October 1
Sleepy Sicuani, Peru. When we arrived the jefe immediately asked if we were coming from Cusco and off to Puno tomorrow. We said yes and all had a giggle, as this hotel and stopover is basically the only gig in town unless one wants to ride from sun up to sundown. It was a nice enough ride… not inspiring to either Ernesto or I, but very pleasant. This part of Peru definitely has their act together, and it was very nice to see some agriculture; there was non-stop small scale farming in the valley the entire way from Cusco to here. There were so many fresh veggies and fruits offered in the mercado in Cusco that baffled us a little, and now we know where they all come from (as they sure as heck aren’t from north or west of Cusco). There is a breed or type of sheep in this part of Peru that has a long and fluffy tail. At first I mistook them as golden retrievers as they were on leashes. But then we saw herds of them, and seeing sheep with long, bushy tails is funny. Neither of us had known sheep to have long tails and we wondered if Northern breeders cut their tails off at birth. We tried to hypothesize why people would cut off sheep tails and Ernesto said, “the only thing I can think of is dingle balls.”
After our extraordinary and memorable meal last night neither one of us wanted to eat here in Sicuani… all we could find was pollerias (a.k.a., chicken served with rice or french fries), places that advertised stew (a.k.a., random organ meats and salt and potatoes), and pizza (just no. No.). We tried to eat out; we went to “Sol y Sombra”, which is indeed a little bar pub with sun and shade. Even with the charming tables of mumbling Sunday day drinkers, we just couldn’t imagine putting fork to mouth over any of the three things they were offering for lunch. So we just had a liter of beer and decided that whatever we could muster up from the grocery store would be as unappealing and cheaper than what we could have eaten there. After all, there were many refrigerators holding drinks and meats but none of the refrigerators were actually powered to the on and cold position…. So post shopping, Ernesto put down a can of tuna and a can of peaches. I fired up the jetboil and had some ramen noodles and peanuts. Sigh.
During our walk around town we passed by a row of pinaterias (a.k.a., party stores). Of particular note was the micro plastic being sold for about $.30 (USD) a quart sized ziploc; their purpose to to be put in the pinata and then when it was smashed open, the lightweight plastic beads would float around and make for a nice visual effect. From chickens to anchovies, these colorful little bits of plastic are exactly what so many kinds of animals look for to eat. It won’t be long before Peruvians are getting those party favors in their organ meat chicken soup.
October 2
Banner day for us. After about another 50 km of small scale farms and no garbage, we went up a bit in elevation and the farming turned to ranching. Fuzzy and cute cows, woolly sheep with tails, and lots of llamas and alpacas. The mountains in the background of our little valley got steep, dark, and snow capped. Those 100 km were very dramatic, inspiring, and fun. Sonrisas. After that we came down just a bit, and the river widened and the population became a bit more dense as we headed into Juliaca and then on to Puno. There was one particularly memorable stretch (~30 km) were to our right was nothing but herds of alpacas and huacayas (and boy do I like huacayas!) and to our left was a calm, windy river speckled with flamingos. We must have seen ~100 Chilean flamingos foraging along the riverbank. Awesome. Our other wildlife highlight of the day was the black and white hawk eagle (also total bad assery). We saw nine pairs and one solo. And hundreds of green ibises which look black in the shade and iridescent green in the sun.
The low of our ride was the shitty roads in Juliaca. The road went from nice pavimento to a dirt-boulder field with a POOF. They were clearly working or thinking about working on a project but who knows about its future. It was truly a field - traffic was going wherever it wanted to go. There were no “roads”. A few months ago we do not think we would have been able to navigate that, but after these past few months and turning on a little charm at a busy intersection, we were able to siga.
The highlight of our ride was Iglesia de Santa Isabel in Pucara. We saw it from the main road and, in front of those rocks, we decided it was worth finding (which admittedly only took a few blocks). It was built in the 1750’s (?) and one of the most striking things about it is the size and color of each brick. It stands tall on the west end of the town square plaza, and it is so big and the trees in the plaza are so large one can’t see the grandness or entirety of the scene from any angle. After we oogled and took a few photos, Ernesto wandered off to the tables in the plaza. He returned with presents for me! Two hand-made mini alpacas, or as they are now known, Rosa y Papa. Rosa is pink and white and on my left mirror, and Papa is green and yellow and on my right. I heart them. They shall be my guardian ungulate angels through Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. Gracias Ernesto :)
Puno is another gringo town, so after checking in we Googled “gringo food in Puno, Peru” and found a plethora within walking distance. We ate guacamole, BLT, greens - broccoli and snow peas! With full bellies it was time to walk and go see the star of the show, Lake Titicaca. One of the highest lakes in the world at 3800 m (12,500 feet). Sadly it is facing pollution problems, and both Ernie and I were quick to notice the thick, black exhaust coming out of the tourist boat that had just dropped gringos off at the dock. It is fun to say “Titicaca”, and while my juvenile-self immediately thinks of tits and poop, some research leads us to a rough translation of “gray puma”. This would explain the school bus sized statue of a gray puma that sits high on the hill as you come into Puno from the North. We admired the lake (and cool dredging boat) from ashore but choose not to take a tour or rent a paddle boat. We did however enjoy walking through the mercados and street vendors. To El Marko, you will be pleased that, as un regalo para ti, we have accumulated a fine collection of Peruvian flute music. One CD is entirely Bryan Adam’s cover songs.
We’re not sure it will be worth it, or whether the country of Peru will consider it cruel and unusual punishment and arrest us, but we are having the hotel wash all our clothes :0
October 3
The people of Peru have been so great. I haven’t written about it enough. Up until today I had absolutely nothing bad to say about Peruvians. There is a cultural thing here (and many of the countries we have been in) to say yes, si, siga, of course, claro! When the reality is no. Just no. They say yes to be nice, which we can appreciate, but really its no... And we’ve been ok with it for the most part as we’ve been able to make decisions on whether or not their ‘promise’ of yes was worth it. We ask before we go in a restaurant if they serve rice and beans, they say yes, we go in, they in fact don’t serve rice and beans, but it ends up ok because we eat something else. It ends up ok, and most of the time we have rolled with the si claro siga, but this morning the laundry hit us hard. Our dirty laundry was not washed. It was wadded up in a plastic bag all night. Our clothes had no business being in an unbreathable bag for 12 hours. “Lo siento” she says. For what? For lying? For not doing the laundry? Clear as day we talked of it being done before breakfast. I asked if it would be done by 7 am, she said maybe, but for sure by 8 am. The promise of laundry being done was made. But no. Laundry was not done. Sigh. Ernesto and I put on our filth and headed out of town.
We had an easy ride. More flamingos, some great views of lake Titicaca, and some really cool rock formations. Lots of fish farming going on on the SE corner of the lake, and my guess is trout based on local menus and signs. We were both in a good mood because we were both stoked to leave Peru and get to Bolivia. We had to get gas and fill up our gas bladder (more on that later), which meant ditching some non-essentials to make room for five gallons of gas on E’s bike. We asked the gas attendant if he wanted any of our things. He asked if they were for sale, and we said no, regalos (gifts). He gobbled them all up. We are pretty sure he didn’t even know what he was getting, but from his perspective if it was coming from gringos on big expensive it was probably good stuff. Hopefully he figures out to assemble our camp chairs. It is also a little funny we gave him a seriously good and large dry bag in this desert…
Our gas stop was over by 11 and then we proceeded to the wrong frontera (the one we went to was only commercial trucks). There was some massive construction that we knew made getting to the other highway-to-frontera path impossible, so we asked a mototaxi to take us there and we would follow. We thought we had it right (as there were lots of moto taxis) but we lost her at some point and ended up following a different moto taxi deep into the border town… opps! Eventually the moto taxi we were following pulled over and gave us a big “wtf” face as to why we were following him. We all laughed and then E paid him to take us to the frontera, as now we were really lost. The mototaxi pulls up to this market, and both Ernesto and I are like “no, dude take us TO the frontera”. But then we see a policeman and Ernesto verifies that yep, this is the way to the border crossing. Ernesto pays the man and we make a left into the mercado… Ernesto and I are baffled. We are in the middle of a busy mercado. We were rolling along slowly but then come to a dead stop. The culprit was the bicycle full of plastic balls in front of us that got stuck on an umbrella (because, you know, that happens). And then because Peruvians are so short it took a disproportionately long time to free the bag of plastic balls from the umbrella, which gave me enough time to pull out my camera and take a quick pic and video. After that funny time we went all the way through the market and to the customs office. Zero problems leaving Peru (it took 15 minutes). Then we cross the bridge to Bolivia…
A skanky dude tells us we need five things: 1) current bank statement, 2) proof of accommodations in Bolivia, 3) proof of yellow fever vaccine, 4) color photos of ourselves, and 5) $160 USD each. This list of things is printed on a small piece of paper and taped to the wall outside customs, and the skanky dude demanding these things is not in uniform and just seems like a worthless peice of crap who is shaking down two USAmericans. We go back to Peru to do these things and I’m just stewing… We find a gaggle of Canadian tourists. We follow them to see if they get the same treatment and they indeed did not. Tara puts up stink with skanky dude and actually rips some blank visa applications out of Canadian dude’s hand (sorry random Canadian, my bad). Convinced we were being scammed, I was determined to make enough of a stink that skanky dude would just give us the paper we needed to go to customs. We got visa papers and get to customs. We felt a brief moment of victory over skanky dude and I was feeling great about not taking crap from skanky dudes. We get to customs and yep, we actually do need all those things that skanky dude said we needed... There was some very official signage (back in with customs) that explained how there are countries that don’t need visas and then countries that need type I and type II visas. USAmerica needs type I, which does in fact require all those things. Fuck. It isn’t like this town has a Walgreen’s with a one hour photo shop or a decent computer facility where you can download pdf’s. If we needed a knit cap or a root vegetable we were set, but there is no where to print via wifi. I felt like Bolivia asked us to build a house out of toothpicks. And FYI Bolivia, please put those official government signs on the front of your building and not in the back room where people end up at the END of their border crossing.
So we go back to Peru and eventually found internet. A 10 x 12 foot room with eight computers, six children playing really low quality video games, and one very unhelpful fat man. There were also different keyboards, so typing was a shit show… say nothing of special characters that require instruction from unhelpful fat man. For example, to type an * on that keyboard I had to hold down “control 6 4” all at the same time, the number keys were really sticky, and almost all of my passwords have an * as the required special character. At one point it took me 20 minutes to correctly enter a known password. Long story short, the hardest thing on our list to get was the bank statement. Our bank doesn’t recognize the location we are logging in from, which why would they? To verify our login they are sending an email to my work email. Ugh… haven’t checked that in months. In the meantime not only has my password expired, but Uni of Portland has switched to yet another new Office 365 where we need password update crap. To solve all problems I needed Wifi with the info stored on my iPad, so I went walking around and the only place I could match the name of the wifi with the place was a polleria. They said for 1 sole ($.30) I could sit in the kitchen on the floor. Ugh. I did, and the internet went out every 5-10 minutes and then eventually stopped working altogether. I gave them 5 soles (about $1.60) for all the running back and forth I did between the chicken kitchen and the 10 x 12 game room Ernesto was in. But during my wifi session and E’s very expensive piggy back on Peruvian cell towers, three superheros get called upon. Bonnie Reynolds, Tonya Butts, and CLW. Bonnie and Ernie are texting and Bonnie is calling our bank and our bank eventually calls us and agreed to email a bank statement. Prior to that, Super Hero Tonya Butts called the IT desk at my work and got them to send me a temporary password. After that, Super Hero CLW used said password to login to my UP account and get bank passcode and eventual pdf. To you three women in and around Portland, Oregon - bitches get shit done. We heart you all for coming to our rescue. Especially me as I was on the verge of imploding.
By now it's about 4 pm and it’s getting cold. We still need the actual Visa and to do our vehicle import permits. With all (almost) final originals and copies in hand, we watch the guy cut and glue our official visa with a Minion glue stick. Not kidding, a glue stick with those stupid yellow Minion things on it. Sign here. Go make copies in the shop with all the cookies and soda. By now we have a stack of 20-30 “things” to get a 10 year visa in Bolivia. The woman that has been helping us goes to the back and returns with a huge cardboard folder for both E and I that is to hold all the papers and copies we have made. These folders would put a Trapper Keeper to shame. Eventually it is time to pay and the guy says all our money must be nice. No dings or folds or rips in any of the bills. Ernesto gives him the $320 USD and he proceeds to inspect each $20 bill. He makes two piles: one of acceptable money and one of unacceptable money. Luckily Ernesto had enough “acceptable” 20’s that we could make the exchange. What would have happened if we did not have enough acceptable $20’s?
I don’t know what time we got to the aduana to do our moto paperwork, and I don’t know how long it took, but it was straightforward and pretty quick. At this point it was six hours since arriving at the border (seven hours if you count the time change). The same massive construction that led us through the mercado in Peru continued in Bolivia, so we bumbled getting out of town. Luckily a rotund woman with a great hat getting wheeled around in a cart motioned which way to go, and we trusted her, followed, and gave her our thanks.
The autopista was good, so we rode 100 km/h until sunset. Racing the sun. Cold. Bitter cold. Admittedly it was a beautiful sky, and we could see both the moon and row of snow capped peaks. I’ve never been in high mountain desert, and I think we we are in for a real treat. We could see the town off in distance… chasing that desert town full of brick buildings, concrete, and rebar… This landscape is so desolate I can’t even explain it. We weren’t fast enough however, as we arrived to the hotel after dark. The building, the massive building on the corner, was completely dark. Not a single light or sign that it was a functioning hotel (despite an already paid for reservation on expedia.com). So dark. So quiet. (Pic on Google Maps is after they turned lights on). This is the ONLY hotel for kilometers and its in a place that can barely be considered a town… if this was closed we were riding another 75 km to La Paz in the dark and cold and the thought of that was pushing me over the edge. I park the moto and go to the front doors. No light. No people. No nothing. The tears and emotional wave are building… I bang on the doors in pathetic desperation and discover one of the doors is open. I bust through and start screaming “Hellooo?!? Es abierto?!?!?” In the total darkness. Two women appear from the third floor and turn on a light. I completely lost my shit. Full on balling, crying, hunched over, can’t catch my breath sobbing mess.
If it weren’t obvious from the lighting issue, we were the only people staying in this hotel. La senora was so very sweet and welcoming, and felt bad over the drama caused by the hotel “shutting down” for the evening despite our reservation. Before the protocol of checking in she offered firing up the kitchen and making us dinner (as presumably if we wanted any food today, this was it, as there is nothing else in town and Ernesto and I hadn’t eaten since last night). Into the protocol of checking in, she inspected our passports. She had actually visited New Jersey and wanted to know the town I was born in. She knew the town and was excited and wanted to talk NJ, but I wasn’t equipped emotionally to engage over that fact so I just smiled. I am sorry La Senora, I should have had my act together enough to engage with you.
After the meltdown and with awful Peruvian chicken in our bellies, I have three reflections. One, I am so sorry Ernesto... Truly so sorry. He had to watch me do all that in that in that dark street and dark lobby with those two women… no bueno. Two, I think the reason I broke down was that it was all OK. Once those two women showed up and turned the lights on of this three story hotel we were officially out of the cold and dark and had a place to sleep and eat and poop, well the drama of the day was over. I.e., if I can’t be a person who never loses her shit, at least I’m a person who loses her shit when its all OK and not when it's all a mess. And three, it is too bad this hotel does not have a security camera, because (now after it's over) I would have paid some good money to watch my desperate self, in my helmet and full moto gear, banging on the glass doors of this hotel screaming “Hola!!! Es Abierto?!?!!”
Sleepy Sicuani, Peru. When we arrived the jefe immediately asked if we were coming from Cusco and off to Puno tomorrow. We said yes and all had a giggle, as this hotel and stopover is basically the only gig in town unless one wants to ride from sun up to sundown. It was a nice enough ride… not inspiring to either Ernesto or I, but very pleasant. This part of Peru definitely has their act together, and it was very nice to see some agriculture; there was non-stop small scale farming in the valley the entire way from Cusco to here. There were so many fresh veggies and fruits offered in the mercado in Cusco that baffled us a little, and now we know where they all come from (as they sure as heck aren’t from north or west of Cusco). There is a breed or type of sheep in this part of Peru that has a long and fluffy tail. At first I mistook them as golden retrievers as they were on leashes. But then we saw herds of them, and seeing sheep with long, bushy tails is funny. Neither of us had known sheep to have long tails and we wondered if Northern breeders cut their tails off at birth. We tried to hypothesize why people would cut off sheep tails and Ernesto said, “the only thing I can think of is dingle balls.”
After our extraordinary and memorable meal last night neither one of us wanted to eat here in Sicuani… all we could find was pollerias (a.k.a., chicken served with rice or french fries), places that advertised stew (a.k.a., random organ meats and salt and potatoes), and pizza (just no. No.). We tried to eat out; we went to “Sol y Sombra”, which is indeed a little bar pub with sun and shade. Even with the charming tables of mumbling Sunday day drinkers, we just couldn’t imagine putting fork to mouth over any of the three things they were offering for lunch. So we just had a liter of beer and decided that whatever we could muster up from the grocery store would be as unappealing and cheaper than what we could have eaten there. After all, there were many refrigerators holding drinks and meats but none of the refrigerators were actually powered to the on and cold position…. So post shopping, Ernesto put down a can of tuna and a can of peaches. I fired up the jetboil and had some ramen noodles and peanuts. Sigh.
During our walk around town we passed by a row of pinaterias (a.k.a., party stores). Of particular note was the micro plastic being sold for about $.30 (USD) a quart sized ziploc; their purpose to to be put in the pinata and then when it was smashed open, the lightweight plastic beads would float around and make for a nice visual effect. From chickens to anchovies, these colorful little bits of plastic are exactly what so many kinds of animals look for to eat. It won’t be long before Peruvians are getting those party favors in their organ meat chicken soup.
October 2
Banner day for us. After about another 50 km of small scale farms and no garbage, we went up a bit in elevation and the farming turned to ranching. Fuzzy and cute cows, woolly sheep with tails, and lots of llamas and alpacas. The mountains in the background of our little valley got steep, dark, and snow capped. Those 100 km were very dramatic, inspiring, and fun. Sonrisas. After that we came down just a bit, and the river widened and the population became a bit more dense as we headed into Juliaca and then on to Puno. There was one particularly memorable stretch (~30 km) were to our right was nothing but herds of alpacas and huacayas (and boy do I like huacayas!) and to our left was a calm, windy river speckled with flamingos. We must have seen ~100 Chilean flamingos foraging along the riverbank. Awesome. Our other wildlife highlight of the day was the black and white hawk eagle (also total bad assery). We saw nine pairs and one solo. And hundreds of green ibises which look black in the shade and iridescent green in the sun.
The low of our ride was the shitty roads in Juliaca. The road went from nice pavimento to a dirt-boulder field with a POOF. They were clearly working or thinking about working on a project but who knows about its future. It was truly a field - traffic was going wherever it wanted to go. There were no “roads”. A few months ago we do not think we would have been able to navigate that, but after these past few months and turning on a little charm at a busy intersection, we were able to siga.
The highlight of our ride was Iglesia de Santa Isabel in Pucara. We saw it from the main road and, in front of those rocks, we decided it was worth finding (which admittedly only took a few blocks). It was built in the 1750’s (?) and one of the most striking things about it is the size and color of each brick. It stands tall on the west end of the town square plaza, and it is so big and the trees in the plaza are so large one can’t see the grandness or entirety of the scene from any angle. After we oogled and took a few photos, Ernesto wandered off to the tables in the plaza. He returned with presents for me! Two hand-made mini alpacas, or as they are now known, Rosa y Papa. Rosa is pink and white and on my left mirror, and Papa is green and yellow and on my right. I heart them. They shall be my guardian ungulate angels through Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. Gracias Ernesto :)
Puno is another gringo town, so after checking in we Googled “gringo food in Puno, Peru” and found a plethora within walking distance. We ate guacamole, BLT, greens - broccoli and snow peas! With full bellies it was time to walk and go see the star of the show, Lake Titicaca. One of the highest lakes in the world at 3800 m (12,500 feet). Sadly it is facing pollution problems, and both Ernie and I were quick to notice the thick, black exhaust coming out of the tourist boat that had just dropped gringos off at the dock. It is fun to say “Titicaca”, and while my juvenile-self immediately thinks of tits and poop, some research leads us to a rough translation of “gray puma”. This would explain the school bus sized statue of a gray puma that sits high on the hill as you come into Puno from the North. We admired the lake (and cool dredging boat) from ashore but choose not to take a tour or rent a paddle boat. We did however enjoy walking through the mercados and street vendors. To El Marko, you will be pleased that, as un regalo para ti, we have accumulated a fine collection of Peruvian flute music. One CD is entirely Bryan Adam’s cover songs.
We’re not sure it will be worth it, or whether the country of Peru will consider it cruel and unusual punishment and arrest us, but we are having the hotel wash all our clothes :0
October 3
The people of Peru have been so great. I haven’t written about it enough. Up until today I had absolutely nothing bad to say about Peruvians. There is a cultural thing here (and many of the countries we have been in) to say yes, si, siga, of course, claro! When the reality is no. Just no. They say yes to be nice, which we can appreciate, but really its no... And we’ve been ok with it for the most part as we’ve been able to make decisions on whether or not their ‘promise’ of yes was worth it. We ask before we go in a restaurant if they serve rice and beans, they say yes, we go in, they in fact don’t serve rice and beans, but it ends up ok because we eat something else. It ends up ok, and most of the time we have rolled with the si claro siga, but this morning the laundry hit us hard. Our dirty laundry was not washed. It was wadded up in a plastic bag all night. Our clothes had no business being in an unbreathable bag for 12 hours. “Lo siento” she says. For what? For lying? For not doing the laundry? Clear as day we talked of it being done before breakfast. I asked if it would be done by 7 am, she said maybe, but for sure by 8 am. The promise of laundry being done was made. But no. Laundry was not done. Sigh. Ernesto and I put on our filth and headed out of town.
We had an easy ride. More flamingos, some great views of lake Titicaca, and some really cool rock formations. Lots of fish farming going on on the SE corner of the lake, and my guess is trout based on local menus and signs. We were both in a good mood because we were both stoked to leave Peru and get to Bolivia. We had to get gas and fill up our gas bladder (more on that later), which meant ditching some non-essentials to make room for five gallons of gas on E’s bike. We asked the gas attendant if he wanted any of our things. He asked if they were for sale, and we said no, regalos (gifts). He gobbled them all up. We are pretty sure he didn’t even know what he was getting, but from his perspective if it was coming from gringos on big expensive it was probably good stuff. Hopefully he figures out to assemble our camp chairs. It is also a little funny we gave him a seriously good and large dry bag in this desert…
Our gas stop was over by 11 and then we proceeded to the wrong frontera (the one we went to was only commercial trucks). There was some massive construction that we knew made getting to the other highway-to-frontera path impossible, so we asked a mototaxi to take us there and we would follow. We thought we had it right (as there were lots of moto taxis) but we lost her at some point and ended up following a different moto taxi deep into the border town… opps! Eventually the moto taxi we were following pulled over and gave us a big “wtf” face as to why we were following him. We all laughed and then E paid him to take us to the frontera, as now we were really lost. The mototaxi pulls up to this market, and both Ernesto and I are like “no, dude take us TO the frontera”. But then we see a policeman and Ernesto verifies that yep, this is the way to the border crossing. Ernesto pays the man and we make a left into the mercado… Ernesto and I are baffled. We are in the middle of a busy mercado. We were rolling along slowly but then come to a dead stop. The culprit was the bicycle full of plastic balls in front of us that got stuck on an umbrella (because, you know, that happens). And then because Peruvians are so short it took a disproportionately long time to free the bag of plastic balls from the umbrella, which gave me enough time to pull out my camera and take a quick pic and video. After that funny time we went all the way through the market and to the customs office. Zero problems leaving Peru (it took 15 minutes). Then we cross the bridge to Bolivia…
A skanky dude tells us we need five things: 1) current bank statement, 2) proof of accommodations in Bolivia, 3) proof of yellow fever vaccine, 4) color photos of ourselves, and 5) $160 USD each. This list of things is printed on a small piece of paper and taped to the wall outside customs, and the skanky dude demanding these things is not in uniform and just seems like a worthless peice of crap who is shaking down two USAmericans. We go back to Peru to do these things and I’m just stewing… We find a gaggle of Canadian tourists. We follow them to see if they get the same treatment and they indeed did not. Tara puts up stink with skanky dude and actually rips some blank visa applications out of Canadian dude’s hand (sorry random Canadian, my bad). Convinced we were being scammed, I was determined to make enough of a stink that skanky dude would just give us the paper we needed to go to customs. We got visa papers and get to customs. We felt a brief moment of victory over skanky dude and I was feeling great about not taking crap from skanky dudes. We get to customs and yep, we actually do need all those things that skanky dude said we needed... There was some very official signage (back in with customs) that explained how there are countries that don’t need visas and then countries that need type I and type II visas. USAmerica needs type I, which does in fact require all those things. Fuck. It isn’t like this town has a Walgreen’s with a one hour photo shop or a decent computer facility where you can download pdf’s. If we needed a knit cap or a root vegetable we were set, but there is no where to print via wifi. I felt like Bolivia asked us to build a house out of toothpicks. And FYI Bolivia, please put those official government signs on the front of your building and not in the back room where people end up at the END of their border crossing.
So we go back to Peru and eventually found internet. A 10 x 12 foot room with eight computers, six children playing really low quality video games, and one very unhelpful fat man. There were also different keyboards, so typing was a shit show… say nothing of special characters that require instruction from unhelpful fat man. For example, to type an * on that keyboard I had to hold down “control 6 4” all at the same time, the number keys were really sticky, and almost all of my passwords have an * as the required special character. At one point it took me 20 minutes to correctly enter a known password. Long story short, the hardest thing on our list to get was the bank statement. Our bank doesn’t recognize the location we are logging in from, which why would they? To verify our login they are sending an email to my work email. Ugh… haven’t checked that in months. In the meantime not only has my password expired, but Uni of Portland has switched to yet another new Office 365 where we need password update crap. To solve all problems I needed Wifi with the info stored on my iPad, so I went walking around and the only place I could match the name of the wifi with the place was a polleria. They said for 1 sole ($.30) I could sit in the kitchen on the floor. Ugh. I did, and the internet went out every 5-10 minutes and then eventually stopped working altogether. I gave them 5 soles (about $1.60) for all the running back and forth I did between the chicken kitchen and the 10 x 12 game room Ernesto was in. But during my wifi session and E’s very expensive piggy back on Peruvian cell towers, three superheros get called upon. Bonnie Reynolds, Tonya Butts, and CLW. Bonnie and Ernie are texting and Bonnie is calling our bank and our bank eventually calls us and agreed to email a bank statement. Prior to that, Super Hero Tonya Butts called the IT desk at my work and got them to send me a temporary password. After that, Super Hero CLW used said password to login to my UP account and get bank passcode and eventual pdf. To you three women in and around Portland, Oregon - bitches get shit done. We heart you all for coming to our rescue. Especially me as I was on the verge of imploding.
By now it's about 4 pm and it’s getting cold. We still need the actual Visa and to do our vehicle import permits. With all (almost) final originals and copies in hand, we watch the guy cut and glue our official visa with a Minion glue stick. Not kidding, a glue stick with those stupid yellow Minion things on it. Sign here. Go make copies in the shop with all the cookies and soda. By now we have a stack of 20-30 “things” to get a 10 year visa in Bolivia. The woman that has been helping us goes to the back and returns with a huge cardboard folder for both E and I that is to hold all the papers and copies we have made. These folders would put a Trapper Keeper to shame. Eventually it is time to pay and the guy says all our money must be nice. No dings or folds or rips in any of the bills. Ernesto gives him the $320 USD and he proceeds to inspect each $20 bill. He makes two piles: one of acceptable money and one of unacceptable money. Luckily Ernesto had enough “acceptable” 20’s that we could make the exchange. What would have happened if we did not have enough acceptable $20’s?
I don’t know what time we got to the aduana to do our moto paperwork, and I don’t know how long it took, but it was straightforward and pretty quick. At this point it was six hours since arriving at the border (seven hours if you count the time change). The same massive construction that led us through the mercado in Peru continued in Bolivia, so we bumbled getting out of town. Luckily a rotund woman with a great hat getting wheeled around in a cart motioned which way to go, and we trusted her, followed, and gave her our thanks.
The autopista was good, so we rode 100 km/h until sunset. Racing the sun. Cold. Bitter cold. Admittedly it was a beautiful sky, and we could see both the moon and row of snow capped peaks. I’ve never been in high mountain desert, and I think we we are in for a real treat. We could see the town off in distance… chasing that desert town full of brick buildings, concrete, and rebar… This landscape is so desolate I can’t even explain it. We weren’t fast enough however, as we arrived to the hotel after dark. The building, the massive building on the corner, was completely dark. Not a single light or sign that it was a functioning hotel (despite an already paid for reservation on expedia.com). So dark. So quiet. (Pic on Google Maps is after they turned lights on). This is the ONLY hotel for kilometers and its in a place that can barely be considered a town… if this was closed we were riding another 75 km to La Paz in the dark and cold and the thought of that was pushing me over the edge. I park the moto and go to the front doors. No light. No people. No nothing. The tears and emotional wave are building… I bang on the doors in pathetic desperation and discover one of the doors is open. I bust through and start screaming “Hellooo?!? Es abierto?!?!?” In the total darkness. Two women appear from the third floor and turn on a light. I completely lost my shit. Full on balling, crying, hunched over, can’t catch my breath sobbing mess.
If it weren’t obvious from the lighting issue, we were the only people staying in this hotel. La senora was so very sweet and welcoming, and felt bad over the drama caused by the hotel “shutting down” for the evening despite our reservation. Before the protocol of checking in she offered firing up the kitchen and making us dinner (as presumably if we wanted any food today, this was it, as there is nothing else in town and Ernesto and I hadn’t eaten since last night). Into the protocol of checking in, she inspected our passports. She had actually visited New Jersey and wanted to know the town I was born in. She knew the town and was excited and wanted to talk NJ, but I wasn’t equipped emotionally to engage over that fact so I just smiled. I am sorry La Senora, I should have had my act together enough to engage with you.
After the meltdown and with awful Peruvian chicken in our bellies, I have three reflections. One, I am so sorry Ernesto... Truly so sorry. He had to watch me do all that in that in that dark street and dark lobby with those two women… no bueno. Two, I think the reason I broke down was that it was all OK. Once those two women showed up and turned the lights on of this three story hotel we were officially out of the cold and dark and had a place to sleep and eat and poop, well the drama of the day was over. I.e., if I can’t be a person who never loses her shit, at least I’m a person who loses her shit when its all OK and not when it's all a mess. And three, it is too bad this hotel does not have a security camera, because (now after it's over) I would have paid some good money to watch my desperate self, in my helmet and full moto gear, banging on the glass doors of this hotel screaming “Hola!!! Es Abierto?!?!!”