Angel's Latin American Adventure: May 2007

Marcela's Graduation!

After twelve weeks of living on the road, it was wonderful to come back to Honduras to see Marcela graduate from her residency in surgery! We now have two fun loving and beer drinking surgeons in the family!

We are so proud of Marcela!

We are also silly and affectionate!

Felicidades Marcelita!

And now back to my regular life... It was a wonderful Latin American Adventure!

Lima

Going to visit San Martin de Porres in Lima, Peru is a trip that began with my grandmother's pulperia (store) with the saint's name. There was a raffle where she prayed to him to help her. Her prayer came true and with those raffle winnings she started the store with which she would end up putting my mom through medical school!

San Martin's symbol is the broom since as an illegitimate child of mixed race he could not be a monk at the monastery where he cleaned and worked as the nurse!

Even an agnostic like me could not help loving San Martin!

Here I am fulfilling a promise my grandma made so many years ago! How lucky can a guy be?

Matt is angry at Pizarro. Even hundreds of years after his death...

You know you are not in the U.S.A. when the animal tied to the post is a llama!

For Matt and I, Lima was just a place to fulfill a promise and catch flights home. Hung, went to the Peruvian Amazon rain forest from Cuzco. We all know that guy is hard core!

Inca Trail

Hung, Matt and I at the beginning of the Inca Trail! The path that was once traveled by Inca messengers from Cosco is now being traveled by 450 pound of fury!

This is our hiking crew with the hiking guide (Freddy) wearing a ski mask. There were rumors that he had chewed a bit too much coca :-)

The Inca Trail had all kinds of wild life, including an epic tarantula VS wasp battle!

What would a stroll in the Andes be without a sighting of a wild llama, or is it an alpaca?

We may have been doing the Inca Trail but our expedition looked more like an REI advertisement!

The sights along the way were pretty spectacular! Continuing the REI advertisement...

We made it! More like our porters made it, we did it the easy way :-)

There it is... Machu Picchu, the hidden city in the Andes... behind the fog! We decided to stay an extra day to have a better look.

This is what happens as you ponder what wishes to make when you will wear a fita from Bonfim for more than a year! While hanging out above Machu Picchu (on Huayna Picchu)!

Hung was a lot more pragmatic :-)

It was worth it to stay an extra day after the fog cleared to get this view. It was a moment to remember forever!

Cosco

I arrived in Cuzco (Cosco in the Quechua) and made friends with the performers on the train. They invited me to come see their performance when we arrived.

The performance involved lighting her outfit on fire! She was hot anyway, I didn't quite understand why it was needed :-)

After the dance performance, we celebrated with some German backpacking doctors. There must be something about the medical profession that leads to backpacking. They were certainly over-represented in my trip.

I met up with Matt Berman and Hung Quan. After months of traveling with friends I met the day before, it was fun to share all my new stories with friends I had know for years!

Hung and Matt are adventurous eaters as well as travelers. Here we see them eating a large rodent! Sometimes I feel OK about being vegetarian :-)

In this photo, we see Matt Berman using his hardened New York City bargaining skills with a extremely disarming Peruvian little girl who hands down was the better bargainer of the lot!

The jet lag finally caught up with Matt!

This is the view from our hostel. Not bad eh?

Titicaca

The floating villages in Lake Titicaca used to exist because that tribe was persecuted by other tribes.

Now the villages mostly exist to attract tourists!

In a "small world" story, I met my British traveling companions from Brazil while hiking on the Island of the Sun. Awesome!

The water of the lake is truly beautiful.

This lady was the only seller on the hike at the island of the sun. How could one resist buy a treasure or two?

And now off to Cosco to meet Hung and Matt!

Potosi

Potosi is one of the highest city in the world (4050 m., 13290 ft.) and it used to be the world's largest producer of silver. The mines are now open to tourists and their safety regulations are somewhat relaxed...

The work of the miners is difficult. To stay under ground for long periods of time, they chew coca leaves.

They feed the "uncle of the mountain" to keep them safe.

Our guide to the mines invited us to attend a miner's wedding. It apparently is "good luck" to have foreigners at one's wedding. We certainly felt welcome.

Dancing seems to be everywhere on my trip :-)

Here are the happy bride and groom. I would be happy if I were getting married AND people were pinning money on me :-)

Congratulations to Teofilo and Juana!

This is the entrance to the mint where the silver was processed (la Casa de Moneda).

In this painting the virgin is merged with the mountain which produced the silver. The combination of religion with precious metals seems appropriate for the Spanish colonization of America.

A peculiarity in Bolivia is the popularity of bowler hats.

I must say they look cool :-) The indigenous influence in Bolivia is dramatically different than in Brazil and Argentina. The people of Bolivia were so interesting.

El Salar de Uyuni

I arrived at the town of Uyuni at night. Like most of Bolivia it is quite high at 3656 m. (11,995 ft.) above sea level.

The Uyuni Salt Flats is an amazing place! The sheer whiteness of the sand makes it difficult to get depth perception. This was my attempt at looking like I was leaning on my LP.

Needless to say I am a novice (but enthusiastic) photographer. Here I was trying to look like I was riding a salt llama.

In this isolated and inhospitable place, it seems like the llamas felt quite at home!

Being kept company by pink flamingos! The lagoon is red because of a chemical in the water.

Our motley crew of travelers included three Peruvian sisters, a French couple and me. This lagoon was green because of an algae in the water. The amazing natural landscape reminded me of Yellowstone.