Two week epic journey

Well I did manage to write a bit about my journey up to La Paz, Bolivia, but that's only about half of it. The morning after I wrote that, we got up before 6 AM, and had breakfast prepared by a Bolivian lady who gave us directions to "Calle de las brujas" (Witches' street) and told us what to look for- "The little dolls, you have to give them a little food and water, and if you ask them nicely, they'll make your wishes come true!" We went to the street, and it's got mostly animal and plant parts, including dried baby llamas. Those were incredibly abundant, and smelled wonderful. We ate a four course meal in a nice restaurant for 40 Bolivianos- about $5.

From La Paz (where we spent two nights), we got on a bus to Copacabana, a city on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. We took an excursion on boat to the Island of the Sun, an important island in the Aymara (Pre-Incan) culture, where plenty of Aymara still live. We took a very unofficial tour from a local (for a little over a dollar) for an hour around the island and the ruins of the temple of the sun. He failed to mention that a very insistent group of locals charge admission to the temple of the sun... upon exiting. A nice strategy, and one I think I'll use.
We spent the night in Copacabana, where we went to the theater to see a play called "La Sandwichera," about a lady who runs a sandwich stand in La Paz. We were starving by intermission and left to go eat.

The next morning we were in Puno, for a short tour of the floating islands, where more Aymara constructed islands from a floating reed abundant in lake Titicaca. This was their strategy to get away from the Incan Warriors, and since they survived longer, I guess they won. We left that afternoon and got a night bus to Cuzco, which was the Incan capital of all South America. Needless to say, it's an incredible city. We spent a night in Cuzco and from there went to Machu Picchu, which was decent. Of course, by decent I mean without a doubt the most impressive thing I've seen in my entire life. You take a train to a tiny village whose only purpose is a stopping point at the base of the mountains, and then a 20 minute bus up a mountain, on a quite narrow path, to the walls of the city. There's not even so much as a bathroom on the mountain, much less a place to buy food or water, so our day of 5:30 AM to 6 PM was quite exhausting. We took a guided tour, and after that they let you go- to climb the mountains or explore or whatever you want to do. We opted for a nap on a terrace overlooking a cliff and the valley below, and then explored the city a bit and climbed (by climbed I mean walked) the mountain on the side of Machu Picchu where they take the picture you'll see if you google image search Machu Picchu. As soon as I get another transformer, I'll put the pictures up. Well, at least some of the 1056 pictures I took over the two weeks.

We slept in the village below that night and then headed back to Cuzco, caught a bus to Arequipa, got into Arequipa the next morning, ate breakfast, walked around, bus to Tacna, colletive taxi to Arica, bus to Iquique, Chile, and from Iquique straight to Santiago. That total journey (Machu Picchu to Santiago) was something like 45 hours in bus/car, with the last leg being 24 hours straight. Overall, it was a quite fast-paced trip, covering 3 countries in 2 weeks, without planes. The total time spent in bus/car/jeep was 137 hours. I think it was 5 overnight bus trips total, with a total of 7 showers. 2 of them had hot water, and 3 of them had flickering/decent/warm water. 2 were showering in ice.

Overall, it was incredible.