3 Down, 5 to Go

Salta, Chile

So its been a while and i guess we have some stories that need to be told. Lets start at the begining...

The mines at Potosí were very good and we successfully made it out of there alive. Probably wasnt such a good idea waiting to write the last blog entry since we kinda left you hanging last entry but oh well. The mines were a good way to see how people in Bolivia make a decent wage under horrible working conditions. The mines there employees about 20,000 people and usually about 15,000 of them work in the mine daily in small cooperative groups of about 5 to 30 miners. The mine is no longer state run so these individual groups just pay taxes on what they produce and the government gives them nothing in return. All and all it was a great experience but i dont think i need to step foot again in a mine anytime soon.

After that we headed off to Uyuni to find ourselves a salt flat tour. We have been traveling with Roland and Katalin for most of Bolivia but we hooked up with 2 Belgium kids to fill up our jeep. Uyuni itself is a town that's sole purpose to host travelers while they wait to leave on a tour or catch the train leaving town. Allthe residents in that town know that there is no need for them to provide any nice accommodations since travelers only spend a night or two actually in Uyuni. We ended up going for a 4 day reverse tour of the Solar de Uyuni and it was awesome. On the tour the first 3 days you see different colored lagoons, flamingos, geysers, active volcanoes, and plenty of other things (see the pictures... if they ever get up). The last day we drove out onto the salt planes which are nothing more than a huge flat deposit of white salt. There are a couple of islands in the middle and we visited on of them with was extremely interesting because it was its own eco system. Since the back drop is all white on the Solar you can take some interesting pictures as well (again they will need to be posted before you can actually see the sweet pictures). All and all the trip was amazing; the scenery felt more like the Moon and Mars at times than Earth. We also did get up to our new highest altitude of just shy of 5,000 m!

So after the 4th day we were dropped in Uyuni to wait for the train to Tupiza which left at 3:00am so we had some time to kill. Im going to vent about our train experience so if you dont care skip this paragraph, but looking back on it, it was pretty funny. Before leaving on the Salar Roland and I tried to buy tickets for the train because we knew it be difficult to get them once we got back Sunday night. The Uyuni train station is a very special place that only has one worker and he has 2 posted hours for the morning, 2 for the afternoon, and on the nights of the train the hour before the train arrives. Of the possible 5 hours he works he only serves customers for about 1 or 2 hours a day and when the shift is up he kicks everyone out and tells them to come back. Ive come to the conclusion that he isnt really interested in selling tickets or making money period since i think he´s secretly on salary for the bus company. So Roland and i tried to buy tickets in advance because that seem to be the logical thing to do. We got there 30 minutes before the window open to didnt get a number until 15 minutes after the place was supposed to open. They used to not do numbers and the line for getting tickets was very similar to a Royal Rumble you might watch on TNT at 3:00 in the morning during the week. Anyways once we go to the ticket counter we told the ticket guy we like to buy tickets for the Sunday train. All he said was "no es possible" (you dont need to speak spanish to figure that out). We tried to explain to him that we were leaving and wasnt going to make it back but he really didnt seem to care, advance ticket sales just didnt exsist you can only buy them the day before. We ended up having our tour agent buy them for us but she was only able to get the lowest class. Usually this isnt a problem since were on a budget but 3rd class, popular class, didnt have reclining seats and its packed with people, and on overnight travel we usually splurge since we dont need a hotel room. Anyways we get to the train station in hoping that we can upgrade our tickets right before the train get in. The only problem is at night they dont have number and its like a Royal Rumble and Roland and I didnt feel like taking a beating from people who werent as lucky as us to have any tickets. We were also told by several employees that the train only had 3rd class so we werent that upset. The train rolls in and to our amazement we see cars full of reclining seats and think to ourselves that 3rd class doesnt look so bad. But as the train stops and we look waaaaayyyyyy down the platform we see third class in all its glory. So we realize that there are empty seats on first and second class and ask the conductor of one of the nicer cars if we can get an upgrade. He says to go to the ticket counter, and we explain to him that the guy at the ticket counter has a girlfriend in Hong Kong and the only reason he took a job as a ticket seller is so he can sit on instant messenger at 3 am to chat with her. Well, we didnt exactly say this, but he came in with us to the ticket office and saw that this guy was basically refusing to sell tickets to both foreigners and locals. So we didnt get an upgrade and took our third class seats and got hardly any sleep on a 6 hour train journey, and still have no idea why he wouldnt sell tickets.

The train did take us to a gorgeous town in the south of Bolivia surrounded by mountains that reminded us of Arizona. We stayed at a pretty nice hotel (the last nice cheap hotel we will probably see for awhile) with a pool and went on a horseback ride through the area. Check out the pics once were up.

Now were in Argentina and I said Jess once we got here that "we´re not in Bolivia anymore." Salta looks a bit like a European ciy and the prices are starting to reflect that too. But it is a welcome break from the chaos of Bolivia. We´re looking into hiking or a horse trip soon.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Justin

Meeting the locals

Hello All-

Justin and I are doing well, we have spent the past week in a couple of Bolivia´s nicest cities and some of the small towns around them. Our first stop after La Paz was Cochabamba, a university city. We came there with two other backpacking couples that we have been hanging out with for a little while. We hung out in the city for a day and then went for a day hike outside of the city. We were hoping to hike to a couple of lakes, but in classic Bolivian fashion no one told us accurately how far away from the lakes were. Upon arrival at the check in point for the hike the trail ranger told us that the lakes were actually about 30 miles away. So we did not make it to the lakes on that hike but still had a nice time.

After Cochabamba our friend Roland suggested traveling to a couple of small towns that were not very touristed and making our way to Sucre, another large city. We packed up and left to the middle of nowhere, a small town where we did not see any other tourists. It was quite pretty, but not much was going on. Roland came down with a stomach bug, so Katalin, Justin, and I headed off to explore some of the other small towns. We visited a small market and another small town where there were not any attractions or much to do, and then decided to give up on finding anything to do and leave the town. We were waiting to take a shared cab that left when it was full (full meaning two people to every seat) to another small village, and a couple of locals joined us in waiting as well. After a few minutes they got up to leave, and the man with them approached us. He spoke very quickly and all I caught was ¨una copita¨which means one little cup. He was motioning to the house across from us, and we realized that they were inviting us to come have a drink of chicha with them, which is the local alcohol made from corn. So for the next half hour while waiting for the cab we found ourselves having drinks with the locals which was no mild event. They were very welcoming though and we had a good time.

After these small towns we headed to Sucre, Bolivia´s other capital and another very pretty city. For our 2 year anniversary we got a nice hotel room and splurged a bit, meaning we spent $30 on an hotel room instead of the usual $7 or so. It and the city were very nice. The next day we met up with Trevor and Laurine, backpacking friends we met in Galapagos and have not seen since. Justin and I watched the Rugby World Cup with them and unfortunately saw Argentina lose in the semi finals. If they had won we could have seen the finals on TV in Argentina, but oh well. Later that night we went to the movies for the first tome on our trip and saw Die Hard 4, a ridiculous but entertaining film.

We are now in Potosi which was a very affluent city in the 1700s because of its silver mines. We are going to take a tour of its Mint museum and then we are going to tour the mines where the miners still work in very primitive conditions. We were a bit hesitant at first but we have heard that it is amazing to see and that the miners enjoy having visitors, as they bring gifts and break up the monotony of the day. Tomorrow we are headed to Uyuni to do a salt flats tour so we are porbably going to be out of internet access for the next 5 days or so.

Best wishes to all,

Jess

Our Jungle Adventure

La Paz, Bolivia

So were back from our adventure to the jungle and it was well worth it. We started off at 6:30 am last Saturday to be picked up by a private bus. It took us a while to get out of the city limits because its the start of the rainy season which means any road could be washed out so we had to detour a few times. As some of you may know The World´s Most Dangerous Road is located to the North of La Paz and until a few months ago took a few hundred lives a year. But lucky for us international organizations (like the UN) now step in and help out countries that cant afford to build proper roads, and they have replaced the most dangerous part of The World´s Most Dangerous Road. This road was amazing it had things we hadnt seen yet on this continent such as painted lanes, tunnels, signs and even real guard rails. Jess and i were amazed at this multi hundred million dollar effort, it was fabulous. The funny thing about this road is that is hardly more physically dangerous than many of the roads in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Andes. It had so many more deaths per year because of the drivers. They often drove drunk or for 24 hours at a time.

After lunch we picked up the rest of group who elected to mountain bike the old death road (see Mom I am being safe) and got to travel down the less dangerous part of the road that was not part of the new road construction... There were a few things i didnt know about driving this road. First all traffic drives on the left side so the driver has the best few of his front tires. Second the outside driver also gives way to the inside driver, which usually requires stopping and pulling as close as possible to cliff face (remind you there are no barriers what so over). Third it´s a good idea to blow your horn around every blind corner (which is every one) to alert them to stop and make way. All those rules along with a competent driver will let you safely pass this part of the road in just under 5 hours (we have great video and pictures).

Next we boarded our boat to the jungle which was nothing more than a 40´row boat with a motor on the back. Traveling by boat was more enjoyable than bus because its much cooler and you dont have to worry about inhale dust with every passing vehicle. The guide was a bit on the sub par side just cause of the lack of information and his english skills but we had a great boat full of people so it ended up being a great experience. Both the 2nd and 3rd day we had stops where we walked about the jungle seeing fascinating things with little to no explanation... All well, not all our guides can be amazing naturalists but the boat defiantly beat the bus.

We got into Rurrenabaque Monday night and the next day a group of us from the boat trip set off to find a Pampas tour. The pampas is a term locals use to call an area where the river meets the jungle and its also where most of the wildlife congregate to drink. Most of the group headed off early to go interview tour agency and Jess and I kinda got off to a late start after breakfast and some expensive internet. We only checked out 2 places while everyone covered at least 5 or 6 but i guess we have a nack for finding the best deals in town because we went with the 2nd tour agency we talked to. The following day we set out in on a 3 hour jeep ride to Santa Rosa where we were to pick up the boat to the Pampas. On the jeep ride we encountered our first road block, and it was quite an interesting experience. To start a road block you all really need 3 things, everyone in the town to show up, a front end loader to drop huge pile of dirt in the middle of the road, and beer (or the local moonshine). The only thing that determines how long the road block is when the locals run out of beer because i think its very important for them to be drunk during the whole process. Lucky for us our tour agency was the only one that was owned and completely operated by a neighboring village, so there was always a family member that could help out somewhere. We were allowed to pass through the road block, but not our jeep, so we carried everything across where another family member picked us up on the other side.

After that we hopped on our boat for our 3 hour trip up river were we saw no shortage of alligators, capybaras, and a large assortment of birds and monkeys. The trip was good i suggest you to check out the pictures; everyday we took the boat out somewhere then walked around looking for various animals. Some of the highlights were swimming with river dolphins, howling monkeys, and all the little fish that jumped into Jess´s lap while motoring around. There is much more but ill fill you in over a beer the next time i see you.

When we got back to Rurrenabaque we had planned on flying back to La Paz but this is the burning season for slash and burn farming. This is when locals cut down the jungle and burn it then plant their crops. It works great for a season or so then when there is no more nutrition in the soil they just burn some more. All this burning make for great sun sets and also makes it impossible for planes to land in the smoke filled valleys. Lucky for us yesterday was the first day planes we´re flying so Jess and I paid $65 for a 40 minute flight versus $10 for a 20 hour bus ride. The airport was a grassy strip and the most advanced piece of equipment (besides the plane) was the scale to make sure the plane would actually leave the runway. The plane was a 19 seat twin prop plane that was so small you could see into the cockpit and could offer a back seat flying tips on final approach. The flight was fine until the end. The flight was pressurized but La Paz airport is at 13,000 ft so with 10 minutes left they basically opened a window to equalize the pressure. Also at this height a plane must land a twice the speed because there is so little air to create lift. I thought this was a great time but a lot of the people including Jess were a bit worried when it came to final approach and thought it was necessary to clap. Everything worked fine and it was another experience.

Anyways we´re in La Paz for another night before heading to Cochabamba. We´re not sure what there is to do there but it sounds like some nice hikes and some caving to do. Hope everyone is doing well.

Best

Justin

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