt see was ok but in the desert it was an all time shaking trip but the desert is so beautiful. After that I became ill and lost nearly nearly two kilos, so we had to rest for another two days in La Paz. We moved further on to the Copacabana on lake Titicaca, not the one in Brasil. It was really beautiful but with watertemperatures around 8 to 12 degree way to cold to swim. From there we crossed the border to Peru to stay in a dirty and ugly city named Puno. The only thing they have are the floating islands made of cane and it was really touristic, so we didn’t like it. So we decided to leave the city a quick as possible and went to Cuzco, which was the former capital of the Inca Empire. The city is really lovely and one can see that a lot of tourists come here to visit Machu Picchu. From Cuzco you have to take the train to Aqua Calientes to visit Machu Picchu which costs 174 US Dollars for round trip, and we decided to sleep in Aqua Calientes to get up early to Machu Picchu. The day we arrived at Aqua Calientes I was climbing up the mountain which is directly on the opposite of Machu Picchu, it was really hard and sometimes scary but the view pays it of. On the next day we were going up by bus and watched Machu Picchu, really interesting. The next stops will be Arequipa, Nazca, Pisco and we will try to be in Lima at the end of the month.
7 Oct, 2007
Yeah we started, with a stop for 12 hours in Miami, we catched the opportunity to take a swim and get some food. But first I get an extra security check….when you enter the US you have to give your finger prints and a photo and if it gets bad the border control push a secret button and a red light turned on over you. That means an officer take you to a waiting room with 50 other people and every ten minutes, ten more come in. Susanne doesn’t get checked, but I had a visa in my passport from the Russian Federation….bad for me. If you think the cold war is over, forget it.
They let me wait for 2 hours isolated from Susanne, they didn’t tell me nor Susanne anything even if you ask, you get the answer: I am sorry Sir but thank you for your cooperation. The best was not to ask and wait. Then they asked me questions about everything, like that: have you been outside europe the last five years? you have been to Israel? have you been to an arab country as well? What’s your profession? exactly please. What do you want to do in Southamerica….stuff like that.
After that we went to Miami Beach, take a swim and some food and get back to the airport. Finally we arrived in La Paz at 6am (the time difference is plus 5 hours to Germany) but the view the way down from the airport to La Paz City compensated the exertations from the travel.
First thing you do when you arrive is…..make it slowly. La Paz is located 3600 metres above sea level so small efforts are heroic ones. When you chew some coca leaves or drink a coca mate tea, it helps to overcome the sickness. We met a nice guy named Simon from switzerland at the airport and shared taxi and go out at night, you can see him at the beer drinking photo. However it is really nice here and I start to love it, we’ll see how long that lasts. Tomorrow we go on a small mountain trip and after that we will go to the salt sea in Bolivia.
Greets to you all from Bolivia.
