Jul 2009

Corrientes, miles traveled……448.
Followed by San Ignacio Missions, miles traveled……326.
From Salta, we took the 4 hour bus trek to Corrieintes, the Hotel Gran Turismo. This was just an overnight stay before heading to the missions. We stayed in a historic hotel on the Parana River front. Our room’s vintage décor reminded me of being at my Grandma’s house back in the day. The comforters on our beds, the curtains, floors, and light fixtures all took me back (Regina said the same!). We walked along the boardwalk at night, where locals were out selling their goods. The restaurants had restricted hours and were closed until 8:30 due to the H1N1 virus. We wasted time walking and chatting until we could get a bite at the restaurant in our hotel.
Regina commented that she was waiting for Grace Kelly to show up while we ate. The historic restaurant was such that it felt like we had stepped back in time to the 1930s. It had high wooden cathedral ceilings. The wood was dark and polished with age. The men who came to eat were dressed in suits and the women attired in dresses or formal pant suits and sweaters with their hair in stylish up- dos. During dinner, several young women celebrating their 15 years came to have their pictures taken and be videotaped greeting their family and friends at different spots within the hotel. You can imagine in our traveling clothes we did not make the most stylish impression on our hosts.
That night we slept beautifully. We woke up, showered, and bid farewell to the stylish Grand Turismo. We caught an afternoon bus to make the next leg of our journey to San Ignacio Mission. The bus was nothing fancy, but we steadily made our way stopping briefly in several small towns. All the while it was growing slightly warmer and the vegetation increased in density.


We finally, arrived at san Ignacio as dusk was falling. We walked the half a mile to where our “reservation” was. When we arrived they said… “we don’t hold reservations past the afternoon.” So we wandered off to find another hostel. The receptionist gave us another suggestion for way we might find a room and we headed that way. When we found the second hostel, which had plenty of room and appeared more tranquil than our initial choice, we settled in.


We spent the next day and half visiting town and touring the missions. The first night I bought the “Mission” dvd because we thought it would be interesting to watch while visiting the missions. Sadly, the dvd did not work. I exchanged it for another which also did not work. Finally, we tried to rent it from itunes which also did not work. So, apparently, watching the dvd at San Ignacio mission was not meant to be!!



The mission ruins were beautiful, but it was more amazing the “utopian vision” that was realized there. By all accounts they were incredible examples of Jesuit evangelization that respected indigenous culture and protected the indigenous from many of the harmful effects of initial colonial contact…for a time. The power of the missions was seen as a threat to royal power and their economic and social egalitarianism was too far ahead of its time, and they were destroyed amid international power struggles. Later the next day we boarded our bus, which would take us to Iguazu Falls.

Salta, Argentina. Miles traveled……597.
We left the road behind, and flew from La Paz to Salta, Argentina with a layover in Santa Cruz. It was a luxury to fly in lieu of bouncing along the winding highways. Arriving into Salta, the land reminded us much of the mid-west, farms, flat land and large trees. We arrived in Salta and found our way to the Hotel Condor Pass, our home for the next few days.


We loved Salta. It was quite bigger than we thought it would be. It had a large central square, surrounded by cafes and restaurants. It also had many pedestrian streets, a personal favorite of mine, because there were lots of people walking around, shops, and street vendors on practically every corner selling cotton candy, hot nuts, and popcorn! It was a sweet smelling town! As many of you may know, Argentina is also known for its wine and meat. We ate the traditional parrillada, which is basically a dish that is shared made up of chicken, pork, beef, and sausage…..including all the favs, kidneys, intestines, and heart. Mike also tried the drink the local, Fernet (which is essentially Vermouth and Coke). Let's just say, he had a difficult time with it!

High lights in Salta include a live music and gaucho dance show and a gondola trip. Our first night out, we went to local restaurant, Casa de Guimes, where we enjoyed some traditional music and dance. While we tried our first local Argentine wines, Mike joined in the dance show. He was swooped up by the dancer on stage, who then gave him a poncho to wear, and led him around stomping his feet and waving his arms. Mike had a blast and Regina and I had a blast watching him! He represented the U.S. well.


The next day, we took a lovely gondola trip up the side of the prominent hill overlooking the city. Once on top, there was a beautiful park with man-made waterfalls, flowers, and walkways. It was a really peaceful place, that is, until Insecto tried to take down a Gondola of fellow tourists!


Salta has been one of our favorite places to date.

La Paz, Bolivia. Miles traveled……..133.
From Puno, we took the early bus to La Paz. The trip took us 9 hours, which included a border crossing and a boat trip across Lake Titicaca. At Copacabana, we delivered the message from our waiter in Puno and had lunch by the lake. Surprisingly the Bolivian side is more developed for tourism than the Peruvian side.

Since there is no bridge over the lake, there was one group of boats ferrying the busses, trucks, and cars over and another group ferrying the people over. The ferries for vehicles and people were both powered by a lone outboard motor, and many of the vehicle ferries had a young man or two bailing water. The human cargo on the other hand was loaded into a more sturdy looking boat, but we were packed in, probably 25-30 of us per boat. The young indigenous kids that were forced to sit near Mike were a little afraid of him, so they promptly moved closer to their mothers!! They wore their traditional dress of bowler hats and bright colored dresses. Once on the other side, we waited for our bus to catch up with us on the other side and boarded once again toward the capitol city.


We spent just 3 days there and really used our stay as a resting point of sorts. We stayed in a “nice” hotel and rested from all the travelling. It’s surprising how sitting on our rumps for hours on end can really tire one out! We have covered much ground in little time. So, in La Paz, we stuck close to the city to avoid any more traveling for a spell. Instead, we visited a couple museums, enjoyed wifi connection, watched a movie, “Che, Part Two”, and took in the magnificent view of the moon rising over the mountains of the city from a high-rise restaurant. We sipped on our new favorite drink, Chuflay and ate ice cream. So, we basically lived some high life, while in Bolivia.

We enjoyed good and cheap food. We ate for like $2 each, which was good for the budget. We also bought Mike a third pair of pants off the street, because two pair was just not cutting it. Our impressions of Bolivia are limited on what we could see from the highway and walking around La Paz. We wished we had more time and energy to experience more of the history and culture, however, our itinerary pushed us on to Argentina.

Distance traveled 241 miles

Our bus from Cusco to Puno took us to several interesting points along the road. The first was the Sistine Chapel of the Andes in Andeyhuallilas. It is an interesting mixture of Colonial/Baroque and Andean culture. It was completed by local artists and has extensive use of mirrors that were an important tool of evangelization at the time. We also stopped in another Inca ruin with one of the largest temples that was believed to be built in honor of the creator god of the Incas. The town still shows the city wall and the interior wall of the temple, some 15 meters high. The storage bins for the crops and the Inca highway used by royal messengers are also still visible.


We finally rolled into Puno as dusk fell. Puno is tucked into a bay on Lake Titicaca which hid much of the lake’s beauty. At this time of year, Puno is quite cold in the evenings but rather nice for a few hours in the afternoon. We paid a few extra bucks for a space heater for our room : ). We found a cozy little restaurant with a nice fire inside for Sara to warm up by and began to get settled. We returned several times and made friends with the waiter who had a brother along the route we were going to travel. We took a little note to deliver for him!! He was very grateful upon receiving the note as he said he had not seen him in a year!

Puno’s main square is rather imposing and the city has sprawled up the hillsides around the bay in every direction. Our colds had moderated, but some extra Kleenex was still a key purchase along with cough drops on our first day. Keeping warm was a constant goal.



While in Puno, Sara and I visited the floating Islands of the Uros. These islands are fascinating places where the indigenous people have cut blocks of reed roots to make “artificial Islands,” The have lived this way for some time between five and seven hundred years depending on who you ask. They survive through tourism, hunting, and fishing. They were super -friendly and hospitable. I helped them work on one of their reed boats for a little while. This trip gave us a chance to see a little more of the lake and was definitely the highlight of our trip to Puno.




On our last night we took Regina out to a local bar. Not too much rowdiness followed because we had to get up early for our bus to La Paz. We had a few glasses of warm wine and pisco sours and took in the local drinking scene a little.

The next morning we packed up early and headed to the bus station to travel toward Bolivia.
P.S. Sorry for the sideways photos!!!

Finally, we arrived in Cuzco. The heart of the Inca Empire and the “umbilical cord of the world.” After the trauma of our bus ride we found some breakfast, and then we happily began to settle in at our hostel. Sara and Regina took a siesta while I went exploring. The streets are almost entirely cobblestone with the center of town being mostly colonial age buildings with balconies. I found my way to the main plaza. Its main plaza is beautiful. One side was almost entirely filled by the Cathedral which had been rebuilt several times due to earthquakes. There was also a McDonalds with Wi-Fi along with several other colonial buildings populating the plaza. I wandered to a few other minor plazas and had a cup of café con leche, before deciding to check on Sara.
My return turned out to be a little more circuitous than planned since I had done quite a bit of twisting and turning in my exploration. When I returned the ladies asked me if I thought the room smelled funny. My sense of smell not being the greatest, I didn’t notice much…yet. We ate dinner in one of the minor plazas near an wood-fired oven, which Sara loved because she was still freezing from the night before. When we arrived back at the hotel the room definitely smelled BAD! The doors being closed for several hours had concentrated the musty smell beyond the point of minor annoyance.

The next day we did the city tour visiting five surrounding Inca sites.

Quiracancha…the temple of the Sun being one of the most impressive. It is right in the middle of the city and the Spanish conquerors demolished much of it to build a monastery, but they surprising left some of it intact.

Saqsawaman comprises another large ruin complex just on the hills outside the city. Two large hills were almost entirely covered by original and reconstructed walls. Sara and I climbed almost to the top of one before we went on to meet up with our tour. We also visited a hill/cave complex and saw an altar where human and llama sacrifices occurred. This was by far the creepiest moment of the trip to date. Our tour guide very consistently told us of the perfection in all ways of the Inca proudly told us that they only did human sacrifices every fifteen years or so! YIKES.

On our last day in Cuzco we went to Machu Pichu. What can you say? Every amazing thing you hear about it is true. You descend into a rain-forest type environment from the high desert of Cuzco.

All the while the train follows the valley of a sizeable river with rapids and small falls. Finally, we climbed to the summit of the ruins via mini bus.

Mist and vegetation covered mountain spires surround the citadel (or monastery depending on who you talk to). The only drawback was the speed of the tour and the size of the crowds thronging the ruins. The terraced mountain provided space to grow crops and defend the city. Farmer’s dwellings huddled near the agricultural sector. Higher up a sentinel station stood watch over the entrance to the city and its approaches. The temple of the sun and main temple dominate the heights and off in the distance on one of the closest peaks an astronomical observatory beckoned. At the end of the tour, we stopped and sat amidst the ruins for some time, trying to soak up the grandeur and get beyond the observational factoid voice of our tour guide.

It was during this time of quiet reflection that we were almost trampled by llamas that graze the grass of Machu Picchu.


The amount of uncertainty and contradiction that still surrounds the ruins is almost as astounding as its beauty.

We shared a nice pizza and beer with a fellow traveler, Alexis (from Disrael, Quebec) at a friendly spot called the Quipu before heading back to the train station.

As we rode the train back down toward Cuzco in the darkness, we tried to save some strength since we would be back on a bus to Puno at about 7AM.