The Slow Speed of Progress

Or, the slow speed of internet and the difficulty in even finding a connection.

We noticed a marked decrease in internet speed when we entered Ecuador and Peru. Now that we are in Bolivia, we are prepared for even slower connections, if we can even get a connection.

Our first town in Bolivia was Copacabana, on Lake Titicaca. We loved the town, found some great hiking and island camping nearby, and an excellent restaurant. Our hostel, however, did not have internet. In fact, no hostel in the entire city did.

We have just arrived at our hostel in La Paz. If we are going to get internet, it will definitely be in this, the capitol city. Alas, our hostel has internet, but no wifi. Within a five block walk is supposedly a cafe with wifi (not, as you would think, an internet cafe).

This, mind you, is not the end of the world for us. But having our amazing little netbook and not having wi-fi is a bit unusual. At least 95% of our hostels have had wifi. Every friend we have stayed with has wifi. Hell, even some of the campsites had wifi. It has been so easy to upload photos, blog, email, make reservations, research travel options, and of course check Facebook.

So consider this a warning - for the next few weeks, we might not be blogging, emailing or sharing photos much. We´ll try to catch up when we return to the states at the end of June.

On the same topic of this blog title, Kristin and I have become really interested in the development, or relative lack thereof, of countries in South America. Ann in Guatemala insisted we read Open Veins of Latin America, but we didn´t follow through with that until Janie gave us her copy in Colombia. That kick-started our research. We have since read The End of Poverty, Bad Samaritans, and parts of The Lexus and The Olive Tree. If you have any other recommendations along these lines, please share! I will post my thoughts after we have traveled through Bolivia, which is the least developed country in South America. I would love to hear your thoughts on this!