where to begin... the last 5 days have been really busy; jamie describes them as "bloody hectic." three days river rafting, 135 usd everything included.. one of the scariest moments of my life when a boat behind us flipped in a class 5 rapid and we had to save them. after fishing them out, our boat had about 12 people in it, normally should be just 6 plus captain, and we got wedged between two rocks and were tipping to the right - the side i was on. captain death ordered "jump right," which means everyone has to move to the right, to try to get us unstuck. so there i was, several people on top of me, facing a huge rock and rapid rapids.

anyways, before we went rafting we went to buy our train tickets to machu picchu. three of us got in one cab and three in another, my three were directed to the right station and the others were milked for cab fare and driven far away to a busy station and they just didnt have time to buy the tickets before rafting. so cam, jamie and i pushed on to machu picchu after rafting, arriving just 2 minutes before our train left at 815pm - a 1h30m to 2h taxi drive made into 1h10 thanks to an amazing taxi driver. the train went to augas calientes, a horrible little tourist town just twenty minutes away from machu picchu, and the next morning we spent several hours at one of the wonders of the world then hopped back on the train to cusco to leave for la paz. what would come next could be predicted by nobody and wore down my patience to shortest it has ever been.

i hadnt had much sleep over the previous 4 days (river rafting meant sleeping on sand in a tent with no pillow and waking up at 7), so was looking forward to our direct 11 hour bus trip to la paz, where we planned to get decent accomodations and some much needed rest&relaxation. the problems began at the first bus station. the bus we had bought tickets for was no longer running, and some snakes picked up on that and tried to get us on to their bus - we werent quite sure what scam they were trying to pull, we were only sure it was a scam. after telling them everything short of fuck off, we walked away and began asking people what to do. another guy had the same problem and went to the bus companies office at the station and they gave him a new ticket for a different bus, so we went and did the same. only this bus was to puno, then supposedly a transfer directly to la paz. on the bus, jamie and i had some ron and coke to relax a bit, a highlight of the journey. arriving in puno just in time for sunrise on lake titicaca, we were all pissed off to find out that we had to now make another transfer in copacabana, bolivia, before la paz. we accepted our fate and waited 2 and a half hours at the bloody cold (19 degrees f) puno bus station, hoping this would be the last inconvenience. at the border crossing we stopped to be approved for entrance to bolivia, only to be stopped again by a roadblock a minute later. i forgot to mention, i may have sprained my ankle river rafting, and this fact is fairly relevant right about now. we were forced to walk 9km into copacabana, half of which was uphill, at an elevation of approximately 3800m and in the scorching sun, with all of our baggage, only to be informed upon arrival that the bus to la paz was cancelled because of more roadblocks. cam described himself as a "broken man," a description that worked quite well for jamie and i as well. the bus station told us that at 6 or 630 another bus may run to la paz, so we held out hope and didnt check in anywhere; instead we slept on couches in a hotel lobby for several hours. a bit of luck went our way and the maybe turned to definitely, we were going to la paz that night at 630. we boarded the bus and i, naively, thought we were finally going to la paz. an hour later we stopped; another roadblock. the bus boarded a big wooden platform boat type of vessel and was punted across what i can only guess was lake titicaca. the passengers crammed into old, lousy motorboats and were escorted across, forced to inhale fumes from the engine. on the other side we boarded the bus again and sped off to la paz. none of the above is fiction or exaggeration.

i really couldve elaborated more on white water rafting and machu picchu but ill let the pictures to the talking, but i guess i have to get to an internet cafe that lets me upload more than 5mb per session and has computers from this century.