Uyuni Salt Flats

I am currently in Santiago, Chile via Uyuni, Bolivia. I had an opportunity to take a 3 day jeep trek through the salt flats of Bolivia as well as the San Pedro de Atacama desert in Chile. Day one began in the early afternoon. The crew contained a driver, cook and 6 tourists including myself. Two of the people I was with I had been traveling with since Lima, Peru for the past 2 weeks, so I knew it was going to be a good time. We headed to the salt flats and I was blown away by how huge it was. It is apparently 12,ooo sq km in size and all solid white salt, it is the remains of an ancient salt lake. Without sun glasses it was a blinding experience, fortunately I was well equipped. The most interesting thing is that there is no point of reference in terms of distance, so it is a fun place to take pictures, people in the distance just look like small people. There was a town which processed the salt, albeit very rudimentary, as well as all the buildings are made out of salt blocks. Now I love salt, but I think this was a bit overkill. Cruising through the flats we blew a tire and swerved a bit before coming to a stop. The following day was mainly driving, blew a second tire. We passed by several lagoons which has several species of flamingoes, I clearly could not tell them apart, I think it is just a farce. An interesting part of the day was seeing strange rock formations in the middle of the desert. The wind and sand eat away at the bottoms of boulders moreso than the tops, leaving rocks looking like trees and mushrooms. That night was fairly painful. We spent the night at about 4600 meters or 13800 feet. The temperature dipped well below freezing to about 12 degrees F. I had on a shirt, fleece, coat, gloves, hat, 2 prs pants, 2 prs socks, sleeping bag, and two fleece covers and I was still freezing my ass off. The next morning we went to see geysers and thermal baths in the middle of the desert, I decided that I was not interested in stripping down and swimming as ice crunched under my feet, I will leave that for people who are completely insane. We finished the third day seeing a green and red lagoon, due to the type of algae and then got dropped off at the Chilean boarder. The ride into Chile was certainly noteworthy as well, we decended about 2000 meters (6000 feet) in about 40 minutes. The road was unnecessarily steep and had emergency runoffs every 500 feet in case someones brakes gave way. All in all it was a worthwhile trip. Well until next time.

O

Peru, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca

I am currently in La Paz, Bolivia. It has been a very eventful last week and a half since my last post. Well I spent a couple of day in Lima, I have to admit that I was not all that impressed by the city. I made my way to Cuzco, Peru which is home to all the famous ruins of the Incas. For three days I visited various ruins ending in the pinnacle of seeing Machu Picchu. Even with all the hype, it stands up to impress. I did some serious mountain hiking as well, climbing a 700 meter mountain and a 650 meter one the following day. Both of these mountains surrounded Machu Picchu which gave a great birdseye view of the ruins. This was one of my major things to do on this trip, like Christmas as a kid, it passes too quickly. The next trip was to visit Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America. On the Peruvian side is Puno. The most interesting thing about Puno are the people who live on floating islands. They are made out of boyant reeds, in fact everything that is on the island is made of reeds, such as the houses, boats, watch towers ground etc. It was certainly unique.

Making my way into Bolivia was an experience. In my travel book it says that entrance visas are free, well this changed 4 months ago and is now 135 dollars, among having a list of things to complete before you enter. I had to bribe the official to overlook my unpreparedness. Our president strikes again in pissing off yet another country, so it´s citizens have to pay for it. In fact U.S. citizens are the only country that have to pay anything to enter Bolivia. I have to say that when I was told this I was embarrassed, we are really not held in very good reguards around the world.

In Bolivia I began in a town called Copacabana which has majestic views of lake Titicaca. I did run into problems originally since the town does not have ATMs. I was down to my last 2 dollars in cash when I was able to have a bank give me an advance on a debit card, I was seriously concerned that I would be in deep doodoo on that one, but disaster averted. All is well and I have been pretty healthy. Until next time

Ecudor and Peruvian Boarder

I am currently in Lima, Peru. I spent about a week in Ecuador checking out the city of Quito as well as the southern central part. While in Quito I met up with some friends, one of which was from Quito, who knew the city much better than I. One of the highlights was going to the ¨midad del mundo¨ which is the equator. Apparently a few years ago, due to GPS they realized that they had been about 200 meters off in what they had thought to be the equator. They had built a park and a monument marking the ¨line¨, but in fact it is not correct. Well we went to the current ¨real¨ line and saw all the spectacular occurrences that come with it. You can balance an egg on a nail; they show you how water drains on the line, as well as north and south of the line. I am not sure if it was a trick, but sure enough it does go down in different directions. It was a wonderful tourist trap. I spent the next few days heading south on my route to Peru. A couple of towns really I thought were pretty. Alausí is a town where a train leaves to trudge down the Nariz de Diablo ¨devil´s nose¨. It is a series of switchbacks along a cliffs edge that are quite terrifying. From Alausí I headed to Cuenca. This was a really pretty city, smaller than Quito, but certainly more charming. Crossing the boarder to Peru was a bit nerve racking. There is a bit of a racket with fake money being changed. The fake money changers work with some of the corrupt police in that they will change your money and then a police officer will ask to see the money you changed, tell you its fake and take it from you, god forbid they go directly to the source of the fake money. Well knowing this I only change money at banks. I was stopped by an officer and told he wanted to search my bag for fake money, to which I replied that if he wanted to search me we had to go to the police station so there would be more witnesses, he promptly sent me on my way. Once in Peru I took a 21 hour bus ride to Lima. Sitting anywhere for 21 hours really tests your sanity, not to mention the man pushing 350 pounds sitting next to me. It was an amazing ride though through the desert of western Peru. I had expected peru to be much more lush, but the entire west coast is a baren desert. It is beautiful how the desert ends right into the pacific ocean. Well until next time.

Cartagena, Colombia

Against most advice I decided to go to the most dangerous country in South America, Colombia. After spending a few days here, I am not sure how it has such a poor reputation. I have been spending the last few days in Cartagena, Colombia, which is on the Northeastern coast of Colombia. It is country steeped in history and it is considered Colombia´s historical gem. Pablo Ecobar threatened to level it in 1989 with 500 tons of dynamite, for retaliation of the government clamping down on his drug trade. I was able to spend two days just walking up and down the streets of the old city, every turn was a postcard. The whole city is surrounded by a solid stone wall to keep out pirates back in the 16th and 17th century. Joined by the shipmates I had from Panama we scoured the city. During the days walking around and in the nights sitting out in the squares drinking rum and watching street performers. One square in which we frequented was originally the square where slaves were bought and sold, I kind of felt bad laughing and drinking there.

On one of my walking days I came across barracaded streets and all kinds of army and military personel. I wandered over to where all the comotion was and stumbled into where Alvaro Uribe, the president of Colombia was walking out of one meeting to head to another. I was able to get within 3 feet of him and got a decent picture. I could not image me just wandering up to where George Bush was and have no one question me. It was just a random circumstance of right place right time. Tomorrow I am heading to Quito, Ecuador. Until next time.