The Blue Bolivian

So what's happened since the Colca canyon... hmm well not much REALLY.

We managed to tie up the rest of southern Peru in a whirlwind tour finishing back in Lima for a short spell. Of course we had to go looking for the 'Best Chocolate in the World' and a new 'Dancing Top' but it was amazing how stressed Ros could get on this seeming ideal assignment. Then it was a short trip through the old haunt of an ex-political group in Peru known as The Shining Path. But nothing too much shone except for the down some really steep valleys as we descended into the Amazon Basin.

We landed in Pucallpa after 22 hours on ANOTHER bus (we are becoming world experts on bus travel). The heat had descended as we descended from the mountains and it was good to feel a bit of a sweat, although that was almost foreign to us, being dogged by winter since we landed in Chile. Selection of a hotel wasn't difficult, being budget traveller, but Ros was just shy of freaking out and heading home after one sight of the bathrooms. First port of call was to the river port to find our home for the next week and a half. A Peruvian slow boat! We had been told to arrive early before ground-zero on the living deck got too crowded. We landed back at ground-zero the next day to be swamped by every kind of person trying ever manner of stuff from hammocks, plates and cakes to underwear. Ground-zero was a teeming festering wound on the Good Ship Claudia´s rusting hulk. If have to understand that a Peruvian slow boat is more like a river barge with about 3 open decks with, if your lucky, working showers and toilet and the kitchen all crammed at one end of the living space. As the minutes slowly ticked by this infestation inly worsened. Were we thought no more hammocks could go they were... on top and through each other. Ground-zero was ALIVE.When 'El Presidente' arrived and strung his penthouse hammock above another, forcing the eviction of a woman and her 3 kids we thought it had gone way too far: there were hammocks sideways crossways, feet and heads in our hammock!! But then MORE came, beside us, between - and there went the neighbourhood. 'El Presidente' later turned out to be a tour guide who spoke English  so after plying him with rum, R os started the torture techniques to find out where she could get her hands on a Sloth. Our hammock, Ros's pride and joy from La Paz, was of a tradition design of bright blue and other colours of the rainbow. No sooner had we lost the gumboots than we gained the 'Blue Bolivian' for MY backpack ;( This thing seemed like a magnet to the other hammocks in Peru - more like a light to the jungle insects. Where ever we strung our Blue Bolivian became the most congested area of the boat. The Peruvians may have some herding instinct that makes them forsake the wide open spaces in favour so as to flock together to bask in the glow of the Blue Bolvian. Finally Iquitos, where we tried 'El Presidentes' advice and sought out a sloth, which we had to crowbar from Ros's arms before leaving. Then there was another boat of the Peruvian slow variety to the border with Brasil and Columbia.

Days blend into each other sailing down the Amazon for Manaus. We followed the coffee coloured waters as they meandered across the flat expanse that is the Amazon basin. Lingering now and then at river bank villages to take on all kind of cargo and exchange a few passengers. There are women whose traditional costume is the habit of nuns coloured the south american way as greens, reds and purples. During the day the cramped hammock space swelters in the humidity, made worse by the steel hulls, but as the sun sets across the ever widening river we can witness the cool tranquillity and its serenity.
On the way Leitecia, a corner of south america shared by Columbia, Peru and Brasil, our Blue Bolivian snapped its moorings sending us both to the deck in the middle of the night. All I could do was laugh which woke Ros and it was then that she realised something had happened. Now the was the boat to Manaus, Brasil. All our efforts to learn the language would amount to nought because now we were in the Portuguese speaking world and it was back to sign language. The boat we were after, Voyager II, was not in town but we took the on that was. Then it was on to Manaus, this time in the relative luxury of a Brazilian boat. It was cool, the food was great, and they served coffee :) When we arrived we discovered that Ros's guardian angel had been looking after her again as the Voyager II had sunk just outside of Manaus!!

We hardly spent anytime in Manaus, not even long enough for Ros to buy one of those famous unmatchable bikinis. Then it was off to Venezuela where we saw a few too many waterfalls, including Angel, and got ripped off getting across the border to Columbia. We didn't even spend a night in Caracas, but met a ex-pat Trinidadian who told us how on his island the Holden was a Porche back in the '70s. He also told us that everyone in Venezuela as out to rip us off. Prophetic words. Columbia was altogether different. After hearing so many good things from other travellers we put it on our itinerary. First was the jungle walk to The Lost City. Sleeping in hammocks and walking through the jungle, it was one of the best walks we have done, putting Machu Piccu to shame. Then we had some RnR on a Caribbean beach subsisting on Chocolate bread (more like a cake) and coconuts. Cartegena was a beautiful colonial town still bearing the fortifications from being a Spanish collection port for Incan gold. But, perhaps it suffered a little too much from the cruise ships that come to plunder now like the pirates of old. But instead of Sir Francis Drake it is rich Americans and Germans.

Columbia was where our saga with American Airlines began. We had changed our round-the-world ticket to include a stopover in NYC, USA. All we had to do was get our coupons reissued, easy right. WRONG. AA in Bogata couldn't do it for the simple reason that we have Cuba on our ticket. The computer system for AA apparently has some 'smarts' that bar an American company even printing it out with Cuba in it. We did manage to get on the flight to Miami, after much head scratching, where we were assured QANTAS would sort everything out.

Miami. After about 4hrs of sleep the night before we struggle into the US of A. We try to find Qantas, its like asking for direction on a hike in Peru: noone will tell you they don't know, they simply send you the wrong way. Finally we discover that they have no office here and instead rely on AA, arrrggh, for ticketing. Javier begins by bagging the Columbians then proceeds to cover his own arse and he hasn't even seen our tickets. He is full of ideas but Havana may be Anthrax. We decide to trape back to the other end of the terminal and try our luck with British Airways. The attitude we got there was just short of hostile. Basically if we wanted to go to places like Cuba (or Tehran) then "it was our own fault". We were paying customers, with legitimate One World tickets and we were being treated like terrorists. All we wanted was to get to NYC and sample the junk food. Finally after nailing down an AA supervisor we were informed that we could go to Arizona to get our tickets reissue.. maybe. Then the problem got worse. We couldn't even leave Miami with this ticket because of Cuba. We were doomed to walk the airport for the term of our natural lives. We tried to go on the next leg, to Guatemala but we didn't have a flight out of Guatemala (required apparently) so they weren't going to let us on the plane. We eventually had to buy tickets, which we could cancel and get a full refund. We splurged on Ros's credit card and didn't sleep in the airport. The next day we landed at Guatemala city after 2 hrs flight. The stressed doppped from our shoulders, we were back o normality :) We walk through immigration, there in no customs, and nobody even checks that we have flight out. We cancelled he tickets but they still haven't refunded the money. We stayed the night at a hostel called Pension Meza which was once patronised by 'El Presidente' himself, Fidel, and directly across from a room once occupied by Ernesto 'Che' Guevara. I thought of the unhelpful people at Miami airport with their preoccupation with the hate of a small island possibly to close for their own liking and consumed with fear of a different way.

I spent my first day as a 32yo climbing a volcano. Ros was of course was worried if she could make it. I have to report though that this 32yo still beat the younger 25yo and had to carry her bag to boot.

In Guatemala the cheapest form of transport is commonly referred to as a 'Chicken Bus'. This is an ex-US school bus that is hideously overpowered. The seats are benches with an aisle barely wide enough to sidle between. This allows the maximum capacity, which is about 7-8 people to a row with the last having a cheek on either side of the aisle. These buses then roar around the mountain roads, that have more twists and turns than a midday soapie, flinging their less
jammed inhabitants from one side to the other.

Finally Mexico, where we are finding ourselves resorting to cooking in our rooms with our camp stove due to the costs. But the beaches are fantastic  The clearest blue waters and a whiter than white sand that never gets hot in the sun.

But this is our last night, we have seen the ruins of Chitzen Itza. A peculiar place that was abandoned by it inhabitants before the Spanish arrived. It could have to do with a weird cosmic energy that makes people walk around inanely clapping there hands. We had to escape before we too succumbed.

Tomorrow Cuba, to find out what all the fuss is about.