Copacabana, meeting Bolivia and the people who enter it.

As said, I remet the Brazilians at the busstop in Cusco. Bus-cama to Puno, then further to and is definately of the crazy kind in a good sense. We meet later in Puno, waiting for the bus to Copacabana. The brazilians and I get along find and exchange some music and e-mail addresses. After the 6 hour busride to Puno, it is 5 in the morning and, though we are tired, we are in high spirits and about to visit the highest salt lake in the world: lake Titicaca. After an improvised breakfast at the station we say goodbye and I place myself near the people that are going to Copacabana as well. There I meet Dave and some British girls. Later in the bus I make contact with Diego, a guy from Colombia and Ailin, an Argentinian girl that works with cruiseships in the island of fire. Coincidence? We exchange data.

We all cross the border and there we go separate ways. Dave and I decide to have lunch first, before he needs a nurse in the hospital to clean out his wounds (he fell with a mountainbike and showed us a video how a nurse sprayes water in his arm from one hole and it comes out from another.) There we meet 2 norwegians and a swiss fellow who offer to help me with any questions related to Tromso, northern Norway. They seem very nice chaps. When I go for a visit to the restroom and come back, they have made their run for the bus already. Two other Norwegians sit at the table next to us and we start talking. They are photoshooting the school life of Bolivia. They offer us their room for luggage storage and we deice to take a walk together. Dave and I go up the mountain, next to the lake up towards the graveyard to get some good pictures. He gives me his camera and takes the most funny positions including ones without any pants on, where I climb up rocks next to great opportunities to kill oneself jumping down.

Time's up and we order a quick pizza, get it on take-away, say our goodbye's to the kind Norwegians and the two Dutch girls we met and then devour the pizza in the bus on our way to La Paz. In the middle of the road, we were sleeping, we get waken up by people shouting: get out get out! take the boat take the boat! WHAT?!? What do you mean boat? This is a bus.. right?
A soldier in camouflage outfit with a gun tells us to get out. Ok, so this is serious. Once we get out we realise that the entire bus will be transported on a launch (small vessel) and can not cross with people on board. So we have to buy a ticket for another boat that transports us to the other side of the lake. It looks alot like a refugee boat. A man on board gets nervous of us taking pictures with flash and tells us things I can't repeat. When I ask him what he was saying, his female family member next to me assures me it was something about the weather and that he is just nervous. Whatever. I won't let his foul or nervous mood waste my good spirits. Not today, I've let people do that too much in the past. Didn't bring me any good back then, so fuck him. We arrive at the other side and while Dave gets a sausage from the street corner, a woman asks me whether I am Argentinian or not. ( I get that alot, peole asume sometimes I am from Chile or Argentina because of the way I look and some parts of my accent. Then again they also believe I am the lead singer of the maroon 5. As if!) The woman is Bolivian but lived in the Netherlands and speaks a few words in Dutch to me. What are the odds? When we finally arrive in La Paz we get dropped off in a ghetto like area. We manage to get a proper taxi (with phone numer on the side) and get dropped off at Loki Hostel. The hostel seems to be located in Brisbane, Australia or New Sealand or whereever where they speak English. I drink two beers with Dave and his friend before calling it a night. The next morning early, I call Cecy, ambassador of the Couchsurfing community in La Paz. I find a cab with the right number 7.. waiting in front of the hostel that takes me to her house. A Brazilian Couchsurfer is just leaving. The house is gorgeous. I´m not surfing any couch, I have my own room with an incredible view over the mountains. The universe can treat us travelers with great compassion and marvel.

A desolated Machu Picchu.

We get up at 04:45 a.m. A strike of public transportation prohibited hundreds of people coming to Aguascalientes the day before. We have the priviledge to step into the lost city with the least amount of people possible these days. Only a movie rental of the spot would have permitted less people up there. One of the goals of many travelers during their trip in South America. I remember that my father once held out an Atlas, asking me to say 'stop'. He stopped at a page. Again. 'Stop', I told him, he showed me the map, his finger pointed at Peru, just next to Machu Picchu. You will go there one day he told me.

That was many years ago. Now I am actually entering this lost city, where the Inca's had a center. I follow a guide who I met on the Inca trail and he tells his group about the incredible results the Inca's reached in a solemn century. If they would have had 50 years more, they might have never been conquered by any other people. Their system was one of spreading education and prosperity, sending teachers and builders around the country in order to spread new techniques and knowledge.

Coca was sacred to them. So much vitamines it contained, they didn't have to eat a lot of other things. It gave them the enrgy and vitamins and minirals to do all this work within only one century. I am chewing the leaves and find my tongue numb while I listen to another guide giving an even better explanation. It is definately worth the ride. At first we marvel with dizzyness because of the altitude and the possibilities to fall of the mountain that surrounds you. That gets even better when I climb the other mountain. When I get to the very top I have an encounter with a centapede. I meet a guy from Norway and a girl From Colombia: Torbjorn and Lilian.
I meet two brasilians who I remeet later at the bustop bus from Cusco to Puno. This journey has been full of remeeting people. You meet at least twice in life, they say. Would that mean I might never meat them again? (Done with those.) Although in Germany they say all good things are (at least) three. I´ve met a lot of angels on the road. People that helped me, acompanied me, were companions, light, people to share a universe with, or just mere moments, advices, wisdom and experiences. The colombian girl, Lilan, and I sit together on the train back. We meet people from Brasil and have extensive conversations about life in Brazil, Colombia, the Netherlands. We get the bus back earlier to Cusco. She is due to leave tomorrow morning, she paid all my tickets and chocolate of her coins she wouldn't be able to change back. When we arrive she takes her leave. i tell her how she had been another angel on my road. Just as the doctor had been, the house in La Paz where Cecy and her family take me in and I get sick again. I seem to find protection and good people all the way. There is good and bad on the road of life, but thank goodness a lot more good than there is bad.

Alternative route to Machu Picchu; is it worth it?

So our hike began. Across the landslide, following the road up to Santa Teresa. Somehow we got split up. Lory and I walked faster than the rest and they got a cab on the way while we were visiting the restroom of Santa Teresa and getting a proper breakfast. We decided to walk all the way. The air is warm and moisty. We are in the jungle on a high altitude. Since we missed the colectivo we will walk all the way up to the hydroelectric powerplant and then along the railway tracks from there, up to Aguascalientes: last stop before Machu Picchu. We are actually lower than Cusco, which works in our benefit. With more oxygen in our blood than the last 5 days, the hike begins as a piece of cake. As soon as we approach the hydro electric powerplant we meet more and more travelers going about on the famous Inca trail. We have to sign in with our names and passport numbers before going up to the railway tracks. We buy some bananas and coca leaves from one of the stands and continue. Small steep stairs through the bushes lead up to the beginning of the railroad. I did not bring any hiking shoes and soon the typical grey stones start hurting my feet. It's only about 10 kilometers. The railroad takes us in between mountains along a wild river with tons of butterflies. Travelers from the opposite way greet us with content faces of having made Machu Picchu and radiate a certain mountainlike energy. After approximately 7 kilometers my feet are so blue that I have to jump the wooden blocks from one to another the rest of the road. When we finally arrive at Aguascalientes, we decide to chill and have lunch at a restaurant. That's where we run into the rest of the gang. We check into the same hostel and kill time with a deserved siesta, then buying our train tickets, some Internet and dinner. We will take the first bus up to Machu Picchu at 05:30 in the morning with the hope to see the sun rise from up there. Because there has been a strike that day, Aguascalientes is a lot more deserted than it normally is. That means we will arrive at the lost city with the least possible number of human beings. Awesome. After having survived our way up here, we know why people take the 175 dollar train there and back. We will take that same train back tomorrow. However we did get here for about 25 dollars all inclusive.. So we saved a good 60 dollars by almost dying. We do take a unforgetable memory and thus a great travel story home.

Death comes to us like a memory.

The day after my recovery I meet Lory in the Internet room and he opts for hiking to Machu Picchu through an alternative route. The trains and busses are on strike and I would hate to wait until tuesday to finally get up there. I have lost enough time as it is with the visit to the clinic and all. So, meet you back here in one hour? I start packing my things, check out the hostel, have my big backpack put up in the storage room and pay my bills up till then. When I remeet Lory, two girls decided to join us: Candle and Heather. Now we are four.

We bus to Urubamba and then further only to find out that it is dangerous to walk along the tracks during the day. Guards prevent people from doing it and they would send you back. We didn't bring any camp material and walking during the night in the jungle isn't that attractive, so we decide to bus all the way up to Santa Maria, then Santa Teresa and walk a mere 4 hours from there.

At the hostel I was supposed to meet two girls from Chile for breakfast: Constanza and Valentina. I hadn't met them that morning and had left on a fast spontaneous moment of opportunity, with these three to go to Machu Picchu. I hoped that they would still be in the hostel by the time I would get back. While I'm thinking these thoughs four people enter the bus towards Santa Maria. There are no more seats left so they have to stand up. They stand next to my seat and being who I am I start chatting. Guess what? They come from Chile and when the one calles the other Connie; I am again, amazed. They have the exact same names: Constanza and Valentina. It makes me laugh. We decide to travel together and now 4 have become 8.
They laugh loud enough to keep the entire bus awake while we drive through rivers, pass abysses in a way that the people sitting in front next to the driver, come out and show their scared pale faces during the stops.

We arrive at midnight in the middle of nowhere. A small jungle town with 5 inhabitants where we find a hostel for 5 Soles a night. Giant rats make their way down the stairs as we go up. The toilet protests for having to swallow anything by vomiting rays of water back into the bathroom. I sleep like a rose and don't even notice the jungle rain that wipes out part of the road we would still have to travel.

At 06:00 A.M. sharp the Chileans wake us up and we get a mini van to drive us up to Santa Teresa. We buy supplies, get in and we are off. The air reeks of Marihuana. A river gulfs wildly in the depth of the valley. The road we are on is made of gravel. It gets more narrow as we go up. After some amazingly curves we seem to be on the deathroad. The distance between the wheels of the mini and the abyss of certain death, if we would fall, becomes smaller and smaller. On top of the road being narrow... it has been raining the entire night and mud and gravel is coming down the other side of the road.

Imagine yourself in a minivan. Is shakes while driving up a steep road and when you look to your right outswide of the window you see a staring depth of about 1 kilometer vertically down. 170 to 160 degrees probably. Fear creeps up on you and the feeling of having lived your last day on planet earth starts growing in your stomach. It is like expecting that your plane might crash, but worse, more real. It seems more inevitable. When death comes to us, it seems to come as a memory. A really bad memory. Adrenaline rushes through your bloodstream and your breath gets cut short. You lose the connection with your diafram and panic starts glowing from your eyes, first mildly, then severely. The mini gets stuck. It tries to escape a rock that is in its way and waves from left to right. To the left: mud coming down, to the right: an abyss of death. Images of the van, rolling down the mountain with you guys in it, getting smashed into a human pizza, where there is no knowing whose eye belongs to whom afterwards, is playing in your mind. You are freaking out. It is all a bad memory of something you have lived before. You cannot believe this will be your ending. Your spirit rebells while the facts seem to be merely happening and you cannot stop the movie. Hold on a minute, STOP! Stop the movie! STOP! Let us out!! Are you fucking crazy!

As wild animals we start screaming against our fate. We do not want to die. Not here, not right now, rolling down a mountain with strangers where the result would have been an impossible mission to find which organ belongs to what person. The door opens and we get out in one piece. We are all shaken and shocked. I tell the driver; any next situation like that: you let us out inmediately on forehand, or I will shit in your minivan right there at the spot! He laughes. A minor consolation is that the driver goes up and down here every day. He knows what he is doing. We find out that there has never been any minis falling down the mountain. However, that did not make our experience one easy to forget.

From that point on, more and more people get into, or on top for that matter, of the mini. At the time we are 29 with 6 of us on top of the roof; we meet another point of destiny. A massive landslide that came down because of the rain destroyed part of the road and there is no way continuing by car is possible. The gravel/mud is fresh and it sucks in your shoes when crossing it. Besides there is the risk of more material falling down. There is no other way. Forward. We have to cross it. We do so with the speed of as if we were being chased by the devil himself and when we are all safe at the other side we cannot believe how exciting our morning has been.

Body tourists.

A strike of bad luck might have been at hand. After the unsuccesful attempt of reviving my camera and leaving my bankcard in a ATM in Lima, my wallet disappeared into thin air and another card got swallowed. When I arrive at the Loki hostel I meet a girl who looks exactely like the girl in Machuca (Chilean movie). We are both tired but decide to go out to a restaurant. We walk out the 450 year old building, down the stairs into old-school Cusco. I remember the scene in `Diarios de motocicleta´ where Ernesto has a guide telling him about the difference between the mayor stones and the tiny stones in the wall. The mayor ones being built by the Inca´s and the tiny ones by the Spanish, or as the guide referres to them as; the Incapaces. The small stone path streets have stores on everywhere and girls standing on either side ask you whether you want a massage. Later I find out how some massages have a so called ´happy ending´, which probably leaves you rather empty and sad if you ask me. Definately not my cup of tea.

We find the restaurant after a mini tour and while she orders pancakes, I order a salad of cooked vegetables. Should be no worrie after having spent almost 7 weeks in the continent, I think to myself. When the salad is served it has lettuce and some vegetables. I decide to take my chances. WRONG choice.

That same night I start peeing from my ass to put it delicately. The next day I try to remedy the situation with a pharmacists recommendation of antibiotics. 36 hours later there is still no improvement of the situation and at this point I can barely walk any stairs. I talk to reception and they opt I might have Salmonella. After having tried to get down a slice of toast and failing, I decide to ask them to call a doctor. She arrives within half an hour and tells me that I probably have salmonella AND a parasite at the same time- Amoeba, which is pretty agressive and is dehydrating me fastly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoebiasis

The doctor is an angel. She gets me to the clinic and has the nurses put me on a drip immediately. 24 hours of being invadced by cold drops that enter my left arm through my veins works! After having watched a dozen movies and having dozed of another dozen times I am alive again! The nurses wake me up at 05:00 a.m. to get the last antibiotics into my system and by 11:00 in the morning I am out of there. When I walk back I feel as if I escaped death. I hope this is the end of it and I keep a positive souvenir out of it being a higher resistance. I do not want any more tourists in my body!