Archive for the ‘A Year on the Road’ Category.
January 25, 2005, 3:11 AM
25 Jan 5
La Paz, Bolivia
The night before I was supposed to leave I’m having a hard time sleeping – something to do with my having slept for so many hours when I was getting over the very last of my sickness. On TV there wasn’t a lot, BUT, there was a fashion show. I’d seen a few other fashion shows during my time in La Paz, and in Latin America. It’s apparently something they take very seriously. This one wasn’t a lot different, other than the fact it was on public TV in La Paz., which is something like public access TV in Spokane or Yakima. It was very, very funny, and well, it was late, and there wasn’t anything else on, so I watched. And laughed.
Continue reading ‘Last of Bolivia’ »
January 24, 2005, 12:35 PM
24 Jan 5
I’m leaving Bolivia tomorrow, and I couldn’t be happier. Not because I don’t like Bolivia, but because I’ve been sick the whole time I’ve been here. I’m hoping my next stop (Sao Paulo) will be a new, less congested, chapter in my travels. But before I go, I do have some observations I want to remember.
Chicken. Everybody eats chicken. A lot of chicken. With fries. Lot’s of fries. French Fries. Everywhere you turn, Chicken and Fries. If it’s not fried, it’s still chicken and potatoes. One place I went had a very nice soup with the chicken in a large bowl with broth and potatoes, and even a carrot to spice things up. It reminded me of something my Grandmother (my mothers mother) would make. It was very good, and very cheap. But also monotonous
Continue reading ‘Random Thoughts about Bolivia’ »
January 21, 2005, 2:21 PM
21 Jan 5
La Paz, Bolivia
Today I’m leaving an internet cafe I’ve been to a few times. I like to vary my internet cafe routine, because if someone knew exactly how much time I was spending online, well they might think I’m a loser. Here traveling in a foreign country, and all I can do is go from cafe to cafe, from web site to web site. So I can pretend to be cool by just going from one to another.
Continue reading ‘Everybody was kung fu fighting’ »
January 21, 2005, 2:07 PM
16 – 21 Jan 2005
As far as I can tell there are three different types of hotels in South America. You’ve got basic – i.e. backpacker hotels. When I see the word backpacker, that should be a clue that something is wrong and I should move one. Then you’ve got the very nice, top end hotels. I don’t even stay in these if I can help it, unless I do what I did in Puno. Then there are mid range hotels. These have generally been very good, and relatively cheap. Oddly, the cheapest place I’ve stayed in – La Paz – had the most expensive mid range hotel ($20/US.) Arequipa was $18, Cusco was $16.
Continue reading ‘La Paz, Bolivia’ »
January 20, 2005, 1:57 PM
20 Jan 05
La Paz, Bolivia
There is one aspect of this trip that I haven’t really touched on yet, and we’ll, maybe I shouldn’t, just in case Lou is reading (I don’t want him thinking I’m French.) There are times, quite often, when this trip is god awful, kill me, please, now, boring. Maybe I’m just more attuned to it since I’ve been sick, and can’t get out of my hotel room. When I get back to the states, if I never play another game of Solitaire on my palm pilot it will be to soon. Again and again I’m thankful that I have my laptop, otherwise I may have ended my life by now.
The problem is that there are limited stimuli.
Continue reading ‘Did I mention’ »