Bolivia to Peru - Floating Islands, Lake Titicaca and Whistling Llamas

There isn't much to say about Potosi other than it is high. If you walk to fast you run out of breath. Most people go to visit the mines. We decided not to, as they sound horrendous. The miners work in awful conditions and most die about ten years after starting working in them from the bad air quality. You have to climb through tiny tunnels and sign a waiver to say it is okay if you die. We stayed a night, took some pictures and then went onto Sucre.

Getting dinner at the market in Potosi

Sucre is a beautiful town. We planned on chilling out there, maybe putting up the blog and visit a museum or two. Then Niamh spotted a job opportunity, so manys the time was spent fretting over a CV and cover letter. We managed to take a wander around the town and splashed out on our second purchase of souvenirs of the trip, some lovely embroidered cushions and llama socks (the mate cup in Argentina was the first).

We visited a textile museum (Museo Textil Indigena), which had displays of fabric and outfits worn by the Jalq'a and Tarabuco people. Niamh loved it and has written up a post in Tales from a Teapot.

The next stop was Copacabana on the shores of lake Titicaca (feel free to giggle here!). We arrived at Copacabana early enough and started looking for a hostel. We tried a few places and settled on one called Residential Paris. Mostly because we thought it was half Irish owned and had wifi from 6 a.m until 11 p.m. It turns out the cafe downstairs was half Irish owned and was not part of the hostel and wifi was from 6 p.m and didn't work most of the time. This was a town wide problem though, one of the wifi companies crashed for the majority of the time we were there. Not a problem unless your trying to send a job application, grrr. The hostel was grand though, the staff were lovely. We were a staggering four floors up, which doesn't sound much but at this altitude it takes it out of you a bit.

The first day we arrived, we went out for a bite to eat in this nice restaurant which served an amazing trout. It was one of the nicest meals we had in South America. Good job Bolivia.

The next day, Niamh was busy on the laptop typing like a monkey writing Shakespeare. After delivering a beautiful sonnet, we went down to the Irish cafe called El Condor Y El Aguila Cafe (The Condor and The Eagle), which became our haunt. We bumped into a few Irish people, including a couple from near The Bell in Blanch. Niamh used to do Irish dancing with their daughter's friend. The coincidences never cease. We went to a hotel to watch the Ireland Scotland game, but lets not speak of that!

We decided we needed to do something touristy so we climbed Cerro Calvario. It was not a hard climb, although it is quite steep, but it was tough in the altitude. It was well worth it, with beautiful views over the town. We done as the locals do and bought some beer to drink while watching the boats on the lake down below. It was very idyllic, except for the taste of the beer. The penchant for sweet things in South America also exists in the world of beer and it is not a positive development.

Niamh buying the beer

Emmet drinking the beer

We had pretty much exhausted the list of things to do at this stage, other than get the boat out to Isla del Sol. So that is what we did. We booked the tour for the following morning. It is an island on the lake of Titicaca, which the Inca's had set up some settlement on. Originally the locals had gone there to escape the wrath of the Inca warriors. But determined and as organised as the Inca's were, they eventually prevailed and took the island and it's inhabitants as they had so many times before. This history is not factually correct,Emmet has decided this is what happened though, who's to judge!

There were a few different options to see the island but we decided to get dropped off on the north end and walk the 3 hours to the south.  It was tough enough in parts, some of the island rising to 4000 metres high. But it was completely worth it. We stopped off first at this small long abandoned settlement and had lunch looking out over the lake. You couldn't really pick a finer spot to munch into a banana cake. The tank satisfied for the time been we made tracks again, out onto the southern path. Obviously there isn't much you can say, other than it was once again another beautiful place in South America and we will let the photos do the talking instead.

Irish coloured boats!

Hippies camping by the beach

When we got to the southern village, we started to look for a restaurant called Los Velles that the Irish guy who owned the cafe had told us about. We walked through the village, which was really nice and followed the signs which sent us off through a forest. We walked up to it and it had great views over the lake with a few donkeys in the garden, which Emmet got to know while waiting for his food.

The guy who owned the place was lovely and we went with the recommended dishes by our Irish coffee man. The trout and vegetarian pizza. I know, vegetarian pizza, sound fairly rubbish but it was the nicest vegetarian food I had ever tasted. That said, we ordered our food at 2.20 and when it arrived out at 3.30 we were a bit anxious as we had a 20 minute walk to the boat which left at 4. So this only leaving us 10 minutes to eat our two dishes was a bit of a rush. We ended up leaving with half the pizza in our hands. Road pizza, it's nearly as good as road beer. Nearly. When he brought the food out, you could tell he was a little stressed as he knew we had to leave in a few minutes. But he had cooked up two amazing meals on a remote island which has no electricity. Not bad sir, not bad at all.

We paid our bill and walked/ran down the hill to the harbour. We made it with time to spare and were able to start digesting. A successful day out. We got the boat back and spent the night watching movies. Thankfully our computer was fully charged as the electricity went in the whole town early and didn't come back on that night. The next stop, Peru.

We had a fairly painless border crossing and arrived into Puno, also on the banks of Lake Titicaca. On the bus we got approached by a man called Fernando who owned a hostel called Intikilla. The pictures looked good, it was a decent price and he offered free transfer, so we decided to take him up on the offer and check out the place. It was lovely, the nicest accommodation we have stayed in. He put us in a the suite, which meant we had our own sitting room, bathroom, kitchen (disclaimer, the kitchen only had a sink and some presses, and a bit of a smell, so it was more like a glorified room with a sink and a stink) and of course a bedroom, with three beds. We don't need three beds, but we got them anyways! We had a lot of fun watching films on the laptop in our sitting room, attempting to drink Peruvian wine, which I would not recommend anyone try unless they first have their taste buds severed off. We also refrained from the local delicacy, see picture below!

Our bus getting a lift across the lake

 

We were very touristy in Puno. We first visited the ancient ruins of Sillustani where nobility were buried in massive towers.

Can you see the puma/lion face?

Whistling llama

On the way home we made an unexpected stop to a Peruvian family, which Niamh has written about in Tales from a Teapot.

The next day we went out to the floating islands called Unos. The people built islands made of reeds in the middle of the lake to escape the Incas (sound familiar! You can see where Emmet's confusion arose). There are 75 islands still in existence with several families living on each. They have to anchor the island down by driving steaks attached to ropes into the ground below the lake. This also means they can move the island by taking up the stakes and paddling! The family on the island we visited were lovely. They showed us inside their house, dressed us up in their traditional clothes and sang as we were leaving. We bought a beautiful hand embroidered wall hanging off them before getting on a boat made of reeds (called the mercedes benz!) to bring us to the next island. We were a bit peckish and they happened to have a restaurant so we ordered some trout. We received the freshest meal we have probably ever eaten. They went to the side of the island, caught a trout each and brought them in and cooked them. It was delicious. There are only a few photos here cause, em, you may see a pattern here, but Niamh plans to write up a post on Tales from a Teapot.

We bought the blue one!

Getting the reed boat across the lake

Dinner!

That evening we were stalking people on facebook when we got a message from Jerry and Aisling, who happened to be in Puno too. It was also Aisling's birthday eve. They managed to entice us from our suite lair, not much else would have! We met them for some pizza in a great place called Pizza e Pasta, or something like that, and then went for a few beers in a rock bar.

After getting to see Jerry and Aisling again we headed onto Arequipa the following day. It's a really nice place and we stayed in The Flying Dog hostel. It was a really nice place and the staff were great.

The main thing to do there is go and see Colca Canyon. It's the second biggest one in the world, impressive, right.....we didn't bother. Instead we chilled. After a hectic few weeks Arequipa was our place to eat (we had a potato dish in a place called Hatunpa, yummy, do not pass through Arequipa without stopping in here, forget the canyon!), drink coffee and recharge in preparation for Cuzco.

Argentina: Moving North - Seals, Fiesta and Steak

We got one of longest bus journeys yet from El Calafate to Puerto Madryn which was over 24 hours with a stop over. We were in cama, which is the nicer section of the bus, for the first time. The seats were much more comfortable and you have a lot more room. However, it is also closer to the toilet, which is not cleaned very often. The small was palpable.

We booked ourselves into La Tosca which is a really nice hostel with a gorgeous courtyard that Niamh spent some time reading in and the friendliest staff we have ever met, but not in a creepy annoying way. Puerto Madryn is a nice enough town by South American standards. It is most famous for whale watching at certain times of year and for its seals, sea lions and penguins.

We booked ourselves in for a tour to see the seals the next day and were shown pictures of them with people getting really close. We were very excited. The tour didn't start until the afternoon so in the morning we went for a walk around the town and along the beach, stopping off to get a coffee in a cute beach hut along the way.

At half one we were picked up by Hugo and Juan Pablo, our excellent guides. We drove bumpily along an unpaved road to Punta Ninfas. It is quiet spot and there was only one other small group there.

Most people head to Peninsula Valdez with the stiff 20 euro entrance fee on top of the 50 euro tour price, eek. The extra animals you can see there are penguins, seen it, or there is a very minuscule small chance you may see killer whales or orca whales, which would be one of the most amazing things in the world. There is probably more chance of Niamh walking past a coffee table and not bumping into it or not spilling something in a day. Very small chance indeed.

We drove for about an hour and a half along an unpaved road, fun. We drove passed lots of estancios, which are giant ranches. The vegetation is not very productive in Patagonia, having to deal with cool weather, strong winds and little rain. You need a lot of land for only a few sheep. We saw lots of wildlife including guanocos (a relative of the llama), rheas (look like ostriches), elegant crested tinamous, maras (giant rabbit deer like animals) and a hawk.

We climbed down a really steep cliff edge onto the beach, which was no bother for the previously petrified of heights Emmet. He has been cured. It is a miracle. We walked along the beach and Hugo told us all about the wildlife.

We first walked past a female elephant seal on her own. We kept on going with the intention of photographing her on the way back. We then spotted (I say spotted, it was sprawled across the beach, not difficult) a sea lion. We didn't think we would see one, so it was a nice surprise. They are quite territorial so Hugo calmly and slowly walked past to gauge his reaction before we followed.

 

Behind the seal lion was a large colony of seals. They are also more aggressive than the elephant seals, and while we were delighted to see them, they blocked our path down the beach. We couldn't skirt around them along the sea, as that is their escape route and they could feel threatened and they were too close to the edge of the cliff to get past them on that side. We watched them for a while and waited for them to move but no joy. We got some great shots of them and got quite close. We are fully aware of the fact that we went completely over the top with our penguin photos. They were all so cute, we couldn't decide which ones to put up and we didn't want to hurt any of their feelings. So you'll be pleased to note that we have been more selective with our seal photos.

We walked back and got a picture with the female elephant seal. As the elephant seals are the most docile, you can get closest to them. We would have many more picture like this one if the seals hadn't blocked our path, how exciting for our readers, hey, where are you all gone, no more pictures of us with seals, I swear.

On the way back Hugo informed us that the male elephant seal  (the mad looking ones with the big noses) are at sea this time of year and we wouldn't have gotten to see them anyways. So in the end we got to see the three types of mammals, when we thought we would only see one, not bad for a days work.

That evening we returned to the lovely people at La Tosca for a couple of hours before getting the 9.25 bus. Oh, did I say 9.25, it was teasing us, it showed up at half twelve at night. Luckily, we love waiting for buses and were not completely stressed out by the fact we had no clue what was going on (sarcasm). The bus conductors when they finally showed up were so gracious, apologised a hundred times and looked after us so well. This is a lie, they have life problems, I have never met such a miserable shower. The bus was also inferior but similarly priced to the normal Andesmar buses (they put us on el pinguino, I admit, I was thrown by the name, how can anything named after a penguin be bad, I have learned a valuable life lesson). Having said that, we both slept like babies, maybe we are getting used to long bus journeys or maybe we were just worn out from standing at a bus stop for 3 hours before being treated like we had just insulted the conductors mother.

We finally arrived in Buenos Aires and jumped into an over priced taxi (we should know better after ten months of travelling, our bargaining skills have been waining since leaving Asia) to go to our hostel where Jerry and Aisling were waiting for us. When we were checking in at reception, Jerry came over to us and brought us to our room. It was a really nice hostel, the top rated hostel in Argentina called America del Sur. We dropped our things into the room and went down to the courtyard where Aisling was sitting. We all caught up and they had cooked dinner for us. They are the best!

After a good nights sleep, we were ready to go and see BA. It was a lot hotter there, so after a good lathering of Niamh's uncomfortably thick sunscreen, we went for a walk around some of the city. We got some good photos of impressive buildings and lots of graffiti (which Niamh will put up on Tales of a Teapot). We visited a private art collection (Colección de Arte Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat in Puerto Madero), which included a Warhol painting and a couple of Dali sketches, as well as many local artists.

  Casa Rosada at Plaza de Mayo

Yes, Let's Fun!

After the gallery we walked some more...

Later that evening we had arranged to meet up with Jessie, one of the girls we had met on the Navimag ferry in Chile, who is currently living in Buenos Aires, or BA as the cool kids say, and we will be adopting for efficiency of typing. Jessie and her friend Shannon came to our hostel and we all headed out on the town.

First stop was a pub called La Puerto Rojo (or in English The Red Door) across the road from the hostel that Emmet and Jerry had been in earlier to check about the Ireland vs Poland game. 2-0 to Ireland, go on lads!

After a few drinks we headed to a restaurant for a bite to eat. We had our first taste of Argentinian steak cooked in a restaurant. It was tasty, but not anything you wouldn't get at home. The rest of the meals were disappointing, over processed, over cooked and greasy.

We then went to another bar called Gibraltar (apparently an Irish bar), which had a couple sitting across from us that can only be described as trying to swallow each others heads. They had a bouncer of sorts. He didn't stand at the door, just walked around the pub telling people to do this, stop that. He was the kind of guy that bought his T-shirts in the kids section, fare play to him he was ripped. When he walked his arms would be sticking out to make himself look bigger, you know the type. The bar man was a nice bloke though and we had a really good night sipping the local favourite fernet and coke.

The following morning, we dragged ourselves from our beds to go on a walking tour. I am glad we did it now but at the time I questioned our judgement greatly. We were shown a few places in San Telmo, which is a lovely cobbled part of the city.

We got a local bus to Boca, the home to the famous Boca Juniors football club. Unfortunately we didn't get to see a game as we had to leave BA before we got the chance to see one and it is extremely expensive. The Boca area was really nice with lots of little shops and cafes. Well the touristy part is, the rest is meant to be dog rough and they warn you not to stray off the main streets. There was a Maradona look a like and tango dancers everywhere. When we got back to our hostel we all flaked out for the day. A quite night was had. Niamh was particularly incapacitated, so the boys were on cooking duty, thanks men folk.

 

The following day, we moved to a hostel around the corner called Ayres Portenas, which was a great little hostel. 

The next day, there was more sightseeing done. We went to the oldest cafe in BA and then onto a bookshop in a converted theatre, it was Niamh's dream day. We then, having mastered the metro, went to Palermo, a suburb full of bars, cafes and shops. We had the hunger grumps and made a hasty lunch decision, which resulted in a pretty disappointing feed. On the way home the girls picked up Mate (pronounced mah-tay) cups.

Niamh, being the aul one that she is, was still hungover from the night out two days previous and was more in a sit in kind of mood, but this was to be our last night out in BA. It turned out to be great night. We headed out with Jessie and Shannon again and went to a nice Mexican place first. We went to a bar for a few hours before going to a club that the girls had put our names on a list for. There was a band playing, they would have been mediocre during the day but were a bit crap at three in the morning in a club. A few DJs came on afterwards and things perked up, especially when these amazing dancers came out and strutted their stuff. We had noticed one of the girls earlier who had been giving it socks by the dance floor. She stuck out, not just because she could actually dance but because she was rocking out spandex pants and a spandex top with a funky hat. The 80's is alive and well. People gathered around to watch, we happened to be right beside them and they had a routine and danced for about 10 minutes for everyone. It was cheesy but they were deadly. The rest of us "danced" until the wee hours of the morning before getting a taxi home with a really nice driver that Emmet attempted to communicate with in Englisho. Great night!

The following day Jerry and Aisling and ourselves,went our separate ways for probably the last time on our travels. We have been very lucky to have met up with them on a couple of different occasions in various countries on our travels. They were absolutely brilliant to travel with, great craic, really easy to get along with and they are really cool people to hang out with. Thanks for all the great memories guys. We will never forget!!!!

Our last Argentinian stop was Salta. We stayed in El Argentino which was not the greatest hostel we have stayed in but was grand for a couple of nights. The staff were nice. We wandered about the main square which was pretty, but we were there during a public holiday so it was quiet.

We planned on getting a ski lift up to Cerro San Bernardo but the queue was massive so we visted the local handicraft market and went for steak instead. We went to La Monumental as recommended by Aideen and Kev. It was delicious and the waiter was sound.

My mum said to me "your home in just over six weeks". I hadn't really thought about it until she said it. It's close now, when you can put it in weeks and not months anymore, you know it's nearly home time. But what a year!! I can almost smell the Guinness.