Because the best travel stories don't end with ". . . and everything went according to plan"
May 21, 2026 So I woke up this morning and headed down to the beach in Copacabana to see about getting a boat to Isla del Sol. Only one guy down there, so I asked him. He said he’d be willing to bring me out for 1000 Bolivianos. I agreed without doing the exchange rate …
May 20, 2026 Weird damn day. Absolutely nothing has gone according to expectations. Woke up in Puno. My research on how to get to the Bolivian border had several locations where I could find a colectivo. I went to all of them. The internet was wrong. I did, during my 90 minutes of walking around, …
May 19, 2026 Not an overly exciting day. Just bussed from Chivay to Puno. I did take nearly 300 pictures on the bus ride, passed through some very beautiful countryside. But all those pictures are on my dslr which is in my hotel room (I’m currently in a restaurant) So one thing I haven’t shown …
May 18, 2026
May 17, 2026 Today was a hiking day. And based on prior experiences in Peru I upped the amount of water I carried. 3 liters for what I had estimated as a 6 mile day hike. It turned out to be a great deal longer than 6 miles, and 3 liters wasn’t even close to …
May 16, 2026 This morning started off frustrating. I had figured out how to get myself to Cabanaconde, including times things ran. I just assumed leaving Cabanaconde would be the reverse. After all, it’s not like every colectivo that arrives there gets crushed into a little cube, surely some go back the way they came. …
May 15, 2026 Today has been a wild day, and so far my most favorite day of the trip. So woke up this morning in Arequipa, early since I was anticipating 8-10 hours of hopping multiple colectivos to get here. Turns out in spite of saying they have 24 hour reception the hotel I was …
May 14, 2026 Really didn’t do much today. Went to a breakfast buffet and then walked around. Found better viewpoints than the ones tourists get told about. Also really curious if this was once an Olympic city. Haven’t looked it up yet, but the giant Olympic rings would be puzzling otherwise. Also walked around looking …
May 13, 2026 Woke up this morning at 5am, which is a little baffling since technically I gained an hour when leaving Chile so yesterday was an extra long day. But, made use of the time. Had two missions to accomplish. 1. Get a yellow fever vaccine. There’s two state run hospitals in Arequipa that …
May 12, 2026 Today has been a travel heavy day. It’s also the day I expected to linguistically fail. But, I didn’t! Hizzaw! Probably helped that I’ve taken colectivos and inter regional buses in Peru before, so I already had some idea of what to expect and could ask targeted questions at appropriate points to …