Headed North

If you were following a GPS of me, a little red dot would currently be blinking in the capital city of La Paz, Bolivia. Jazmín and I are on our way North to Peru (which the last two times I have planned to travel there, something has come up and my plans changed, so I will let you know if we ever make it there tomorrow). 


Here is a quick breakdown of the trip so far considering that I am in an internet cafe surrounded by teenage boys playing online computer games...


Day 1 Buenos Aires (sniff) to Salta, Argentina

Day 2 Salta

Day 3 Cafayate, Argentina

Day 4 Purmamarca, Argentina- hill of the seven colors (pictures to come)

Day 5 Salt Flats (pictued below-better pics to come, I just nabbed this one off of my facebook)

Day 6 Humahuaca, Argentina- not too much there, but their is a song about a cow (vaca) from Humahuaca

 Day 7 (Sunday) Visit to Tilcara, Argentina, another cute little town and then headed to Jujuy in preparation for an early morning departure to Chile en route to Peru only to get to the bus station the night before to find out that the pass is closed on account of snow and will not be opening until Tuesday (which I guess is today). I return home the 20th and have my mind set on Machu Picchu.

Day 8 We jumped on a bus that took us back through Purmamarca, Tilcara, and Humahuaca and to the border city of La Quiaca where we would begin the journey through Bolivia. Andy, a Brit in our hostel tagged along since his travel plans also hit a bump in the road with Chile out of the question. We had heard from multiple people that you can just walk over the border, travel through Bolivia and walk through to Peru without visas, exit/entry stamps, etc. False.I mean maybe it is true, the people at border control said that if we were passing into Bolivia for the day and returning, that we could pass the line and walk right over the bridge. We would be entering and exiting Bolivia in a day but not leaving from where we came from, so that was not an option. An hour and a half and $135US later, my hiking boots said hello to Bolivia while my mind kept me in a bad mood. My two fellow companions obtained the pretty and shinny Bolivian sticker without even trying and chatted as they waited for the American to fill out her two long papers and pay up. Thank you USoA, I don´t know what we did, but we must have done something. Anyway, we made it to the bus station, jumped on a bus and enjoyed the beautiful rural Bolivian landscape. As the sun tucked itself into bed, dusk outlined the hills with a light blue that slowly turned into the deep darkness of the sky that was speckled with stars. My nose glued itself to the window to see the brilliant shadows cast by the moon in the desert. An occasional cooking fire passed by, accompanied by quiet stoned huts. We left Villazon, Bolivia at 3:30pm yesterday and arrived in La Paz, absolutely frozen solid at 11:30am this morning. We failed to bring along our think llama wool blanket that everyone on the bus had.

Day 9 La Paz, Bolivia and if all goes according to plan, we jump on an 11 hour bus to Cusco, Peru tomorrow morning!!!

Hasta pronto.
-Em