The 50th day

Well Ryan may have placed the 50th day blog a little two soon. . . .

Today we crossed the boarder from Bolivia to Peru which proved to be an eventful journey. Firstly, the boarder crossing was relatively simple, other than the officials not understanding our visa extension that we obtain in La Paz (as we stayed in Bolivia more then the standard 30 day visa). Then as we drove in Peru along the edge of Lake Titicaca and were surprised to see snow on the banks of the lake - in summer! Although the summer in the Alpine region of South America is nothing like our beautiful Australian summer. This was the first time Ryan has seen snow - a nice start to the journey. Ryan was also very excited to see the tuk tuk (motocarros) taxis as we crossed into Peru, bring back memories of India.

Now i've had some feedback that I write a lot about food - so not to disappoint -

As we knew it was going to be a long bus ride (7hrs) without a chance to buy any lunch or snacks, we stocked up the night before. Ryan's pick was the buffalo wing flavored Pringles, disappointingly not available in Australia, which were incredibly tasty with a little spice - unlike the jalapeño flavored ones we had in the salt flats, you could only eat a couple before having a big mouthful of water. For sweets we picked orange bitter donuts biscuits, they were so good even Ryan could not stop eating them (unusual considering his sweets aversion)!

However, the journey was not entirely 'pleasant', as we did see two fatal accidents after entering Peru, due to the bad weather conditions. It was a sad reminder of how different life is in other parts of the world - as we saw two dead bodies (a man and women) drag off the road and slung into the back of a ute with hundreds of onlookers crowding the accident scene. It was a very sobering experience that showed us a different side of the local culture.

- Louise -

Ryan has spent a lot of today saying that he wrote the 50th day blog post too soon after all the action that happened on the day. I wrote the above section with 2hrs to go on our bus trip and almost as soon as I finished it became apparent it was my turn to say I'd written it too soon. Not long after putting the ipad away, as we entered a small town the bus rolled to a stop and 4 police/customs officers got on and walk all the way to the back of the bus where we were sitting. Then suddenly the commotion broke out, all entirely in Spanish. The two row of seats behind us were a group travelling together with a lot of bad smelling luggage, the officers had started slashing their bags while the group yelled aggressively and literally dived for their belongings. Given what part of the world we are in Ryan and I expected that we might at any moment be covered in clouds of suspect white powder. After a little arguing the customs officers got off the bus, but we didn't move off but just sat there watching a huge storm roll in. At this point we had no explanation as to what was happening as not one spoke English. So we just sat and waited and waited until the storm was just about to break and suddenly the officers were back commanding us to 'take everything' and pointing to us to get off the bus. As the hail began to rain down we were huddled in the doorway of the bus when finally Ryan got talking to a friendly officer stationed at the door, we told us that the were carrying illegally merchandise (not sure what exactly he was referring too). After about 1/2 hr of fighting and officers throwing clothing (wrapped in plastic ready to be sold) out the windows, the officers all got off the bus and we went on our merry way. We slowly moved back to our seats where the group of people involved were sitting around crying. We are still not exactly sure what was taken from them but there was no white powder everywhere but instead crushed up potato chips . . . . But at least we were finally on our way to Cusco.

We have now arrived (so I feel safe to write the end of the blog post) and are settled in at our hostel home sweet home, looking forward to exploring Cusco.

- Louise -