Monday, January 11, 2010

lima, la paz, lake titicaca

we made it to south america after four flights and a night layover in lima. we didn't do anything in Lima except stay in a hostel near the airport. nice hostel though.

flight to la paz was a bit exciting. got to fly through a thunderstorm and thunderheads landing in santa cruz, bolivia. unfortuanately the landing at la paz, the world's highest commercial airport and one of two that requires special training was very average and not exciting. landing in paro, bhutan was much, much better.

spent a couple days in la paz figuring things out and trying to get acclimated. flying from sea level to 12,000 ft is tough. erick acclimated much faster than i did.

from la paz we went up to lake titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake at ~12,500 ft. we took a boat from the town of copacabana to isla del sol and walked down the island, about 4 hours. we lucked out, the weather was beautiful, no rain. only bad part is erick got pretty good sun burns on his arms, neck, and forehead, where he deemed it wasn't neccessary to put sunscreen.

from copacabana we headed to sorata, which is in the cordierlla real and a good base for trekking. it's at 8,800 ft and almost seems tropical. we went on a three day trek, which i'll post in a separate post.

so far Bolivia is very nice, after acclimating. virtually no one speaks english and our spanish skills are basic at best, but we're getting around okay. of course in planning to come here we didn't check the seasons. i just assumed that summer here is like patagonia and dry season. instead it's wet season here, raining everyday for a couple hours. makes outdoor activities difficult and some travel impossible with washed out roads. we'll have to come back in bolivian winter someday, dry season.

No comments: