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Tags: art, food, market, new year
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Friday, December 30th, 2005
Even though staying in Copacabana sounded quite attractive, going to a doctor in a small town didn’t. As soon as we got off the boat from Isla del Sol, we booked a bus going that very evening to La Paz where our guidebook assured us we could find an English speaking doctor. However, before we got on the bus, I had about three seconds to sneak a phone call to my gynecologist (and my mother’s best friend) in Israel, who gave me some amusing and quite logical advice: “Drink a lot of water,” she said, “and jump.” “Jump?” “Yes, jump. If this is indeed a kidney stone it might be lodged somewhere down the line and needs to be shaken loose so you could pass it.”
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Tags: health
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Thursday, December 29th, 2005
After spending a night in Puno, we headed to the Copacabana on the Bolivian side of the Lake to visit one the most important Inca centers: Isla del Sol or Island of the Sun. According to Inca mythology, the Sacred Rock on this island is the birthplace of the white bearded creator god Viracocha, of the sun and the moon, and of the first Incas Manco Capac and his sister wife Mama Huaca. A short bus ride took us to the border, which we crossed on our two feet, and then got back onto the same bus for another short ride to Copacabana. In Copa, we found Jurgen, the German guy we met on our previous island tour, and Shin, a Japanese guy studying English and chiropractics in the US. Together, we took the boat to Isla del Sol. Despite its famous name, Copa is a tiny little town without the attractions of its famous namesake in Brazil (which was named in honor of the shrine here), so without wasting any time we all headed straight to the Isla del Sol.
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Tags: health, people, ruins
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Wednesday, December 28th, 2005
We heard from other travelers that it might be possible to actually spend a night on the islands staying with a local family; yet, the book warned us that this experience might be very touristy and quite cheesy. However, nothing prepared us to how kitschy and prearranged this excursion was.
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Tags: market
Posted in Places»South America»Peru | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 27th, 2005
Cuzco was great, but it was time to move on. For days now we have been contemplating our departure, but Cuzco’s creamy soups and being late on updating this journal kept us put. Finally we decided to leave the quiet comfort of Qoni Wasi (“warm home” in Quechua) and take a night bus to Puno, thus saving us travel time and a cost of a night in a hostel. The flip side was that we would get to Puno at 5am and would have to scramble to find a lake tour leaving the same day. We could even end up loosing the day we just gained. When in doubt, ask around. Eventually we found an agent that looked trustworthy enough and who offered us a very good price on full “cama” (bed) night-bus. Furthermore, it turned out his agency was also working with an agency in Puno, so upon our arrival at 5am we would have somebody waiting for us in the bus terminal ready to take us on an 8am boat ride to the islands. Fancy. After the usual half hour bargaining, it ended up being $30 for the night bus, 2-day tour, and all transports to and from bus terminals. We knew we are overpaying a bit, but it was saving us time and hassle, so we didn’t mind.
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Sunday, December 25th, 2005
Time flew by and we realized we spending Christmas in Cuzco. It’s not just that we forgot to buy our bus tickets out of town. The truth is we spent the last couple of days typing up our notes from the jungle. Didn’t really want to bring out the laptop in the canoe.
Here Christmas is quite low key. The biggest event we discovered was once again… Yes you guessed it. The market the day before Christmas.
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Tags: christmas
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Thursday, December 22nd, 2005
Another day of nothing but ruins and bargaining. Pisac is about an hour away from Cuzco where you can see one of greatest ruins aroud: Temple of the Sun.
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Tags: market, ruins
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Wednesday, December 21st, 2005
Exhausted but happy after Machu Picchu, we came back to Cuzco and declared a shopping day. We did less shopping then walking, but in the end we met some very cool people.
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Tags: market
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Tuesday, December 20th, 2005
No words can express the awesomness of our four day hike on the Inca Trail, So here is a tousand pictures.
To get the most out of the experience, we recommend you watch them climbing up a StairMaster about 65 degrees alternating half a day up, half a day down.
Tags: ruins, trekking
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Friday, December 16th, 2005
We arrived at Cuzco, after our 20 hour ride, in the afternoon and decided to take it easy as we didn´t know how will the altitude affect us.
Our Inca Trail trip was going to start in about a day and a half, so in the meantime we were enjoing the city and even took a city tour that turned out to be a waste of time. We should have listened to the “Good Book” and gone to the same sites ourselves by bus.
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Tags: food, kids, ruins
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