"We look younger than we feel and older than we are."

After greeting Caroline at the airport with a coca-infused energy drink, we realized she was game for anything. The 30 hours of travel from the states (including an 7 hours in the Lima airport) seemed to have little affect on her spirits. After noting this, it was only a formality to ask her if she was up for a professional soccer game. We quickly ate some clearly undercooked meat-on-a-stick (which we've since learned was heart) and we headed into the game. We were able to fake enthusiasm for soccer - as any American football fan will appreciate - for the entire game... right up until the underwhelming 2-2 "conclusion." Don't get us wrong, we appreciate low-scoring, low-speed, read-and-react-type sports where grown men cry when they stub their toe, but I guess we just prefer water polo.

We took in La Paz for a couple days waiting out the roadblocks that kept us there. We found a bus company willing to tests the protesters' mettle by leaving so early that they'd surely catch them napping and we can pass incident-free. We arrived at the bus station at 4:30AM and the gentleman told us condescendingly that the bus now leaves at 8:00AM because the roadblocks have ended. We asked, "Can we just leave now? All the passengers are here." He glazed over and ignored us for several minutes and we took a seat. At 8:00 we approached the gentleman at the counter again and he informed us that the bus now leaves at 4:00PM, since there are roadblocks in Puno, Peru. The idea was again, we'd arrive at the roadblocks at a time when the protesters are too tired to care.


We return at 4:00PM, and the bus left on time and we were stopped by the original roadblocks in La Paz. This is where it all became a little hazy. Waiting, napping, discomfort, waiting, hunger, extremely cold temperatures and waiting cloud the memory and confuse the order of events. I recall a painless border crossing, but also multiple mid-night police raids on our bus wherein I sat bolt upright and clutched my belongings while they roughly searched the Bolivian couple in the seats across the aisle. Why is it dark? I thought there was a sunrise? Or was that a sunset? Wait... which direction are we going? Why won't Tara recline her seat? Why is it light outside? Wasn't there a sunset?

We rolled into Cusco, Peru numb-legged and starving at 6:00AM. It seemed like a descent enough night sleep, but our immediate 5 hour nap said otherwise.

We saw the sights of Cusco, the Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu over 5 days. No time to waste with Caroline's schedule, though there is always a little time for human sacrifice...

After we return to Cusco we scored a $5 hostel in a good part of town and crashed for another night. The next day, I woke up with a kink in my neck. This was my first ever neck-kink and it can be attributed to my now being 28 years old.  However, and thankfully, you can buy anything in the pharmacies down here and I was healed up in a couple days... and slept incredibly well on the ensuing night buses.


We stopped in Puno, Peru quickly and proceeded to Copacabana, Bolivia. We splurged on a $10/night, beach-front private room and just sort of relaxed for a couple days. Then we headed to La Paz where we purchased tickets for that night to Uyuni. Upon arrival in the morning we booked a tour leaving that day for the salt flats and the surrounding geothermal lunar-like wasteland. It was marvelous. The highlight being on the last day when we convinced our tour guide to leave us at the hot springs while he ran some other tourists to the Chilean border. Two hours with just us, thermal baths and the flamingos more than made up for the incredible amount of driving.

We returned to Uyuni and all the buses to La Paz were full. We got a $5 hostel, more meat-on-a-stick and called it a day. In the morning we got our fill of papas rellenas and saltenas and waited for our night bus. Then several interesting things happened in this bizarro-town Uyuni.

We went to an internet cafe to get our fix. I wanted to upload some photos onto their 10 year old Dell computer but I couldn't seem to find the USB port. I started pulling the tower away from the wall to have a looksie and the owner screamed, "What are you doing?!?!?!" (I'm translating on the fly for your benefit... yeah, that's right.) We were startled and he screamed it again. I politely yelled at him to calm down, which he did not. Tara basically asked him "What's your beef, jerky?" and with his pride crushed he began bellowing that he is the one who asks the questions.

We were now confused. He was in a huff, screaming and still refusing my repeated requests that he calm down. Tara and Caroline had by now walked out. And as a show of what can only be described as Christianity we paid him for our two minutes of abuse. He gave me the wrong change. I called him on it and he began genuinely apologizing for his mathematical blunder. I left yet more confused.

We bee-line it for an outdoor bar and discover that because it's Good Friday, it's illegal to flagrantly publicly drink. However, this being a land where they don't care much for anything that hinders alcohol consumption, our lovely hostess poured (under her shawl, of course) three beers into coffee cups. We sat and watched the Good Friday parade. We sipped our beers in the sun as they reenacted the "road to the cross", with some strange Catholic floats thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, another bus ride to La Paz and our 3 weeks with Caroline came to an end. All told, we spent exactly 93 hours in a vehicle (33 of which were off-road). We saw two of the perhaps the top-five sights in South America. Needless to say, we're pooped! It also goes without saying that having Caroline here and the slice of "home" she represented was wonderful. We've been very fortunate to have family and friends from The States visit us on this trip and it has really kept the homesickness in check. With these visitors that keep coming, we could probably keep this up for quite a while.