Rurrenabaque, Bolivia

E.J. here again.

A day after Melissa departed, we started to make our way toward Bolivia. We took a bus to the border town of Puno, Peru, on Lake Titicaca and spent a day there researching how to go about getting a Bolivian visa. We were told in the bus station that there was a Bolivian Consulate in town and got there just as they were closing. A very kind Bolivian diplomat sat down with us and went over our documents and helped us get everything together to get a Bolivian visa, approved our documents and issued the visa. We needed passport photos, copies of our passports, bank statements, copies of flights returning to our countries and documentation of address of where we planned to stay in-country. And THEN we had to pay $160 a piece for the visas. This is what they call reciprocity: they make it a pain in the ass for Americans to get a Bolivian visa as a tit-for-tat because the US government is VERY stingy giving Bolivians visas.

The next day we took a bus and spent a day on the Bolivian side of lake Titicaca, in Copacabana, a rather unimpressive pass-through town with decent food, before moving on to La Paz. I should note, if you ever pass through Copacabana, we had one of our best meals in some time at a place on Avenida 6 de Agosto, called Maura’z.

Lake Titicaca

We took a bus the next day to La Paz, Bolivia’s largest city, which included an interlude ferry ride across Lake Titicaca, where we disembarked the bus, got on boats, were ferried across, while the bus drove onto a barge, which brought it in turn across.

We spent a night in La Paz and flew out the next morning for Rurrenabaque, a town to the north, nestled in the Bolivian Amazon basin rainforest. We had a workaway lined up for us outside of “Rurre” as it is called, 20 minutes up the Beni river, which ultimately flows into the Amazon. We had been contemplating a rainforest experience since Ecuador and this was finally it.

We spent what was (for me) one of the most memorable weeks of the trip at an animal rescue center on 50 hectares of land abutting the Madidi Nature Reserve.

Rio Beni, Rurrenabaque, Bolivia

Drucilla, the squirrel monkey

One of the living spaces at ONCA with the traditional thatched roof

So many spiders

Lounge and Kitchen area at ONCA

Interior of the thatched roof

The rescue/ rehabilitation center is run by a Spanish NGO called ONCA (Organization for the Natives and Conservation of the Amazon). ONCA runs a center where they take in injured and rescued animals from the Bolivian government, which when we were there included one tortoise, two turtles native to the region, 9 capuchin monkeys and one squirrel monkey.

Max, another walking wounded, had tumors all over him, most of which had been removed.

There were also 5 dogs and two cats that had been taken in. The most endearing of which was a dog who arrived 6 months ago with hundreds of parasitic worms coming out of his head. The poor pup had been living wild in the rain forest (they think) and had one blind eye from glaucoma and had had half of his nose ripped off in a fight with some forest creature. They de-wormed the poor guy and made sure his nose injury wasn't infected and took him in. And named him Worms!

Worms, in all his glory.

Many of the monkeys were owned as pets and given up, abandoned or abused by their owners when they started acting like the wild animals that they are. Regular work included cleaning the monkey cages that they slept in at night, preparing their meals, clearing trails through the forest with machetes, planting coconut, pineapple and other fruit bearing trees and helping out one of the neighboring indigenous communities. 

One of the village houses that we helped construct

Twice a week we would go to the nearby village to help with reconstruction. About three years ago there was a flood that destroyed the village, so we would go and carry lumber, bags of sand, concrete and rocks from the river, up to the village. Another project we were involved in was clearing land for ONCA to plant a small papaya grove for the monkey food, so the site can become more self-sustaining. This included clearing the land with machetes, piling the dead wood toward the center of the area and burning it to replenish the soil before new trees could be planted. Brutal work in the heat and humidity of the rainforest.

Harvesting beans to help out the local indigenous community.

Controlled burn to plant a fruit grove

There were around 8-10 short-term volunteers, such as ourselves and 6 long-term volunteers, including a Catalonian veterinarian, who was working for free, so the other huge and daunting task was making 3 meals a day for everyone. Its amazing how much pasta or rice everyone can eat after hacking away with a machete all morning.

Drucilla helping Maggie brush her teeth

Drucilla helping Maggie drink her water

All in all, this was an incredibly rewarding project to get to contribute to. The founder of ONCA, Andres, had this infectious, charismatic vision and you couldn't help but want to be a part of their legacy. Carles, (not Carlos) the veterinarian, was doing amazing work helping these animals get healthy. In the time we were there, he had to do a reconstruction of the nose of one of the dogs, who got in a scrap with some forest creature (wild boars or a cousin of the mongoose, they guessed). The week before we arrived, he had to put stitches in the scalp of one of the capuchins, after it injured itself in a tree and had to operate on a dog with a prolapsed intestinal segment. And this was not some sterile, well-stocked veterinary hospital in the suburbs.  Carles was pretty amazing. One ongoing issue is treating the monkeys (and dogs and cats) for parasites. In the other rescue center where several folks had worked previously, they gave the monkeys injections of an anti-parasitic drug to kill intestinal worms, etc. Carles and Andres didn't want to have to traumatize the monkeys with shots, so they realized that they could take one of these gigantic grasshoppers that the monkeys liked to eat, inject the grasshopper with the anti-parasitic, and they give it to the monkey to eat. Kind of like dabbing a pill in peanut butter before I give it to my dog. Point being, at this rescue center, a lot of thought was put into helping the monkeys without traumatizing them.

Maggie helping Carles give one of the village dogs an anti-parasite injection.

Afternoon waterfall swim to cool off

The day we left, they were supposed to get 2-4 more monkeys brought in by the government, for which they were feverishly trying to construct new sleeping cages. 
After a mandatory quarantine period to assess for disease and parasites, the monkeys would join the community and could begin to get socialized. Most of these 'pet' monkeys had grown up from babies in essential isolation, so one factor of ONCA's project is simply to teach monkeys how to be monkeys. Besides not knowing how to interact with others, many didn't know how to interact with their environment, because they had lived their whole lives in cages. To keep them safe from predators, all the monkeys sleep in secure cages at night but in the morning, one of the (more qualified than me) volunteers would let them out and set their harnesses onto an elaborate system of cable runs in the forest, so they could get comfortable climbing and living in trees without being able to escape the center (if a monkey escaped into the forest without having been given approval for release by the gov't, ONCA would get in serious trouble). 

The thing that really hit me about halfway through the week was how sincere all the volunteers were about the well-being of the monkeys. It was a regular occurrence that someone would get bitten by one of the capuchins, but I never heard anyone complain or voice resentment. Everyone understood that this was part of working with the monkeys and came with the territory.

I can not overstate how incredible I think the work was that they are able to do on such a shoestring budget. I'm pretty cynical sometimes and its easy to doubt the authenticity of some overseas NGO. When you see Sally Struthers on TV begging for donations, its so hard to know how much of that money ever gets to where it goes to. A lot of NGOs have huge bureaucracies of administrators, whose paychecks take away from the money going to where its needed most. The same is true for a lot of American non-profits. When the Executive Director of Goodwill or Livestrong makes close to a million dollars, there's something wrong. The only paid employee of ONCA in Bolivia was Mario, a local Bolivian man who worked with the agency as a consultant, laborer and liaison to the indigenous community. Almost every dollar ONCA receives goes toward monkey food (bananas, pineapple, guava, papaya, etc) and veterinary supplies. I hate to make a hard sell, but every donation of $5, $10 or $20 would go a LONG way toward furthering their mission and improving the lives of these monkeys (and turtles).
If you'd like to donate, you can via paypal at this link here and hit "Make a Donation": http://oncaorg.org/0-3-02-asociate.html

Arequipa and the Colca Canyon

We arrived in Arequipa on September 24th after deciding we’d had enough of Cusco (I guess that makes us officially one month behind on this blog now). Our dear friend Melissa was flying in to spend a week with us on Oct 1 and so we had lined up a one week volunteer gig while we waited for her.

Arequipa is Peru’s second largest city and felt completely different to us than the rest of the places  we went in the Andes. The city is surrounded by volcanoes and most of the buildings in the historic center are built of a white volcanic stone called sillar that made for a totally different vibe. The town certainly has its share of tourists, but to a lesser degree. We were disappointed that it was more expensive than we had hoped it would be, but in the end we had some amazing meals at an incredible price (from a U.S. perspective anyway).

Plaza de Armas in Arequipa at dusk

Queso helado in the street

Chupa de Camerones (a local specialty) at El Nuevo Palomino

Chicha at Nuevo Palomino - fermented corn beer

Pretty sillar stone streets

The Colca Canyon lies about 3 hours away from Arequipa by bus - claim to fame being that it is the second deepest canyon in the world (second to Cotahuasi which is nearby as well) and home to many Andean condors. We bussed 6 hours out to a tiny town called Cabanaconde and spent a week volunteering at a hostel called Valle del Fuego. Run by a delightful eccentric named Yamil, we cleaned rooms and did laundry in exchange for room and board and enjoyed a totally chilled out week in this dusty little pueblo. Donkeys, horses and cows were herded (or ridden) up and down the streets every day and we met some ultra charming street dogs (but don’t worry Lilly, we haven’t adopted one - yet). A mirador on the edge of town let us look down into the canyon at sunset as well as spot a number of the famous condors gliding around (and the biggest hummingbirds ever!).

Yamil also owns a restaurant in Cabanaconde, and our stay there overlapped with a French couple Pauline and Arthur who had been volunteering and running said restaurant for the prior 6 weeks. We had so much fun helping them in the kitchen, eating their delicious food, playing card games, making pisco sours, and discussing politics and our countries’ respective problems. Best of all, we were meeting in the middle and doing it all in Spanish as they weren’t that comfortable in English. E.J. can still speak way more French than I realized, but sadly mine feels like it’s evaporated. Spanish it was, and it was a great week of practice.

E.J. battled his second stomach bug (Atahualpa’s revenge) while we were there. One day when I was looking for an open pharmacia/botica to get some more symptomatic treatment, I ended up sitting on a curb for 30 minutes with a local (who had called the pharmacist to open up said store for me). We discussed child-rearing and how her diabetes medications work and what she should or shouldn’t be eating. Next thing I knew, she took me into her house behind the hardware store she ran with her husband and gave me an herb that helps ease stomach pain so that I could make a tea for my novio. Luckily, by the end of the week he was feeling much better.

First views of the canyon

All the women in Cabanaconde wear intricately embroidered hats 

Typical Cabanaconde street scene

Pauline, Yamil, and Arturo in front of their restaurant 

Canyon selfie

The decor in Yamil's restaurants - decades of paraphernalia

We bussed back to Arequipa to meet up with Melissa, where we spent two nights eating, drinking and sightseeing. We visited the Santa Catalina Monastery - where I developed major patio envy and adored the brightly colored walls and potted plants. Melissa and I took a cooking class where we learned how to make ceviche. After eating it in Arequipa and Lima, I can’t wait to try it at home if I can get fresh enough fish.  Arequipa is a bit of a foodie town and we had two really memorable meals (at Chicha and Zig Zag) in addition to lots of casual ceviche joints, glasses of chicha (fermented corn drink), and queso helado (vanilla-ish ice cream with cinnamon on top).

Craft beer makes someone really happy 

Ceviche we made in our cooking class - with toasted corn and sweet potatoes

Turtle friend - one of two that lived in our hostel's garden

Reunited!

We turned around and headed back to Cabanaconde with Melissa (with a pitstop in Chivay to hit the hot springs) and did a 3 day/2 night loop (dubbed “El Clasico” by the locals) hiking down and across this canyon. Proud to say that we hiked out without the help of mules despite the “twice as deep as the grand canyon” fear factor. On our second night we stayed in Sangalle or “The Oasis” in rustic bungalows that had a pool fed by a natural spring. It was beautiful! Both places we stayed in the canyon had all of their supplies delivered by mules, one had electricity in the kitchen (but they’ve only had it for the last year), and one had electricity in the kitchen from a generator. We had clear skies both nights and the best stargazing I can remember (complete with lots of shooting stars).

Suspension bridge in the bottom of the canyon

Cooling our feet after the 3 hour descent

In the oasis on the last night of our hike

Spring fed swimming pool in the Oasis

Hiking our tired butts back out

Cusco and the Sacred Valley

Adding up the time we were there before and after our Inca Trail trek, we ended up spending close to 3 weeks in Cusco. We spent some days pre-trek adjusting to the altitude and enjoying the amenities of such a large and tourist friendly city (yoga classes and falafel galore), and then at the end, we spent a little over a week volunteering with a family through Workaway before we finally decided to move on. We got to meet up with a friend from the US (Jacqueline and her dog Jimmy) who had been living there for 3 months and had lots of tips.

Cusco really blew me away - we had seen so many well-preserved Spanish Colonial Plaza de Armas’ and cathedrals and worn cobblestone streets in Peru before we arrived, and I really didn’t have much of an expectation. I was focused on it being our starting point for Machu Picchu but it was so much more.  The scale of the gorgeous historic city center, the way the city glistened at sunset as the lights came on, the steep cobblestoned streets in the artsy San Blas neighborhood, the wide variety of restaurants and bars, the beautiful textiles for sale everywhere you turned, the Inca ruins surrounding town, and the seemingly nonstop parades and celebrations that filled the Plaza and the streets most afternoons made for a very comfortable and fun few weeks.

See what I'm saying about these pretty streets?

A llama we encountered on the way to the post office

Plaza de Armas

Another thing that made me like Cusco: I finally took a round of antibiotics after several weeks of on and off ickiness (self-diagnosed giardia, I believe) and so I spent the last week of our time there feeling better than I had in a long time and loving the fact that food was appealing again.

I also took a week of private Spanish lessons (2 hours every afternoon after our volunteer work) and felt like I was able to progress quickly. 3 months in, I really do feel like my Spanish is getting better and it makes me so happy.

It seemed like there was at least one parade or celebration in the street every day

For this Workaway gig, we ended up with a family that owns a tour business. They are working on remodeling a large empty building on the outskirts of town to turn into a hostel in addition to continuing to build their company. We stayed in a dorm type setting on the top floor of their apartment building with up to 6 other volunteers, and did some work translating on their website, sanding walls and cleaning the place up. It was a bit of a frustrating week for us, as we got very little direction and didn’t feel particularly productive most of the time (too many volunteers, not enough work) and day-to-day we spent very little time practicing Spanish or seeing their family. But, we did have fun with some of the volunteers we were living with and Luis and his family were very kind to us - we even ended up attending a wedding with them one of the Saturdays we were there (somewhat unintentionally, while wearing hiking boots, which made it all the more hilarious and interesting).

Luis and his daughter covered in confetti at the wedding

Ladies enjoying some Cusquena beer at the wedding

A bit dusty after sanding walls in the hostel

[

Group bonding with our workaway crew

We spent one night in Urubamba in the Sacred Valley that surrounds Cusco and took a little day trip to the Salineras de Maras - salt flats that have been mined by local families for hundreds of years. Rounding a corner in the dry mountains to the sight of these glistening white terraced flats was amazing!

Serious cactus in Urubamba

A fountain in the plaza to make an Iowan happy - topped with maize!

Incredible salt flats of Maras

In the end, we grew a bit tired of the super-touristy scene in Cusco (being bombarded with offers of massages, tours, and alpaca sweaters every time we walked across town) and felt a week at that volunteer gig was enough, so we decided to move on to Arequipa a little sooner than planned to meet up with our friend Melissa.