Mi Teleferico in La Paz, Bolivia

On April 2, 2019April 4, 2019 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn South America9 Comments

Public transportation using cable cars in the highest capital in the world, La Paz, is certainly quite interesting. When you consider the fact that city is literally built on the sides of a mountain as well as a dense population, getting around the city wasn’t easy until the cable car system was built. Now, instead of winding through narrow streets with steep inclines, people soar over the rooftops to one of the different destinations. There are 3 interconnected lines, just like most transit systems, with red, yellow, and green lines. Although it is a method of transportation that allows citizens to move throughout the city, it is also an incredible way for tourists to truly see this amazing city from a different standpoint.

During our trip to La Paz, we took a combination of the yellow and green lines as a round trip that let us see a majority of the city. Between all of the lines, there are a total of 11 stations or stops that you can enter or exit from that each head to different areas within the city. The cable cars run between 5:00 am until 10:00 pm and, although we only went during the day, the views would be amazing in the evening as well. One of the things that stands out as you ride above the city is that La Paz is a very colorful city with interesting architectural details.

La Paz is certainly an fascinating city with very friendly people and is definitely worth visiting if you are going to Bolivia. If you do visit La Paz, we’d recommend taking time to see the Valley of the Moon in addition to riding on Mi Teleferico as the cable car system is known. Seeing the city from the heights of the cars is certainly one of our favorite memories of our time in Bolivia. We also took a couple of day trips from La Paz to do Death Road as well as went to Tiwanaku, Copacabana, and Lake Titicaca where we went to Sun and Moon Island.

Eating Like a Local

On March 27, 2019 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Food, Recipes, Travel Tips11 Comments

We’ve always recommended that you eat local cuisine when traveling. It is another way of experiencing a culture and understanding the way that they live. In order to do so, we’ve always gotten recommendations from locals and not just people at the hotel. We have tried such a wide variety of foods over the years, some of them pretty normal, and a few that have stretched our gastronomic limits. Here are a few of our more memorable eating experiences.

Cuy in Ecuador – We had read about this local dish before we went to Ecuador, but we were apprehensive about actually trying it. Cuy is actually a Guinea Pig, so it is hard to wrap our heads around trying it, but when we finally decided to give it a try, we actually liked it.
Pork Stomach in Germany
Cow Stomach in Germany – That is what it said on the menu, but it was really a cow’s intestine stuffed with pork, vegetables, and potatoes to create a kind of large sausage. If it wasn’t for the translation on the menu, we wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but it was definitely delicious.
Tilapia and Plantains
Eating Fish in Banana Leaves in Panama – When we visited the Embera village in Panama, we were treated with a local meal of fish and plantains cooked and served in a banana leaf. We also had something similar during our trip to Ecuador when visiting an indigenous village in the Amazon. That is definitely eating like a local.
Crawfish Etouffee
Crawfish Etouffee in New Orleans – We had so many amazing meals in New Orleans from turtle soup, jambalaya, fried oyster po’boys, etc., but one of our favorite was the crawfish etouffee.
Pique Macho
Pique Macho in Bolivia – Considered a local favorite in Bolivia, it is a mix of rice, fried potatoes, hot dogs, tomatoes, beef, onion, and peppers (and sometimes egg). It is a LOT of food. We shared a half-order and still couldn’t come close to finishing it.
Delicious Squid in Estepona
Whole Squid in Southern Spain – We’ve had squid plenty of times, usually fried as calimari and on occasion grilled, but we’d never had it served whole. We went to a local restaurant where they didn’t speak English and the owner just pointed us to the meal of the day, which turned out to be grilled squid. It was amazing.
Seafood Tower
Interesting Shellfish in Amsterdam – We ordered a tower of seafood when we were in Amsterdam and we were served a variety of shellfish. Some of the them were pretty normal, but there were a few things on there that we had no idea what they were. We gave them all a try, but we didn’t care for everything.
Cabbage and Grape Leaf Rolls in Romania
Stuffed Cabbage and Grape Leaves in Romania – It was definitely a little different than any stuffed cabbage that we’ve eaten at home. Served with polenta and a spicy pepper, it was very much a local experience.

Needless to say, these are just a few of the things that we have tried during our travels, but they definitely stand out in our memories. The only thing that we have refused to eat was puffin in Iceland. It wasn’t because we were afraid that it wouldn’t taste good, we just believed that serving puffin was depleting the species and we didn’t want to contribute to that. We will continue to try different dishes and look forward to finding that surprising meal that we never expected to eat.

Do You Need an Actual Camera When You Travel?

On March 21, 2019 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Travel Tips21 Comments

With cell phone cameras getting better and better every year, it begs the question whether or not you should take up room in your bags for a camera. Even if we have a camera with us, we still use our camera phones in addition to using a traditional camera. On a couple of occasions we have decided not to take our camera with us at all, but in most cases we always take a camera with us. There are several reasons for packing our camera and extra lenses when traveling, despite the improvements in cell phone camera technology.

Colosseum in Rome with the Camera and Zoom

We have a couple of lenses for our camera, including a vibration reduction zoom lens. There are many times during a trip that we get the opportunity to have amazing views of a city or landscape. Having a camera with a zoom lens allows us to take photographs of objects in the distance and see them in a way that we couldn’t otherwise. Many of these photographs turn out to be some of our favorite photographs from a location. Another benefit that we find for taking photographs with a camera when traveling is that we can quickly focus on various objects as we walk through a location. Whether on a tour or just walking through a place on our own, we don’t want to stop every 30 seconds to take a picture and we find that we can get photographs of different objects without having to come to a full stop and playing with the zoom of a camera phone.

Quick Picture in the French Quarter of New Orleans

With that said, there are times when the cell phone camera is our preferred choice. Obviously, there are the selfies, probably one of the biggest reasons that camera phones became popular. Also, when we are in a restaurant and want to take a photograph of our food, we’re not likely to pull out our camera and snap a few pictures. Depending on the lighting, we have also found that cell phone cameras work fairly well in low light situations like inside of buildings, churches, and museums. There certainly isn’t any doubt that camera phones continue to improve and they can produce high quality photographs.

Camera Inside of the Church in Nuremberg

We have included several similar photographs here, one taken with the camera and the other will the cell phone. Obviously, there are other factors that come into play regarding the results, but we found the comparison interesting. For the reasons previously mentioned, we’ll continue to take a camera with us, but that doesn’t mean that everyone should. Would you leave your camera at home on your next trip and rely solely on your cell phone camera?