Days 382-384: La Paz (Part 1)

La Paz is (depending who you ask) the capital of Bolivia, and at 3640m (about 12,000 ft) the highest capital in the world.  It's right in the heart of the mountains, giving it some pretty gorgeous scenery, but also making it so that just about every street in the city seems to be steep, which was just fine by me.

Our hotel was right in the middle of the part of the city with all the markets, and our first destination after checking in was to visit the famous witch's market (Mercado de Brujas) that was only a 5 minute walk away. The market is a source of different sorts of charms and remedies, some as simple herbs and sometimes as... slightly stranger things.  Because it has become such a tourist destination the entire area also now sells a lot of more touristy souvenirs.  It's a little unfortunate, but that's just kind of the way the world goes.

Llama fetuses.  A key ingredient?

Various charms and love potions

For the people in the group this was one of the last days to do shopping before they returned home, and since we only had a part of the afternoon we mostly just stuck around the market area looking at different stalls.

The next day we got on a bus to head out to the Tiahuanaco archaeological site.  Tiahuanaco isn't nearly as famous as places like Machu Picchu (I had never even heard of it), but it was the capital of an empire that ruled over much of western South America for more than 500 years, well before the Incas.  The visit was split into a few parts, first checking out a museum about the history and finds, and then to visit the excavated ruins.  I'm not going to go into tons of detail, partly because other than dry historical details not all that much is really known (there wasn't written language, so it's a lot of guesswork).

On the way back into La Paz we got a great view down at the city and the surrounding mountains, which just gives a good idea of how unique the city is.

The third day in La Paz was the final as a group.  We mostly split up to check out different things (or for some, to relax in the hotel).  I went with two others from the group to explore some of the other sites of the city, but I wasn't in a huge rush because I was planning to stay in the city for a few more days after the group was gone.  We spent much of the day exploring some of the other nearby markets.  Like a lot of places in the world, the markets seem to group similar vendors on the same street together, so if you want sewing materials you go one place, if you want tools you go a different place, if you want counterfeit clothing or dvds, you go somewhere else.

A few of us who were staying longer also met up with a special travel company to make special plans for the next day - a plan I had looked into a few months before, and was eager to try.

Days 378-379: Cusco Pt II and Puno

We had a day to relax after the hike back in Cusco before moving onward.  I'd already covered a lot of the more obvious places, so this was a bit of a relaxed day for me.  I went to a small chocolate museum, which you may remember was the second such museum of my trip.  It was interesting to see how the topic was covered differently in Peru (which was one of the early countries to grow and trade it to Europe) compared to Belgium.

There were also some protests going on in town, which became a bit of a reoccurring theme through the rest of my time in South America.  This one was entirely peaceful, but it did give a different feel to the city center.

The next day was largely travel as we took a 6 hour bus ride southeast to Puno, a city on the shore of Lake Titicaca.  We only had time to explore the city a little and we didn't really get too far beyond the main commercial area and market.

Not a terribly exciting couple of days overall, but after the hike a few quiet days were nice before a busy day exploring Titicaca.

Days 364-369: Lima to Cusco

Things in South America started off a bit rough. By the time my flight got into Lima it was already dark out, and none of the ATMs in the airport accepted my credit card to get cash out. Since I knew I was going to be arriving late I'd booked a hostel for the first night near the airport, so after being unable to figure out any way to get money I decided to just walk from the airport to the place and try to figure it out there. I'd been warned by multiple people that Lima is one of those cities that you really need to be careful of as a tourist as there is a lot of crime, and walking with all my things through an industrial part of Lima late at night felt a little sketchy, but I didn't have any trouble. The hostel itself was well camoflaged and I had to buzz it to get somebody to come let me in. Luckily they were quite accomodating about the money and said I could pay when I checked out.

In the morning the hostel staff suggested where I might find an ATM that worked at a department/grocery store nearby. Walking around there were a few things that stood out. Over half the traffic on the street is taxis. There's no organized system of taxis, and no meters on them. Most people don't have cars, so they either take a scooter or take a taxi. People just negotiate a price before starting in, and if you don't like the price you just wave down the next taxi and negotiate with them instead. Another couple of observations were that all the buildings looked like they were unfinished. Most were either 2 or 3 stories tall, but all had exposed bars and walls for another floor on the top, but none had a roof. In my hostel the top "floor" had a few hammocks and a spot for table tennis on this exposed top floor, but a lot of them seemed to just be used to hang laundry, or abandoned entirely.
 

The part of town I was in was pretty run down, and other then the store I was walking to there were only a few barbershops and convenience stores that typically had the doorway barred so that you had to exchange goods and money through the bars without ever entering the shop. The store, when I got to it, was something like a Peruvian Walmart. The store itself had guards armed with rifles by the exits, but it was a pretty modern looking department store. I did find ATMs, one of which did give me money, so I headed back to the hostel to pay what I owed them. I'd booked another hostel in the nicer Miraflores District of Lima, and the guy at my hostel was nice enough to come out with me and haggle with a taxi to bring me there so that I didn't get ripped off. The taxi was running on fumes when I got in, and about halfway to my destination the taxi driver asked me to pay him so that he could get gas put in. This was strange enough that I got a bit suspicious, but I gave him the money and he got his gas and I got to my hostel safely. I guess they just do things a little differently in Lima.

After checking in I set about exploring Miraflores. It's a pretty nice area by the coast and has a lot more commercial buildings than where I'd been the previous night. It's anchored by a nice park full of feral cats, but also a hub for different events going on. While I was in Lima I came across a lot of music and dances going on, a few cultural events and some art and craft markets. One of the streets jutting off from the park is a popular shopping street for tourists that has numerous art, crafts, clothing, and souvenirs. If you head out towards the coast from the park you get to the coast, where there's a huge new shopping mall that's built right into the cliffside so that it's almost invisible until you're right above it. Some wings of it weren't even open yet (or were closed for renovation), but the shopping mall combined with the fancy hotels surrounding it were the most affluent part of Lima that I saw.

I'm not going to break everything down day by day, but here are some of the things I got up to in the few days I was in Lima.  I walked over to the Barranco District after a suggestion from one of the hostel staff. Wikipedia describes it as "the most romantic and bohemian" part of Lima, and it had a lot of nice old architecture.  I didn't really know where to go there, so I mostly just wandered, as is my style.

My ventures deeper into the city included a trip to the Larco Museum and visiting the historic city center. The Larco Museum is a private museum of pre-Columbian Peruvian art.  This is a culture/period that I really didn't know much about, so after all the European and Asian art and history it was interesting to get a taste of something completely different.

Like much of the nicer parts of the city the historic center is very European with narrow streets and ornate buildings.

During the taxi / bus rides around the city I spied some colourful looking art around an arena near the coast, so one of my days became a quest of following the coast north looking for this place without really knowing how far it was.  Almost the entire coast is just one park after another, so it's really quite a pleasant walk.  I did eventually find my goal, and I'll do a street art post on Lima next, but here are a few of the things I came across.  Discovering numerous parakeets just chilling in the park trees was especially nice, as you really realize just how tropical things are.

One of the major reasons for wanting to come to Peru was to do a specific hike, and said hike can only be booked in advance and through a group, so I had signed up for another tour for the rest of my time in Peru. I met up with them on my last night in Lima and we went out for a final Lima sea-food dinner before getting ready to fly into the mountains in the morning.

Days 354-355: Leaving San Fran

On my next day I explored further south in the city, mainly around the Mission and Castro Districts. There isn't much in the way of big sights around here, but there were a lot of cool little shops, and in the Mission District especially, lots of art. I also spent a chunk of the afternoon back downtown. I visited a small cartoon museum, which wasn't really as good as I'd hoped. I was hoping for more comic art, but it was largely either art from newspaper comics or from Bugs Bunny.

I had most of a day in the city the next day as well, since the bus I was taking out was a night one. There were no rides at this time of year directly through the mountains to Las Vegas, so instead I had to go all the way back to Los Angeles then transfer to a bus heading up into Nevada. I booked my ticket a few days in advance this time, so I at least got to go with Greyhound. The weather in the city was cold and cloudy before I had to leave, and I didn't really feel like walking around after spending the last 3 days walking almost non-stop. Instead I popped over to the San Francisco Public Library, picked out a book somebody had recommended that I'd been meaning to read, and just read through it all. To my amusement the book (which was an urban fantasy mystery, for lack of a closer genre) was set in San Francisco, so all the major locations in the book were places I'd visited in the last couple days. When I was finished the book I headed back to the hostel to get my bags out of storage and walked to the Greyhound station and eventually got on my bus.

Days 325-326: Wellington

I had a few more places I wanted to visit on the north island, but the timing was going to work out better to do it on my way back up to Auckland to fly out, so I decided to move on down to Wellington for a few days before crossing over to the south island. My bus out of Rotorua left in the afternoon so it was already pretty late in the day when I got into Wellington and found my hostel. Wellington itself is a lovely city. It's a lot smaller than Auckland, but still large enough to have lots to do. The city center stretches out near the water with the city spreading over the surrounding hills, and there are lots of little artsy places spread through town. My hostel was just across the street from the city art gallery, but unfortunately half of it was closed down and the other half was pretty dull. Much more interesting was the museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa. A lot of the exhibits in it were on New Zealand history and nature, which were things I didn't really know very much about. Completely unrelated to all that, was this giant sculpture.

This is one of the works by Weta, which is probably the most famous props/special effect companies in the world. More on them later! Since it was a nice day out I was mostly just happy to wander through town and explore without any real direction.

Day 289: A Day in Malacca

I got to the city of Malacca (or Melaka) late in the morning and did my usual stubborn habit of walking from the bus station the few kilometers to my hostel. Malacca was made into a UNESCO site jointly with Georgetown, and they both have that architectural and cultural mix of a complicated colonial past. Malacca grew from a Malay fishing village to a major trading city for the Chinese before being captured and passing hands between the Portugese, Dutch, British and Japanese. Since I only had the single afternoon to explore the city I skipped having a nap despite being pretty exhausted by this point, and headed out to explore the city.

The central river though town that passed near the hostel was lined with buildings painted in colourful murals, mostly showing off aspects of local culture and history.

I followed the river down to the town center which contains a cluster of buildings that make up the local museum. The museum was quite varied and had a lot in it, but most of the information was just describing what things were, and there wasn't much historical / narrative information to really put any of it context.

Finally I walked back towards the hostel down Jonker Street. It's the major shopping street that has a lot of antique and artsy shops, and I had a good time browsing through things. I bought a new t-shirt and a pair of Thai fisherman pants to supplement my constantly evolving wardrobe.

Day 253: The Killing Fields

Our group was in pretty rough shape in the morning. Quite a few people had been ill for much of the entire trip, either because of food, or travel, or malaria medication. On top of that, those of us who had spent the previous night out drinking were all still somewhat drunk, or very hung over in the morning. All combined, not really the ideal condition to spend a day out in the heat hearing about the years of torture and murder by the Khmer Rouge.

We all felt that it was an important part of Cambodia's history and that the subject deserved our respect attention, so we all trooped out to Tuol Seng Prison (aka Security Prison 21). I was in much better shape than many of the group, but all the stories and imagery of the abuse, torture and murder that went on was still pretty overwhelming. In many ways it was a more vivid reminder than going to Auschwitz was, since it's much more recent and the site was preserved almost exactly as it was abandoned when the Vietnamese invaded to halt the genocide. Two of our group had to return back to the hotel before we finished the tour of the prison, and the rest of us were in a pretty quiet mood.

I'm not really sure how much to see about the Cambodian Genocide. The Khmer Rouge Communist Party came into power in Cambodia in 1975. They forced everybody out of all urban areas, tortured and killed anybody they thought might be educated or part of any resistance, and forced the rest to work in labour camps. Over the 3 years, 8 months, 20 days that the Khmer Rouge were in power, over 2 million people died (half by execution, half by starvation and disease in the camps), and the country's population had been cut nearly in half. Losing half the population of a country in less than 4 years is just insane, and the impact is still being felt now, as 50% of Cambodia's population now is 20 years old or younger. It's easy to forget what they went through when you wander around the country, but it's sobering to realize that virtually every adult you see lost a parent or sibling during this period.

Next we went out of town to one of the many killing fields spread throughout Cambodia. These were the sites where people were brought in truckloads for execution. Now the area is something of a memorial and quite peaceful. Most of the mass graves have been excavated, but each rainy season more bones and pieces of clothing get revealed in the mud.

We had the afternoon free, but most of us didn't venture anywhere too far off. I walked around the surrounding area for awhile and spent some time at the big central market, but spent the majority of the evening in the hotel resting.