Yep, it’s here, folks! I’m off this week on my next adventure. The destination this time? Peru and Bolivia!
Sudamerica, redux
I haven’t set foot on my continent’s southern counterpoint since my trip to Argentina and Chile in 2009. Peru and Bolivia have both been on my wishlist for ages, and I’ve made a couple of attempts to take this trip before, but none had panned out.
But in December, there I was, just home from India and Nepal and preparing to take off again a couple of weeks later for Cuba. I was chatting with my friends Vanessa and Marie-Andrée, who told me about a great flight deal they’d seen to Lima and had immediately jumped on.
I expressed jealousy about their Peru plans. They invited me to join them. That, as they say, was that.
Machu Picchu for my birthday? Hell yeah!
If you recall, my Chile trip came about in a similar fashion, when the awesome eTrekkers planned Santiago-fest and I went ahead and booked myself a plane ticket. Anyway, it’s now eight years later, and I’m preparing to head back to South America for a trip that will, sadly, involve 100% fewer penguins, but will hopefully compensate by having 100% more alpacas. I’m also sad to report that my español hasn’t improved much since then. But, hopefully, my blogging and photography skills have somewhat.
And as much as I’m constantly bemused by the fact that people besides my mom actually read this blog, I’m told that my fans have been demanding a relaunch.
So here it is, folks: My travelblog, back by popular demand. I hope you enjoy this one.
The eternal traveller’s dilemma
So, our plans go roughly like this:
I’ll be spending the first ten days with Vanessa and Marie travelling around Peru. We’re going to see the major sites, including Lima, Arequipa and Colca Canyon, the Sacred Valley, and of course, Machu Picchu.
(Side note: I’m checking off those New Seven Wonders of the World at an alarmingly fast rate. Between the Taj Mahal last November, the Great Wall of China the previous August, Chichen Itza in 2014, and the Colosseum in 2002, after this trip, I’ll have been to 5 out of 7. A jumping photo at each one? It’s gonna happen, folks. Watch this space.)
After the first ten days, Vanessa and Marie will be heading home. But when I booked my ticket, I fell into the trap of the three most dangerous words known to every travelaholic: “Once I’m there…”
See, it seemed like a shame to fly all the way to Peru for such a quick trip, I schemed a bit and decided to pop over to neighbouring Bolivia once I’m in the neighbourhood. The Salar de Uyuni has been on my wishlist ever since my friend Chris ended up there instead of in Patagonia with us in ’09 due to sleeping in and missing a flight. I just had to find a way to make it there.
So after the others go home, I’ll be making my way across Lake Titicaca to Bolivia and joining up with a tour, taking in the aforementioned Salar, along with a few other sights and cities.
All in all, I’ll be travelling for a solid three weeks around the ancient lands of the Incas. I know I say this a lot, but this is going to be epic.
The plans themselves came together rather quickly, aided by Vanessa’s completely phenomenal trip planning skills. I mean it: If you think I’m good, you haven’t seen Vani in action. But that doesn’t mean that the lead-up to this trip has been completely smooth, mind you. I did hit a few speed bumps…
The Yellow Fever conundrum
When I planned my itinerary for this trip, I specifically decided against a visit to the Amazon, because I don’t have my vaccine against yellow fever.
But then, a few weeks after booking, I got an email from my travel agent: Bolivia, following an outbreak of yellow fever in its lowland jungle region, had just changed its rules. As of March, it would be requiring that every tourist present a yellow fever vaccination certificate at the border, or else be denied entry.
Well, crap. I guess that meant I’d best get on that. Trouble is, as I found out when I phoned my friendly neighbourhood health clinic, taking care of this was easier said than done.
See, there’s an ongoing worldwide shortage of this particular vaccine. There’s only one pharmaceutical company authorized to manufacture and provide it for all of North America, and — due to production difficulties, outbreaks in various regions, and other such issues — there isn’t nearly enough of it to go around. Every clinic I phoned had months-long waiting lists. I only had a few weeks to sort this out. This wasn’t good.
All the more galling was the fact that there was no apparent medical reason for this directive. The areas I’m visiting in Peru and Bolivia are pretty much all at high altitude, and none are within the WHO’s designated risk areas for yellow fever. It seemed like a poor use of resources; with the worldwide vaccine supply so limited, did it really make sense to redirect doses of it away from people who actually need it?
But, them’s the rules. Bolivia gets to control its borders and decide who enters. And the info I was getting was, no vaccine certificate, no entry.
To add to the stress of all this, those of you who know me likely know that I suffer from severe trypanophobia. In layperson’s terms, that means that, like a far greater proportion of adults than you might think, I’m horribly phobic of needles.
In my defence, it’s pretty much my only phobia. Heights? Cool, bring ’em on. Small spaces? No worries. Spiders? I don’t love it when they’re crawling around my bedroom, but other than that, no issues. But needles are pretty much my kryptonite. I don’t have any tattoos or piercings, because who in their right mind would get needles voluntarily stuck in them that they don’t need? I avoid blood tests like the plague. And I usually put off any vaccinations that aren’t available in pill form until the last possible second.
Now, don’t get me wrong on this one: I’m not an anti-vaccine crackpot. On the contrary: If you are one of those people who thinks that you should take the word of Jenny McCarthy over every single doctor and scientist on the planet, and who thinks it’s okay to put your kids’ lives and the lives of everyone around them at risk from diseases that we managed to wipe out decades ago through the wonders of scientific research, and that are only back now due to colossal human stupidity, then you are an idiot of the first degree. Go away. This blog likely isn’t for you. Also, vaccinate your damn kids.
No, see, I’m a big fan vaccines, because, well, science. And not dying from preventable diseases. And did I mention, science? I’m just shit-terrified of getting them. Which is an entirely different thing. Given the choice between gnawing off my arm entirely and getting a needle jabbed in it, I’d probably vote for the former, no joke.
Anyway, my personal trepidation aside, I still had to deal with this. I got on the phones and started calling authorized clinics. All over Montreal, Laval, South Shore, as far west as Gatineau, even resorting to calling places in Ottawa, Plattsburgh and Burlington. Nobody had any in stock. Nobody knew when they’d be getting any. Nada, nyet, zilch, zip.
Finally — finally — I hit upon a clinic that is literally walking distance from home, which didn’t have any in stock but was scheduled to get some. They allowed me to spend $100 to reserve a spot on their waiting list. Sure enough, when the first of the month rolled around, I got a phone call saying that my vaccine was in. And you’ll be pleased to know that I even managed to go through with it on the first try… with the help from some seriously strong drugs prescribed to me by my doctor. A few panic attacks and a sore arm later, and I am now proudly in possession of an honest-to-goodness, authentic yellow fever vaccine — and I even have the certificate to prove it!
The kicker? After ALL that, I got another email from my travel company, that read as follows:
“On February 17th we advised that as of 2rd March, all travellers entering Bolivia will be required to produce a Yellow Fever Certificate of vaccination. On the back of this news, the Tourism industry (ourselves included) were swamped with calls and e-mails from travellers and medical professionals advising there is a severe Yellow Fever vaccination shortage – especially so in North America.
Considering this, the Bolivian authorities have suspended the policy and its enforcement. The exception to this is when entering Bolivia from a lowland border where mosquitoes are more prevalent, where it is likely the Yellow Fever Documentation will still be likely be asked for. Also those who have travelled to or from countries designated as Yellow Fever pandemic areas, the Yellow Fever Vaccine would still be required.”
Yes, that’s right: I went through all of that hassle, and it turns out that I DIDN’T EVEN NEED IT! I promptly went looking for some sort of wall to punch.
Oh well. At least it’s good for life. So I won’t ever have to deal with this again. Ever.
I hope.
Underwater blues
With the vaccination debacle behind me, it seemed like it would be smooth sailing all the way to the trip. But that didn’t take into account Mother Nature.
See, in case you haven’t heard — and there’s a good chance you haven’t heard because, well, insert rant about the terrible coverage we get in the media of important news from outside of North America — in March, Peru suffered some of its worst flooding in decades. Heavy rainfalls, mudslides and overflowing rivers have caused a death toll in the triple digits, with an estimated 800,000 people affected, and over 175,000 houses and buildings destroyed.
Anyway, the flooding in Peru, as well as, say, volcanoes in Iceland, earthquakes in Nepal, or demonetization in India, are obviously “acts of God” (or, in the case of that last one, an “act of a demagogue politician who thinks he’s God”). Mind you, God’s had some help in the case of the Peru flooding from us humans who seem to think that carbon emissions are fine as long as they’re somebody else’s problem.
But climate change is totally fake news, right Trumpites?
(Yeah, you climate change skeptics can leave right now, along with the anti-vax loonies. This is a good time to put all my readers on notice: This is a pro-science zone, here.)
The impact on my trip actually won’t be that great. The worst-hit areas were in the north of Peru, where I don’t plan to visit. The places on our itinerary were either not hit, or not badly impacted. And all signs are that tourist sites, hotels, roads and transportation are all operating normally again. So, the trip’s on as planned.
But — and this is a big but — that kind of selfish thinking is akin to wading into a country with blinders on. These are the kind of things that serve as good reminders that the places I’m visiting aren’t just tourist theme parks set up for my convenience, but real places with real problems. The people affected by the floods have lost their homes, livelihoods, and in some cases, lives.
So if you’re reading this and plan to enjoy my travel stories for the coming weeks, I will take this opportunity to ask you to consider making a contribution to one of the international organizations working in the area to provide relief efforts to the people in Peru who need it most.
What next?
Here’s hoping that, after all that, it will be smooth sailing from here. I’m packed, checked and double checked, and extremely excited for what’s sure to be an awesome trip.
There may still be some hurdles, of course. Altitude sickness is a real possibility; Cusco is over 3000m, La Paz is over 3600, and the Salar de Uyuni goes up above 5000. I’m going armed with prescription medication and plenty of advice about how to acclimatize, but there’s really no way to know how it will affect me until I get there.
Add to that a jam-packed trip with lots of flights, some potentially cold southern hemisphere weather, especially at night, and of course the general risks of travel, and you just never know. But at this point, hey, I’m prepared to roll with it.
D-day, here we come.