3200+ Words

Pictures tell a thousand words, right? So this will, by far, be my longest post. Vacation is officially over for me and I am now back at Familia Feliz with seemingly endless afternoons of free-time after work in the mornings.  I figured it's probably time for an update as it has been almost a month since my last post.  As promised, this will be my special travel edition in which I will recount the adventures Corbin and I had on our trip.  Due to the hundreds of awesome pictures we took, I decided to do a sort of picture journal with captions and some paragraphs mixed in.  Enjoy! (remember, you can make the pictures bigger by clicking on them.)

Front row seats on my three-day Pampas Tour in the Amazon.  My group was made up of 7 others all from the UK except for one from South Africa. This would explain why I returned from the trip saying things like "queue" when talking about lines and using "nice" to describe food.

Federico the Caiman - The ecolodge that we stayed in during our trip in the Amazon had its own pet! We also saw many other caimans, tropical birds including some birds of prey, turtles, a cobra, and pink river dolphins.  On the last day we got to swim with the dolphins (more or less, they kept their distance) in a place, according to our guide, that was safe from caiman activity.

View over Cusco - First major destination and meeting point with Corbin.

Humantay Lake - Before Corbin arrived, I had about four days and did some excursions of my own.

Visiting a local community and trying out the traditional garb and tools.

 Peru's famous rainbow mountains from different viewpoints.

Our tour of the rainbow mountains included free pictures with an alpaca.

This is the picture you see everyone post on Instagram of Machu Picchu.  The clouds didn't exactly behave themselves, but we still got a pretty cool experience as you will see below.  We didn't get the breathtaking views from Huayna Picchu, the adjacent mountain, but the fog created a mysterious atmosphere. The low clouds made it seem like the ruined city grew with each step--you could never see the whole thing at once which made it seem absolutely massive.

Corridors in the city district of Machu Picchu.

Fog shrouds one of the Incan temples at Machu Picchu.

Interesting landscape with some volcanoes for a backdrop on the way to Colca Canyon near Arequipa, Peru.

 

The terraced Colca valley.  Colca Canyon was quite magnificent, but as the second deepest canyon in the world--twice as deep as the Grand Canyon--it was hard to get a good picture that did it justice. It was during this trip that Corbin and I went above 5000 meters--higher than Mt. Whitney on the JMT trek, and therefore the highest we have ever been.  Corbin arrived just two days before the above picture was taken.  Due to delayed flights, we had to shuffle around our reservations and train tickets to Machu Picchu, but we salvaged what we could and only missed a day of sightseeing around Cusco.

Water "highways" winding through the reeds on Lake Titicaca.

A small community on the floating Uros Islands of Lake Titicaca.

Kayaking on Lake Titicaca along the "beach" of Copacabana, Bolivia.

View from Cerro Calvario over Copacabana and Lake Titicaca.

 

Highest accessible point (self-determined) on Isla del Sol in the middle of Lake Titicaca.

Crossing the border (again) in Desaguadero, Peru/Bolivia.  Story time:  Upon arrival at Copacabana, we learned that there was a strike and blockade on the way to La Paz, our next destination.  By the time we were ready to leave, the strike had grown to the point of a blockade stopping all traffic coming into and out of Copacabana.  The night before, our bus had said it would still be operating to get us to La Paz (not sure how they planned to do it) and that we should be ready for pickup at 9:45.  The next morning, 9:45 came and went with no bus in sight.  We decided it was time to take matters into our own hands.

We walked for an hour and a half, past the blockade, and back to the border where we had entered into Bolivia to reach Copacabana.  We went back into Peru and caught a collection of minibuses to the grungy border town of Desaguadero.  Thankfully, our paperwork-intensive Bolivian visas that we had obtained upon first entering allowed for exit and re-entry without having to do more paperwork.  Others that we met along the way weren't so lucky--they couldn't leave and re-enter Bolivia, so they were either stuck in the country until the blockade was over, or had to leave and change their travel plans to stay out of Bolivia.

Desaguadero was perhaps the most unsafe I've felt in South America so far.  There were thousands of people trying to cross the border and lots of pushy bus drivers who wanted our business.  After waiting in a long queue to be stamped back into Bolivia, we found a relatively safe looking minibus headed to La Paz.  We got in, but still needed to fill two more seats before the driver would be willing to leave.  We waited about 45 minutes for two more passengers then finally were on our way to our final destination.  The cramped bus made the two and a half hour ride feel longer, but by dinnertime, we had made it to La Paz quite a bit earlier and smoother than we had expected.   As we ate a quick dinner before our bus ride to the Uyuni Salt Flats (see pictures below) I used the restaurant's WiFi to check my emails.  Much to my surprise, I found an email from our bus company:

     Hi Mason,

     I hope you're well. Our guides informed us that you and Corbin did not show up for the bus this           morning, can I ask what happened?

     Please confirm if you will be making your own way to La Paz or if you still intend on travelling         with us. Looking forward to hearing back from you.

     Kind Regards,

     D.

I couldn't believe it.  WE had shown up for the bus that morning, it was the bus that was late!  I appreciated them checking in with us, but it felt like they were rubbing it in that we had given up on the bus that was nowhere to be found and taken matters into our own hands.  I'm still not sure how they got the bus in or out of Copacabana, but it was pretty frustrating finding out that we had gone to a lot of trouble and spent a lot of unnecessary money to get to La Paz.  Of course, because the bus still operated, we weren't entitled to a refund. Asi es la vida, no es justo--That's life, it's not fair.

Shots from the Train Graveyard near Uyuni Salt Flats

 Perspective photos on the salt flats.

 ENDLESS

At the Red Lagoon in the "Ring of Fire" (area encircled by volcanoes)

Andean flamingos feeding in a lagoon

Sunrise over a lagoon on the third day of our Uyuni Salt Flats tour.

Whoops, you didn't see this (especially mom and dad).

Definitely not taken from the edge of Death Road.

Also not what it looks like.

"Moon Valley" in La Paz.

I would compare our traveling experiences to--fittingly--a South American road.  There are actually a lot more paved sections than you would think, but every so often it turns to a bumpy, dusty, back road.  Things were pretty smooth, except when they weren't.  The times qualifying for the latter description were generally pretty stressful and frustrating, but the overall experience was an unforgettable one. In making plans for traveling, I realized that the best plan is to not have one.  Any time we tried to plan things out way in advance, something would go wrong and we'd end up changing to something different.  

I'm so glad that God had a plan for when sin hit the fan (see what I did there).  The difference is, he knows what the future holds so His plan won't be interrupted by unforeseen circumstances.  When His plan comes to fruition, every eye will see it (unlike one particular bus that comes to mind).  Our plans may change in this world, but as long as we leave room for His will to be done in our lives, we can stay true to the ultimate plan of salvation.   

TL;DR

Okay, c'mon it's not that long... just go read the captions and skip the paragraphs.