Nous voici enfin branchés avec vous via notre blogue-voyage. Depuis maintenant 2 semaines que nous voyageons et nous sommes heureux dans notre nouvelle aventure. Nous vous tiendrons au courant de nos allés et venues le plus regulièrement possible, mais comme le but de notre voyage n'est pas d'être devant un ordi pendant des heures, soyez patients:)
Nous avons commencés le périple en Californie le 27 août 2011 pour assister au mariage du cousin de Mike, Jeremy. Nous avons passés la semaine à découvrir la côte entre San Francisco et Los Angeles, visitant la tante de Mike à Laguna Beach et sa cousine Caitlin en plein coeur de San Francisco. Quels millieux différents!
Le 3 septembre, nous avons pris notre envol pour l'Amérique du Sud. Après quelques embuches (billets, visas, Aeroplan,...) nous avons atteris comme prévu à Sucre, la ville de grands charmes de la Bolivie. Depuis 3-4 jours, nous vivons la Fête de la Vierge Guadaloupe. Ce qui signifie danse et musique sur une procession de 5 km à travers le centre de Sucre. On entend les feux d'artifices jusqu'aux petites heures du matin. Nous marchons beaucoup pour découvrir les différents quartiers qui feront partis de notre routine pour les 3 prochaines semaines. Nous commencons des cours d'espagnol demain matin. Il est évident que notre espagnol de "resort" ne suffira pas. À suivre...
p.s: Comme vous pourrez le constater plus bas, chers amis francophones, Mike a la plume plus facile que moi. Alors allez le lire et je vous promets plus de détails dans une prochaine parution.
The english version. Elise and I are now connected to you via this blog. Don´t expect hourly updates, but we´ll try our best to give you a decent idea of what we´re up to on our travels. The voyage started August 27 in San Francisco to attend my cousin Jeremy´s wedding in Half Moon Bay. It was a super day and great to see old family and meet new ones. Elise and I shut the party down both nights, but part of that was due to many of the younger crowd getting stuck in an elevator for an hour and forty-five minutes on the night of the wedding. Congratulations Jeremy and Lisa!
From there we rented a car and drove down to Laguna Beach along Interstate 5 to visit my aunt and parents, who had flown down the same day. What we were told would be a boring drive was fantastic for us - Califorina is a true breadbasket and we were amazed at all the apples, avocados, walnuts and other foods we saw in masses. I hadn´t been to Laguna in a number of years so it was very special to visit with my aunt and parents in her lovely house. The weather was typical southern california - gorgeous. After a nice visit for a couple of days we drove along the Pacific Coast Highway as it winds its way north back to SF. We stopped in LA to tour around Beverly Hills and to have lunch on Sunset Blvd. The houses are ridiculous there but even more surprising was how many were for sale! The Pacific Coast Highway is worth the drive if you´ve never done it, full of twists and turns and nice beaches. We stopped halfway for a great fish dinner and a beachside bottle of wine. Next day we made it to SF to stay with my cousin Caitlin in her awesome apartment right in the heart of the city. We took a tour of the Bay in total fog, that included a spin around Alcatraz and going under the Golden Gate Bridge. I liked the fog, thought it fitting to see the hardest prison in US history like that. I didn´t know about the American Indian movement stand on the island after it had closed in the late 1970s. We had a great dinner and beers with Caity´s friends Carrie and Scott (he had been to Bolivia, asked if we could put him in our suitcase) and the next day on to Houston. Here is where shit hit the fan. Our ticket was booked on points and went via Rio and Asuncion Paraguay before arriving in Santa Cruz Bolivia. We had checked with the embassies to ensure we didn´t need VISAs and the Paraguayan people told us that since we weren´t leaving the airport there were no worries. Well, turns out they don´t know SHIT. We were denied the flight to Rio by Continental Airlines because, as it turns out, if you´re going to transit for more than 6 hours you need a VISA for Paraguay. We tried to get Aeroplan to redo our tickets to no avail and had to throw away those points and buy new flights that went via El Salvador, Lima and Santa Cruz to our final destination, Sucre Bolivia. We were bagged when we arrived. So far Sucre has lived up to its claim as the urban jewel of Bolivia with whitewashed buildings everywhere and little stores and restaurants everywhere. So far the highlight has been a three day festival celebrating the Virgin of Guadelupe which consisted of a 5km procession of dances and music from various Bolivian regions and lots of fireworks. Saturday was the highlight and it took about 16 hours for all the groups to make it through to the main plaza. We took in a good 7 hours of it and I think were both really impressed. The multiple beers along the way didn´t hurt either.
Looking forward our we start 3 weeks of spanish lessons tomorrow morning at 8:15am! Neither of us have been students in ages - Elise is excited, I am most decidedly not. However, if the group is cool and learning the language helps us get around better in the coming months then I´m all for it. So tonight we´re going to go see The Hangover 2 to get my mind of it for a bit. Check back in at least a couple weeks for another update.
