“Adventurous men enjoy shipwrecks, mutinies, earthquakes, conflagrations, and all kinds of unpleasant activities. They say to themselves, for example, ‘So this is what an earthquake is like,’ and it gives them pleasure to have their knowledge of the world increased by this new item.” – Bertrand Russell
get ready for a southwest bolivia picture OVERLOAD! it was so ridiculously beautiful we couldn't help ourselves from posting a good chunk of photos. we even had to buy more google storage space during this blog! anyhoo, our travels throughout the rest of bolivia took us to sucre, a great little colonial city, the amazingly beautiful salt flats near uyuni, and the small, sunny, town of tupiza. now, we're in the land of 3 of our favorite things: meat, music, and wine - argentina! we're a little out-of-date as far as our argentina pictures (we're currently in puerto iguazu, argentina and have been in 3 other places before then), but we've got a few in here for your viewing pleasure.
check out our digis!
steps this stretch/total: 183,000 / just over 3 million...
miles this stretch/total: 1,000 / 25,000 !!
buses this stretch/total: 6 / 153
scoping out the market goods in sucre, bolivia.
cheese for all! nicest people in the market. after searching for chicha in cochabamba to no avail, we asked around here and found a super nice lady that talked to us for about 10 minutes about chicha (about 3 of those minutes we actually understood what she was saying) and gave us an address of a place to go to the next day. and look what we found...!
the house of chicha :) seriously, just a house with a little dining room inside for people to come drink jugs of chicha
sounds gross but it's actually somewhat delicious... at least according to joe
joe was happy that our search for chicha was successful. although it was still hard to drink that whole jar
bolivians are superstitious. here, at one of the museums in sucre, is a display of all different types of offerings for different purposes. some examples: "for work and money" - "for health" - "plates of gold." each contains slight variations of the other, usually containing a llama fetus :)
watching some awesome weaving. this one will take her about 2 months to complete
some of sucre's colonial architecture
checking out the sweet view above the city of sucre, complete with some standard andean desert plants
enjoying the view after a steep hike up
more of colonial sucre
our first experience at the movies in latin america. see the price for "pipoca", aka popcorn. seems pretty close to american prices, eh? just divide by 7 :) cheapest movie popcorn ever!!
my favorite south american fruit: chirimoya! it looks a little strange, but the taste is indescribable and sooooo scrumptious.
en route to uyuni
we make it to uyuni and get to enjoy some of the best pizza we've had in south america. why is that? because the owner is from boston! an article about him from the globe was hanging on the wall, and this sox banner - sweeeeeet
the journey begins. among the "must-see's" in bolivia (and south america in general) are the uyuni salt flats and the surrounding areas. we opted for the 3 day journey to check it all out. an experience we shall not forget anytime soon. keep in mind: the road pictured above is the best road we were on for 3 days...
one of the towns on this stretch of road. small towns in the middle of nowhere that survive on mining salt, borax, sulfur and tourism :)
the many troll plants of the salt flats
vicuña, an animal that looks like a mixture of a deer and a llama, roam all over these parts
incredibly unique landscape
one of the more unexpected animals that are all over this stretch of land: flamingos! these are chilean dudes
couldn't decide on which photo was better :)
and here is where the journey really begins. flat tire #1, about 6 hours into our trip. note: no spares left for the next two days. we learned the last day that our driver doesn't like driving this jeep on 3 day tours. interesting to learn this after we already experienced more flat tires that i've ever had in my driving years :)
next jeep adventure: everyone out to push us out of the mud!
now run to meet the jeep on the other side of the desert!
first time we've been able to touch snow in south america. you can see the crazy amount of tracks here, from all the different jeep paths
rock tree!
our uyuni group huddled under the rock, away from the cold and rain, while our driver was pumping the tire on our second flat!...
so, since we only had one spare and we already had our second flat about 2 hours after our first, we were left with no choice but to pump up the tire and go for as long as we can. this was the first pumping. we made it about 2 kilometers before we had to stop for another pumping. then, another 2 kilometers :) so...since we had about 10 km left to go to our hostel...
our awesome driver decided it was best to leave us at the jeep while he RAN in the rain and the dark for about an hour and half until he made it to the town where he would then drive back with another driver and a spare from another group...thanks! we got a little anxious about desert pirates after the first hour in the dark, but...he made it back in 2 hrs :) we entertained ourselves with some booze during the wait (hence discussion of desert pirates)
mars? or laguna colorado park, bolivia?
day 2: checking out some sweet sunrise geyser action.
stuck in the steam!
you know you're in bolivia when you're allowed to walk around steaming hot geysers without any fences, paths, etc. you can see that a few people didn't watch their step quite enough
oh wait, there's a sign..."stop, danger, don't come near!" on the other side of where everyone parks so it's not seen until you leave :) here was also where we got another flat tire - #3. again, another spare was taken from another group...thanks!
the highest elevation we've been to yet - 5000 meters! hot springs are a great wakeup call
with part of our uyuni group
laguna verde, dig it
the other side of the salvador dali desert. apparently, he was inspired here. i don't see it ;)
watch out for passing llamas!
this is llama country
no, this was not our jeep. thank god. we ran into these guys who were broken down. one of the british people on this jeep told us that while driving, their tire just fell off. apparently, a pretty necessary part of their tire part (have no idea what it's called, pictured here), broke off. whoops
riding through a river...pretty standard during our trip
valley of the rocks!
rockin out in the valley of the rocks
group photo!
beautiful sunset in the (very) small town of alota
next stop is the train cemetary, where the old trains go to die. you could climb all over these things as they slowly rust and break down
a couple of them had "equation graffiti" on them - anyone recognize this one?
one of southwest bolivia's biggest productions. piles of this popular bolivian white stuff are everywhere
mmm...salt!
here is the output from a very small, family-run salt factory. they dry it, crush it, and pack it - 50kg of salt is sold for less than $1.50
our first look at the famous uyuni salt flat. in the rainy season (now), the whole salt flat is covered with a very thin layer of water. this makes the entire area appear as if it's a huge mirror - very surreal.
us in front of the never-ending sky behind us. when we were driving on top of the salt flat, it felt like we were driving through the sky... wowee wow!
hanging out in my boot
someone had to save the world from this huge vampire-like creature...
lauren atop the dice pyramid
joe with his salt-man (snowman)
lauren climbing the salt mountain
had to take one of these shots
had to take another one of these shots
"salt feels good on my feeeeet. oo-ooh"
it's an iluuuuuuuuusion!
after our crazy/awesome trip through the salar, we hopped on the train to tupiza, a small southern town in bolivia. kind of has the feel of the southwest of the states. we took a great hike through the canyons
la puerta del diablo - the door of the devil - hi tiny lauren!
our new friend, turtle, hanging out at the puerta del diablo. he really had a blast here...
the valle de los machos was named after the rock formations taking on a particular shape...
the gorgeous scenery
the bright green vegetation, red sandstone cliffs and clear blue sky made for some great pictures.
the surrounding mountains were each a different color
Bolivia/Argentina border: leaving bolivia - no line, 5 minutes. entering argentina - big slow-moving line, 4 hours! yup, four. not cool argentina...not cool!
ushuaia, 'the end of the world' in the south, is a mere 5121 km away from the northern border town of la quiaca
joe ready to devour our first steak of argentina, in Tilcara - mmmmm!
don't worry, joe, there will be other steaks in your near future (and there were!)
near tupiza is pucara, a site of old ruins, and cacti
view from the ruins, located up on a hill right in the middle of a huge valley.
cool church in tilcara
mmm barfy burgers
en route to salta from tilcara, driving through the quebrada de humahuaca. gorgeous landscapes that looked like painted mountains, everywhere.
then, a change in scenery, to a more smokey mountain style scene :)
well, we made to country number 10, for the first time (we'll be entering argentina about three more times from the chilean borders). it's getting harder and harder to answer those questions like, "what's been your favorite place so far?" bolivia was beautiful, friendly, extremely cheap, and we had a great experience with the buses (after hearing numerous stories about being stranded and cold while a bus deals with engine problems). it was a drastic change coming from bolivia to argentina: the prices are not even comparable (argentina is expensive!), the roads are paved and smooth, and the food, well...that's not even comparable either. also, the people here top our friendly list. they actually listen to you when speaking in spanish and show genuine interest in you. they are quite unique compared to the rest of south america. in the words of a guy we recently met in cafayate, argentines "look italian, speak spanish, but wish they were french." too true
hope everyone living in those snowy areas at home is dug out by now :)
tallyho!
lauren and joe
