For our second day in paradise, we decided to get a private boat to take us out snorkeling. Around 11am, we went to the boat dock to try to negotiate a place and a price. We were bombarded by touts, some telling us that one area was nice, others promising that the weather and tides were too bad to go to the same place.
Carlos, the guy who picked Kassie up from the airport the day before, spotted us. We trusted him, so we negotiated a $15/person private boat to take us out to a reef area that had a restaurant with a dock that we could lay out on. (more…)
Our bus ride to Bocas Del Toro was a 10 hour tour through the night that was scheduled to land us in Almirante at 6am where we would catch a 6:30am ferry to Bocas Del Toro. Unfortunately, we got there a bit early, all piling off the bus in the middle of nowhere at the very dark hour of 5am.
We stood in front of a closed store, while the locals grabbed taxis to somewhere. A taxi driver asked us if we wanted to go to the dock. (more…)
Beth: The night before we got to Panama, I started getting sick. Stomach-issues sick. Ever the hypochondriac, I was sure I was running a fever and would need to take CIPRO before it was all over with. Lauren and I also were wary of the warnings about the budget area of Panama (”don’t walk outside after dark”) so we decided to splurge for the night and get a nicer, air conditioned hotel room in Congrejo - the business district.
We checked in and went upstairs to our clean, king-sized bed with cable TV and Lauren watched old movies while I journeyed between the bed and the bathroom.
Beth and I were feeling quite accomplished. We had made it to our final destination in South America - and we’d had a fantastic time getting there. We had braved freezing cold temperatures, made it through a dose of Cipro, lived through 16,000 feet worth of altitude sickness, and logged 249 hours of bus time. We had seen five countries, discovered incredible landscapes, eaten amazing foods, met up with old friends, and had many come to visit us. We were reflecting on all our adventures, and looking forward to the next and last leg of our journey - Central America. Mostly, we were ready for some serious beach time.
But as Beth said as we were waiting in the Quito airport, “We may be done with South America, but it’s not done with us.” (more…)
To cross the border into Ecuador, we had to take a bus to Tumbes in northern Peru and grab a busline called CIFA that would escort us across what was supposed to be “the most dangerous border crossing in South America” into Ecuador.
Our 18-hour bus ride to Tumbes was uneventful, until we got off the bus. We strapped on our bags and tried to find the exit to the bus station, discovering that it was locked. One of the employees asked us if we were ready to leave. We told him we were going to CIFA and he told us it was just three blocks to the right. Then he opened the door.
Lauren: Beth and I rolled into Lima and headed for the city center, bypassing what looked to be the hip, cool area of the city, Miraflores, because we thought that my friend Ruth and her friend Mary would be doing her summer internship downtown. We also saw that there was a “gay friendly” hotel, the first we had seen on our trip, so we thought we’d go and contribute our dollars to the cause.
We checked in to our plush room (with the highest cielings I’ve ever seen), and went to check email. Ruth had emailed to let us know that she was in Miraflores, and that we should come meet her for Pisco Sours. Thrilled, we decided we’d move the next day to Miraflores, and set out to meet Ruth and Mary. (more…)
We got into Cusco 15 minutes early at around 4:45am, amazingly, despite having multiple delays that included getting pulled over and raided by the authorities (See It’s Not All Fun and Games). We weren’t quite clear that we had reached our final destination, since many locals continued to snooze and the bus was still running.
We decided to ask someone and learned that we had in fact arrived. I nearly bowled over several sleepy Bolivian woman slowly wrapping up their multitude of items in blankets as I rushed out to claim our (please, God, let them still be there) bags. After praising Jesus, I grabbed our things and waited for Beth to de-bus while I watched a drunken brawl that looked sort of like a frat hazing taking place across the street.
We jumped in a taxi and were dropped off sort of near our hostel in the main square. We looked around and were shocked to hear loud music thumping away and drunken foreigners stumbling down the street on a still-in-progress pub crawl. It was 5am. (more…)
On our expensive bus ride to La Paz, we were rudely awakened at 2am and told we’d have to change buses because our bus had to go back to Uyuni. We swapped our luggage and seats with a busload of people who were heading the opposite way. We tried unsuccessfully to get back to sleep. We were annoyed, but what we didn’t know is that the next two bus rides would be even worse.
We had bought our bus tickets to Cusco from a travel agent in Copacabana. Semi-cama, she had promised. Tourist bus, she offered. It was $10, I said to Lauren, “how could we go wrong?” (more…)
We decided not to stay in Uyuni, instead booking the top-of-the-line bus ticket to La Paz, the highest capital in the world. It was a 12-hour bus ride and the first one we’ve ever been on that included a line on its ticket for compensation for lost luggage or medical care for an accident.
As we got on, we spotted a girl we had met the night before at the Salt Hotel. I can’t remember her name, but our first introduction to her was her saying, “I’m from Westchester, it’s about 30 minutes outside of New York City…” in one of the most condescending, I’m-better-than-you tones I’ve heard an American muster in the last few months.
“We know,” Lauren and I responded. “We live in Brooklyn.” (more…)
The last night of our three day tour was spent in Hotel Sal, or the Salt Hotel, a building made completely from salt. We’re talking completely. The walls were constructed from blocks of salt - like a big salt igloo - the floors were made up of salt rocks and pebbles, the tables and stools were made of chunks of salt… Even the bed frames and the bedside table in our room were made of salt. It was pretty amazing.
As soon as we got to Hotel Sal, Beth and I made a mad dash for the showers. When we emerged we found tea and snacks waiting for us at a salt table with five salt stools. The crew all sat down to relax, drink Coca Tea, eat cookies, and chat. Beth and I finally learned the rules of the incredibly complicated cricket from Brendan, and Beth and I did our best to explain the incredibly complicated rules of baseball. (more…)
For our second day in paradise, we decided to get a private boat to take us out snorkeling. Around 11am, we went to the boat dock to try to negotiate a place and a price. We were bombarded by touts, some telling us that one area was nice, others promising that the weather and tides were too bad to go to the same place.
