Environmentally Friendly

Through out any adventure, such as this one, you have a lot of time on your hands to think. To think about everything. Who you are. What you want to be. What the future may hold. I think a lot of this adventure has made me realize who I am and what I want.

Part of who I am, I've realized, is a very environmentally friendly person. The green movement is so fantastic to me and I am so happy to see others finally catching on. The otherday Amber read me an online article about how Seattle has just passed a law for $0.20 be added to every plastic bag that is used from a store. It also passed a law banning resturants from using styrofoam containers. With the city of Seattle using over 320 MILLION plastic bags a year, this seems like such a proactive step towards global consciousness. In Buenos Aires, we met an Irish woman named Shivonne who said that all of Ireland charges for the use of plastic bags.

When we were in Cuzco a few weeks ago, we were having a snack and I realized that my recycled, glass bottle of Sprite was made in 1995. How many plastic bottles have not been added to the world's landfills by reusing that bottle hundreds of times over? (Not only Perù, but most of Europe and many other countries reuse their glass bottles as they can be disinfected and reused an infinite amount of times...after all glass is a product that never deteriorates like only being able to recycle paper 7 times.)

While arriving here in Ecuador, I was saddened to watch the woman in front of me throw sytrofoam and plastic bottles out the window of the bus as we drove through the gorgeous landscape of Ecuador.

Its hard for me to realize that there are so many people in the world who take it all for granted. One day our world will deplenish and we will be left to deal with the consequences of our indulgent past.

17 buses later...

We're finally here. Safe and sound in Ecuador. And I don't want to get on another long distance bus. Good thing we only have one more to Quito!

We actually didn't have too much of a problem for our bus rides. The buses in Peru were quite nice because of the company we went through. When we arrove in Tumbes it was so hot and muggy, even at 9am. We were glad to not stay in that city but to take a taxi to the border and take us into the city. The cab driver insisted we lock our doors because the border crossing was so unsafe. I think for the first, and hopefully only, time on this trip I felt rather scared and unsafe. The cab driver told us about how the day before the border was closed because the cuidanos were on protest against the government. We felt lucky to be crossing but eventually had to leave our cab and hike the backstreets of the city to get over the border, into a Ecuadorian taxi, and then have our papers processed (the actual border wasn't used because our taxi driver told us it was more dangerous to walk over the official crossing -- where they try to charge you to enter Ecuador). So without too much hassle, we made it into Ecuador but our taxi driver charged us a "safety" fee on our bus ticket and I think we ended up wasting a lot of money on it. We could have done it ourselves but at that time it was difficult to imagine going through all of that after being on a bus for two days. We just needed to cross the border and be on our way to Cuenca so that we could feel more secure, and have a good night's sleep.

Speaking of which, our hotel we are staying at is $11 a night for each of us (and as our taxi driver told us, Cuenca is the most expensive city in Ecuador). We have a hot shower (I can't remember the last one we had...was in Potosì, 3 weeks ago) and a rock for a bed. Amber actually compared it to the Salar Hotel which was a bed that was on bricks of salt. SOOOOOOOO hard. However, we tried looking at multiple hotels and hostels in town for a little more and a little less money, but the ammenities were the same. So we'll stay in our hard bed hotel and enjoy the location and the fantastic shower. We enjoyed the shower so much we each showered last night and again this morning. I miss the hot water. The water pressure sucks here, so we're looking forward to coming home and having a hot shower with water pressure (something that is unheard of in south america apperantly)!

This city, Cuenca, is one of our favorites so far. Its another city, like Salta, Argentina, that is a large city but has a small city feel. We enjoy the ambiance of the city and the colonial buildings. Our hotel is only a few blocks from the city center and there's lots of fun botiques and stores. Moscow Mom, there's even a flower market here...I plan to take photos for you tomorrow!

As for everything else we are enjoying our last week, well 8 days, here in Ecuador and enjoying the bananas (we haven't had any yet but that'll soon change)! We had an amazing breakfast this morning. We are very much looking forward to coming home though. We both need massages as our necks and backs are at their limits. Hopefully the next week wont be too rough.

Can't wait for Sushi and Batman,
Katie Beth

P.S. There was a woman on our bus to Cuenca that had about 200 pounds worth of garlic with her. I'm not sure if you've ever seen that much garlic but it was ridiculous. I'm sure it made our bus ride go that much slower :P

12 days and counting...

We are FINALLY leaving Arequipa. Don't get me wrong, its a perfectly nice city...but only for the 2-3 days that we wanted to stay here in the first place. We met some great people, but we're tired of being here. Especially now since we have a smoker in our room. Last night when we came home from dinner, our room stunk like cigarette smoke really badly and we asked our new roommate if he was smoking in the room. He just smiles and says "sí", like it wasn't a big deal.

I know what you must be thinking: ewww, in south america they let people smoke in the dorm rooms??! Well, no, they don't. The guy was just rude. He also slept in until noon which made our packing in the dark very difficult and long this morning.

As much as I feel I haven't bought enough gifts for family and/or friends, I feel as if my bag seems to be getting heavier. I guess I need to stop buying things for me! Last night before dinner, Amber and I stopped into the greatest little shop and bought a fantastic black and white pottery vase. It was only $20 too! Its fantastic. Hopefully we'll find some great stuff in Ecuador too!

Well we are off tonight for a 13 hour bus ride to Lima and arrive at 11am. Then we get onto another bus at 3pm and arrive in Tumbes, very northern Peru, at 9am...18 hours later. Then we hope to find a bus directly to Cuenca, which we assume is about 6 hours away. Otherwise we will take a bus from Tumbes to Machala (2 hours) and then a bus to Cuenca (4 hours). Uffff. We're not crazy, just running out of time after being stuck in Arequipa for soooooo long.

Well this delicious city, filled with the best cake in the country, is calling our name one last time. Well at least the cake is.

Until Ecuador!!!
K&A

Feelin' a Lil' Better...

I'm up and moving today, not shaking and wanting to puke all over everyone and everything. I think I must have had too much water from the tap and it made me sick yesterday. At least we are staying in a quite nice hostel ($6 a night) and I could just lay in bed and nap and watch movies on TV. It was a pretty great rest day actually.

Today, since I'm feelin' a lil' better, WE'RE GOING TO SEE BATMAN!! WAHOOOOOOO...

Arequipa

Sorry we haven't posted in a while. We are alive, not to worry. On Saturday night we left for Arequipa and ten hours later we arrived. We had looked up hostels we might want to stay and found a really great one, and the reviews said the staff were amazing. We didn't make a reservation because we are officially anti paying two dollars every time we book a reservation and lately we've gotten great luck just showing up. So we arrive and there were multiple beds available when I checked just the night before; however, it was 6 am and the woman simply said she was full and that we could come back in a few hours if we wanted a bed. A few hours?? No thanks.

The gentleman next door had a dorm available and we decided to stay there. It's fantastic!! It has a kitchen and internet. It's a five bed dorm and the people are nice. The place is super clean and the staff are really sweet. While we had planned to leave for Lima, then straight onto Tumbes on Wednesday, the buses were full. So instead we have to stay here for a week and we love this hostel so it's okay. We actually quite like the city too. We met this girl Hailey from Ohio and we have had cake with her and then last night we went to this MASSIVE store with her last night to buy dinner. We made stirfry!! And tonight we had leftovers. The first night Katie and I cooked tortilla de españa which was fantastic.

And this afternoon Hailey and I made pancakes because the store has syrup!! Katie and I plan to cook all week! Unfortunately she was sick today so we had a really relaxing day. Our room has cable and we took advantages of watching our favorite shows in English and some in Spanish too! It's been great. She's feeling a bit better, so hopefully tomorrow we're going to try to find a movie theater in order to see Batman!!!! Hailey may join us if she doesn't decide to go to Cusco instead.

We are actually really excited to be just really chill for a week. This city is really big which is great but the hostel is really relaxing. It's a perfect fit especially with the tiny but perfectly efficient kitchen!

Mom's we miss you like crazy. We have our bus tickets and dont worry we are actually back to our old schedule rather than being three days ahead! I can't believe there are only 16 days left. But I'm definitely excited for what each one of those days will bring as we continue our trip up to Ecuador!

Love you all,

Amber


P.S. Happy Freaking Birthday Amber Num. 1 =)

Maaaaaaaaaachu Picchu

Machu Picchu is very maaaasive. It sounds silly but what a big hill! We drove up yet another windy road and spent a few hours hiking over the ruins of the achient lost city. We haven't had much sleep and we are looking forward to our trip to Arequipa tonight.

FINALLY!!!

FINALLY, after going 2 1/2 weeks without a battery charger, I found one here in Cuzco. This makes me ohhhhhhh so happy as I have had to not take as many pictures, trying to conserve my batteries for Machu Picchu tomorrow. But finally I found them here. They were a lot of money! The only reason I was able to purchase both chargers for both my point-and-shoot, but also my SLR, was because someone FINALLY accepted plastic. That's right, its the first time we've been able to use a credit card in more than 3 weeks!!

Today I also bought a piece of art from one of the stores here in town. It was quite expensive but I expect it to be a piece of art that I have for life! It is a beautiful oil painting of the old fashioned Peruvian women picking flowers. It is gorgeous. (Moscow) Mom, I think you are going to be so jealous. Its gorgeous!

Amber and I are having a lot of fun walking around Cuzco and looking in all the shops. Now that we are coming home three weeks from today, we have begun to accept that its ok to buy some stuff and carry it with us for the rest of the trip. We haven't bought much as we have to carry it all but with the warmer weather we should be able to get rid of some of our warmer clothes.

There's so much great stuff still to come in the next three weeks but we are also very excited to come home. Only three weeks, mommies!!

Weather

As most of you know, it's winter here since we are in the southern hemisphere. Overall, the weather has been great minus that horrible city called Uyuni. Copacabana was warm during the day but COLD during the night.

Katie and I want a warmer night. We need it and as we are leaving tonight for Cuzco, I looked up the tempature there. It's 55 right now and it's 7 pm. Lately by 7 pm, it's been 45 and feeling like 30.

The high in Cuzco is 70s and for winter season we are definitely excited for that weather! Then Arequipa is mid 70s. Then we travel up the coast to arrive at 80 degree weather. 80 degrees!!!!!!!!

We can handle the next three weeks. Declinging in altitude and getting warmer.

Thank you Big Bird.

Amber (with very cold hands and feet).

Estamos en Peru!

Amber and I had a really great time over the last two days in Copacabana and at Lake Titicaca. We were unable to write as the internet was very expensive and it wasn't until we reached the city that we realized that the town is so small that there is no ATM (you would think with such a tourist location they would add one but that's neither here nor there...). We had to cut a night's stay out and make due with the cash that we had on us, which was enough to get us to here, Puno, Peru. We are currently sitting at the bus station waiting for our night bus to Cuzco.

Yesterday we took a boat out to Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca and attempted to hike part of it. The altitude here is so high that we can barely breath going up hills or walking fast at all. Its been rather hard but its all down hill from here as we are now decending in altitude for the remainder of our trip (Bolivia is one HIGH country!). I took some beautiful pictures, but can't post them. You'll just have to wait until we get home and I'll put them up on photobucket for you all to see.

As a side note it was entertaining traveling to Copa, Copacabana, because we had to get off our bus and take a ferry across Lake Titicaca. Our tour bus had to take a different boat. Fairly entertaining, actually...

Anyway, we are headed to Cuzco tonight and will get there at 4am tomorrow. We've arranged a hostel and then tomorrow we will arrange our tickets to Machu Picchu probably for Saturday, and our bus tickets to Arequipa.

Until Cuzco,
Katie

Under A Tilted Sky...

It was some time ago, relatively speaking less than a week ago, that Amber and I were taking a bus to Sucre. As the night fall came, Amber told me to look at the moon. As I looked over, a small cresent of the moon appeared. However, it was only upon a second look that I noticed that the moon was tilted...or perhaps it was the entire sky. Again, on our way to La Paz, I looked out at the half moon, shaped like a bowl, and saw it balancing on the edge of the mountain tops. It appeares that from the southern hemisphere the sky is tiled, so that the moon´s cycles travel from south to north, versus east to west.

The nighttime sky is breath taking here. With little to no light polution, we have had some of the most amazing views of a spectacular sky, painted with stars. I always thought in North Idaho that I knew what the milky way looked like, but I was so incredibly wrong. While on our tour of the Salar de Uyuni, it looked as if someone had taken a paintbrush, or perhaps a full bucket of paint and tossed it across the sky. What a beautiful sight to see.

While looking at the cloudless sky (which is practically every night), there is a part of me that makes me less homesick as I know that those vibrant stars and tilted moon are the same one that we are all under.

(P.S. Amber and I had hair wraps done today at a hair salon. They are fantastic and cost only $5!)

We made it.

We are in La Paz. The bus was alright, the seats definitely a lot more comfortable than last time. They actually seemed newer and they reclined. The odd part about the trip was that we travelled three hours back to Potosi and then up to La Paz. It was weird but we looked and assume that the other route is probably safer.

It was hard to fall asleep on the bus. The seat didn't quite recline enough and the woman being me kept pushing her knees into my chair as if my seat was too far reclined. Except it hers was down all the way too. It was frustrating. Then when arriving about 45 minutes outside of La Paz, people were all quiet still, but her cell phone went off and the child behind Katie answered it really loudly. Katie had to shush her and then she was really loud still and then we both did it and she finally was quiet. Except that the phone rang about four more times... ugh.

But we made it to La Paz. And we are paying a bit more for our room-- 10 dollars a person, 20 a night for a private room. And its in a hotel because most hostels don't have hot water here. That's still 10 dollars less than what we were paying. It's nice to know that Hotels don't up the costs by a TON just because of the title "hotel".

Haven't seen much of La Paz, but so far it's fun.

That's about it.

Love

Amber

A mi madre

Dear Mom,

Amber and I have officially found the coolest place in Bolivia thus far. Last night we went to dinner at the Bibliócafe here in Sucre and it was fantastic! It was a really relaxed blues bar with great food, music, and atmosphere. You would have loved it so much. We decided to splurge on food and we spent $25 on appetizers, main course, desserts, two sodas, and FOUR margaritas! It really made me miss you as I had a "Margarita Blue" which was just like yours!

It occured to me that Amber has never had your margaritas. Can we fix that when we get back to Moscow??

Love you,
K

Dirty, Dirty Girls

It's official. We are dirty, dirty girls. We are down to our last pair of underwear and last pair of socks. In fact, I have on capris and its only 50 degrees outside. I'm chilly but its worth it to have my pants cleaned. I don't think that Amber and I expected to go through our clothes so quickly but we had to wear so many layers in Uyuni...in fact we wore two pairs of underwear to keep our booties warm.

So today we took our clothes to the laundry place and it should be done tonight. We have about 12 kilos of laundry, about 95% of our clothes, and it will cost us around $12 for it all to be washed, dried, and folded. Not too shabby I suppose.

The weather in Potosí has been far better than Uyuni. In fact, Uyuni is just a crappy, crappy city in total. It, by far, has been our least favorite city.

Amber and I have routed out the rest of our trip. We leave tomorrow for Sucre for 2 days and then to La Paz for 3 days and then a short trip to Copacobana for a few days of much needed rest and enjoyment of the beach. Then we will head to Peru to visit Cuzco, Aguas Calientes, Maccu Pichu, Cuzco (for one night), Arequipa, Lima, and Tumbes. Then on to Ecuador where we plan on staying in Cuenca and then on to Quito (then to the market an hour north of the city and to the middle of the world). Then home. Seems like a lot for the next 4 1/2 weeks, but it should be great.

We're at our half way point, and we couldn't be more excited for the rest of our trip. We can only hope that Peru and Ecuador have better bus systems as they are more developed than Bolivia. We hope to not break down again tomorrow.

Hasta Sucre!
K

The adventure continues

Katie and I are sick. We believe the tuna we had for lunch on the last day of our tour made us really sick. So we went to bed after packing and decided to try and hope we are better. We really didn't want to miss our bus to Potosí.

Katie woke up in the middle of the night to throw up and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. We woke up at 7 am hoping to get a good breakfast, but we were still sick. My body was shaking all over due to a fever of about 101 and Katie's stomach was still not up to par. The only thing that got us up and out of bed was that we were going to Potosi on a nice bus.

We barely make it to the bus station and I could barely carry my bag out of the taxi into the office. The lady pretended to be really caring and sweet asking us if we were sick and hoping we would get better. Then she informs us that the bus we paid to take wouldn't actually be in Uyuni until Sunday night, but we could take the normal bus and she would give us the money back. Okay so we spent 17 dollars on a nice bus and the crappy one costs 5 per person, the money wasn't really the issue. It's all we were looking forward to; however, we really didn't like Uyuni so we took the other one instead. We get on a bus that has about only about fifty seats. The seats are a little caved in where your butt goes. There isn't a bathroom, which is a bad thing since I feel like throwing up. And the worst part was that the seats didn't recline. Yeah. I know it sucked. But that's not the worst part....

About an hour into the trip we break down. It was hot and I couldn't stop crying since my body was aching from my fever and just wouldn't calm down. About 20 minutes of working on the bus they got it running again, only for it to break down about 30 minutes later. This time they couldn't get it fixed. Imagine a bus full of Bolivian women all in their traditional dress yelling at the bus driver to just call for another bus and the bus driver telling them he can fix it. I was so ill, I just kept asking Katie for a doctor or something and I couldn't sleep. Finally, she just held me and told me to calm down and talking to me really calmly, I fell asleep.

I woke up just before the next bus arrived and we all switched to the other bus. The breakdown took about 2.5 hours almost 3 according to Katie. And our new bus driver was really crazy, he stopped and yelled at friends at lot in Spanish and the girl behind us thought he was drunk. However, we made it to Potosi around 7 pm last night. The good part was I was able to sleep and so did Katie. During the trip, my fever broke which makes it so much better. Poor Katie has never seen me so sick.

We paid for a room with our own bathroom which was 17 dollars a night, and not per person, that for both of us!!! This way we can get better and not have to worry about running down the hall to the bathroom. We like Potosi so much more already. We are going to stay another night leaving Tuesday morning around 7 am for Sucre. Potosi is already cheaper and much more friendly. However, it's at an increadibly high elevation, 4060 meters which is 13,316 feet. We practically need our own oxygen tanks to carry around.

We are starting to like Bolivia more. We eat for so cheap -- lunch was about 2.7 dollars today. And our fruit was 2 dollars (that's a bag of apples and oranges!). It's great. Oh and I went to the doctor for my chest infection and some altitude pills last night. No perscription needed and I bought cough syrup, antibiotics, a pack of altitude pain killers, and two sticks of halls all for only 15 dollars. Now Amber can go on to getting better!! (The irony being the pharmacist was a chain smoker. There were about 20 butts in the ash tray and she just finished one as we got there. Crazy lifestyle).

The internet is faster here. And cheaper. So we will try to keep in touch. We love you all and miss you lots too.

-- Amber and Katie

On to Potosí

We've finished our three day tour of the salt flats in bolivia and the other surrounding area. We'd post pictures but the internet it too slow and too expensive.

We are on our way to Potosi tomorrow for a little rest and then on to Sucre and then La Paz. We may not blog until then, at least a week from now.

As of yesterday we have five fantastic weeks left, and we can only hope that they will be much warmer than this week and next!

Love you all!

In Bolivia

Freakin' A. Its daaaaang cold! We're freezing to death and the internet is really slow. So this is going to be a very fast blog.

We made it though the border yesterday after a real pain in the ass. We brought $200 USD with us to buy the tourist visa in Bolivia and three of our 20 dollar bills weren't suffecient to get through the border. We had to take a taxi back to Argentina to get out pesos, try to find a change place, excange the money for american dollars, and then after about 2-3 hours of frustrating hassle from a very slightly knicked bill, we were in Bolivia. Then we had to sit in line at the Train station for 2 1/2 hours to wait to buy a ticket. We got on the train and made it to Uyuni. It's so cold here that the train windows were covered in ice when we arrived after 1am. Like Harry Potter and the dementors ice covered windows. It sucked. Its so damn cold!

We bought some winter stuff and are off to find a tour company for our trip to the salt flats. We wont be blogging or emailing for a few days as we wont have internet access. Hopefully when we get to a bigger city in a week we can keep better in touch (moms).

Think warm thoughts for us. Today I'm wearing two pairs of pants, two tanktops, a thermal longsleeve shirt, a tshirt, my idaho sweatshirt, my coat, and a scarf. Amber is wearing two pairs of pants, two undershirts, a long sleeved shirt, a tshirt, a vest, a jacket, another vest, and two scarves. Its about 40 degrees outside. At night its getting down to zero.