We finally stopped being lame. Sort of.

So we are finally staying in a legit youth party hostel in La Paz. Up until now we have been acting like a middle-aged couple, going to bed at 10:00, waking up early, drinking alcohol only in moderation... Our hostel in La Paz has a bar that goes all night with theme parties and is packed with Euro smokers and drinkers. Mike and I have been doing our best to not be the lamos that are always the first to go to bed in the dorm, but we have failed miserably. Once 2:00 a.m. hits I have had all the smoke in my eyes and lungs that I can handle so we embarassingly walk down to bed while everyone else piles in cabs to go to the clubs, returning when mike and I are awaking. Oh well, at least we are going to bed in the a.m.

La Paz is a really cool city in a "bowl" of a valley between tall mountains, almost as impressively sprawling as Quito but almost cooler because the houses (slums)build way up onto the surrounding mountains. It is pretty clean for a large city. We have been walking around and doing the obligatory sight-seeing with some friends from the hostel. One of the weirdest things we saw were the baby lama fetuses in the witch´s market. People buy these to lay in the foundation when they built a house in hopes that it will keep earthquakes from destroying it. We´re thinking of bringing one back to help us out in San Francisco, but worried they´ll confiscate it when the airport security see a lama fetus shaped object in our bags. The second wierdest thing we´ve seen is the traffic police men, who all are made to wear zebra costumes because it is less likely that people will punch, argue with or try to run over a zebra than a police man.

Unfortunately Mike got salmonella AGAIN and was in bed all day yesterday with a fever. I went to the Coca museum with some other people, which was quite interesting even if all it really was was a fat booklet of all the information in the museum translated into english. We just sat on stools and read for about 2 hours, because the pictures inthe museum were difficult to match up with the info in the booklet. I then ate a piece of coca cake drizzled with coca liquer which was not the most delicious thing ever, but hey... it´s cool.

The most memorable incident was when we decided to order a pizza to the bar to split between us and two other people we had just met. The pizza arrived and the whole bar turned to stare as both sides of the french doors had to be opened to allow the two men to carry the pizza through... it was at least 4x4 feet and the pizza slices stretched an entire arms-length (I´ll post a `pic of it when I get it for you non-believers). Anyways, one of the girls we were splitting it with started yelling and freaking out because it was more expensive than she had thought (170 bolivianos, or about $25 dollars between the 4 of us... NOT expensive). Plus, consider these facts: 1) we only made her chip in 20 bolivianos, which is less than THREE DOLLARS
2) the 20 boliviano bill that she gave us was actually fake so the pizza man wouldn´t accept it, so mike and I ended up paying 150 of the 170 bolivianos
3) When someone in the bar said "it´s 3 freakin´dollars and you didn´t even us a real bill, so stop moaning) she started crying hysterically for about 15 minutes
4) despite the fact that she was making this huge scene, she decided against leaving and instead sat their sobbing for all to see
5) After she collected herself, she made me walk around the bar trying to sell of slices of our contintent-sized pizza, and I made us 30 bolivianos
6) She took all 30 bolivianos, meaning she made money off the whole thing

Worst person we have met on our trip, second only to the guy who robbed us. But we had a great time because we will never see a pizza so big for as long as we live.

We are flying to Rurrenabaque tomorrow to do a pampas tour (of the flatlands filled with animals... pink dolphins, anacondas, monkeys, aligators, etc) and of the jungle, so we wont be blogging until we get back in at least 5 days.

Miss you guys... can´t believe we are coming home so soon. P.S. it hailed today and it was the biggest hail I´ve ever seen, even though its not even cold here.

The Incas are Smarter Than You

Laura wrote about our Inca Trail experience (which you should read below) but I wanted to just throw in my two cents really quickly. First interesting thing is that the Inca people are actually called the Quechua. They are called Incas because Inca was their word for king...and when the Spanish arrived they were told by everyone to talk to the Inca...so with all those people saying that word they called them the Incans...whooops.

Anyway, the Quechua acheived things that simply blow the mind. First of all, look at the pictures that we have of Machu Pichu (which means Old Mountain in Quechua)...it is made with HUGE stones that all fit together perfectly...they didnt have any horses so these were all brought up to the Andes (thousands and thousands of feet above sea level) by PEOPLE. Second, these people´s understanding of the stars was crazy. For example, Machu Pichu has a Sun Temple that has two windows. On the Solstice and Equinox (I forget the exact days but its like Decemeber 20 and June 20) the sun shines EXACTLY through these two windows. This is to indicate to the people that is time to start planting crops because the rainy season is coming. It is sad that these people were basically completely wiped out and all of their knoweldge lost. The fact that their buildings still stand and are in such great shape is a testament to their genius.

Then consider that, without the wheel or horses, their empire ranged from Columbia in the North to Chile in the South...Laura and I have been busing around for more than a month and havent covered half of that area. Amamzing. Its crazy to think that such an advanced people could be conquered by a few hundered Spanish soldiers. Wacky.

The Other Copacabana

Greetings from Copacabana...not the one from the song, but the tiny little one 5 minutes from the Peru-Bolivia border. This is an awesome little town of 6,000 people nestled between two hills and right on Lake Titikaka (the highest navigable body of water in the world...although this is disputed, its still really cool). This is a huge lake, and you cannot see to the other side even remotely.

The best part of this town though is our hostel. It is perched on one of the hills, the main building is a huge white down painted with blue accents (what I imagine Greece to look like) with hammocks all over the place and great food, most comfortable bed that we have had so far, etc. Last night we hiked up to the top of the hill where there is a huge series of crosses and monuments sticking out of the rock and an amazing view of the sunset...I dont know if it is the altitude or what but the sunset here was the best that I have ever seen, the sun looks about 3 times larger than usual. Other than that, we have been on full vacation mode, resting and relaxing after the Inca Trail (which Laura is writing about but was one of the best things that either of us has ever done).

There was a festival in honor of some saint in town today and there was music and firecrackers going off all day. Tonight there is supposed to be a fireworks show up on the hill where we are staying so we have a bottle of wine and some fanta ready to make sangria to enjoy during the fireworks (our lives are very hard right now). Tomorrow we will do a hike to a port where you can catch a boat to Isla del Sol which is a large island in the middle of the lake. Supposedly good views and hiking on the island. Should be great. Both of our stomachs are doing well and the bug bites that we got during the Inca Trail are finally starting to go away. We stay in Copacabana for at least 2 more nights and then we are headed to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. So far this country is awesome and incredibly cheap...you get 7 bolivianos for each dollar so we will be heading home with lots of gifts.

Hope everyone is doing well. Great to see that Cal has steamrolled its first 2 opponents. Go Bears!

At first I was afraid, I was petrified...

But we survived! The four-day inca trail was more than we had ever anticipated. I was so freaked out about getting altitude sickness or food poisoning or breaking my leg (4 out of 12 people suffered one of these fates to the point where one lady had to turn back) but fortunately Mike and I escaped all that and left with only amazing memories, sore calves, great pictures, and an admiration for the andes and the history.

Our guides were fantastic: the head guide (Carlos) was one of the funniest people I've ever met and was so knowledgeable about the trails and the history. The other guide (Ramiro) was the of the quiter "artist" type but who surprised us all at tea time by asking "does anyone sing? I do!" and then awkwardly serenading us with two spanish love songs in his high castrati-like voice. Mike asked him if he sings professionally and he responded "no, jus in da shower, wit my friends"... but without sufficient pause between those two phrases. Ramiro was a little less capable at english so Carlos quickly took over all story-telling on the trail after Ramiro tried to tell a ghost story that was basically just a horribly sad story about a dad who had a heart attack on the trail and his son was crying because he couldn't wake him up. eeeeeeh. Carlos succeeded in scaring the s#$% out of us with a REAL ghost story to the point where all 12 of us hikers had to walk together to the dark scary inka toilets (a hole in the ground).

The scenery on the trail was breathtaking... words cannot describe how overpowering the andes mountains seem when you're walking in their shadows and up their steep surfaces, looking at glaciers in the distance and the roaring river below. Almost even more mesmerizing were the porters that carried all the stuff our camp required. We had 19 porters for our group of 12 hikers, and they each carried a massive pack of over 50 pounds on their small frames. They would wake us up with a cup of warm tea in our tent and a bowl of hot water and a towel to wash our face with. Then they would feed us a delicious pancake and egg breakfast in our dining tent. We would head off on the trail much before them while they broke down camp, and then 2 hours later they would come running by us in their sandaled feet and giant packs, running straight up the mountain, to go set up camp for lunch. Then they would do the same after lunch, passing us to set up camp for the night. We were exhausted every day after 8+ hours of hiking a day in high altitude, I cannot imagine how they must feel carrying so much weight. We had tea time with cookies before dinner (dessert before dinner is ALWAYS welcome) and then the most delicious dinners of our whole trip. I don{t know how they whipped up such delicious food with such limited resources in the middle of nowhere.

We saw many ruins along the way, each one progressively impressive, climaxing with Machu Pichu on the last day. It was bigger and more impressive than I had anticipated, such an awesome example of the Inca's design, skill and philosophy (EVERYTHING they built is oriented around the equinox and solstice). But Machu Pichu was just a great finish to the even more fulfilling experience of hiking there with a group of people that we got through it with together. I would do it over again in a heartbeat.

P.S. thanks liz and dave for recommending SAS. they are the best.