I'm in Bolivia

Part 1
I write this one from the front of an express bus on a 27 hour journey to La Paz. Its about 9:15pm and dark. This bus is far different from the overnight buses I experienced in China. There, they packed in as many beds as possible and everyone got their coffin to spend the night in. This bus feels like luxury comparatively. There are two decks. The bottom is mostly the cab, crew quarters, los banos and cargo space. The upper deck has rows that look like normal bus seats except bigger, more leg room and they lean most of the way back to laying down position. There is even a padded foldout leg rest thingy. The front of the upper deck has a half-circle table with benches facing a large window stretching across the bus width. That is where I sit now, facing the dark highway, watching traffic go by. There is a Peruvian couple sitting on my left flirting in Spanish and listening to Jack Johnson. Honestly, its a bit scary sitting in front of this window watching scenery come at me through the dark on this narrow mountainous highway. Occasionally I grab the computer as we swing around switchback after switchback.

Lima truly is built in the middle of a desert. I spent a day in a town on the outskirts of Lima called Miraflores in-between arriving Sunday and catching the bus Tuesday. The city is quite a non-photogenic place this time of year. All winter long Lima is covered in this fog that just sort of blankets everything white. It is not the type of fog that you can watch coming in and out, covering and uncovering the world creating epic photographs of clouds moving through objects, but instead gives the whole world a sense of being two dimensional

We began this journey from two-dimensionality at 9am cruising down the coast of Peru with the Pacific ocean crashing upon the beaches to our right. The sand dunes stretched out for miles off to the left. The desert grew as we veered a bit inland and all I could see to either horizon was nothing but sand. Save for the occasional concrete village there really was nothing but sand and rock. Eventually we started into the mountains which could really be better described as giant rocky sand dunes. I noticed many of the villages we passed had walls that seemed to have been built to keep the desert from taking over the village.


Part 2
Okay, I'm now writing this section from my new apartment in La Paz. I've met most of my co-workers, taken a stroll around town and unpacked all my stuff. Bus ride turned out to be 30 hours total, but I rather enjoyed it. The scenery was unbelievable and I have decided that I definitely need to go back and check out the area around Lake Titicaca some more. The other guys here say there is more incredible mountain biking around the lake and up into the Cuzco area. I have quite a headache, but I'm not sure if its from the altitude or if I just didn't drink enough water on the bus ride. Either way, I plan on getting stuff done tomorrow, so it can't stick around. Anyways, I hope to be riding real soon as I sit here and stare at my lovely bike in the corner of my bedroom. I also hope to have facebook albums up soon.
Peace