Threatened Rainforests...Yeah, I Know that It is a Cliche

  The bit of Amazon that we visited is in one of the largest protected rainforest zones in the world.  The Amazon is of course deserving of being protected, 25% of the world's oxygen is produced here and 30% of the world's fresh water can be found here.  Not only does farming threaten the forest, but even within this protected region, the safety of the people living here or trying to protect the forest is constantly at risk.  The main industries in this region of the Amazon are what?  Don't know?  Gold mining and Brazil nut collection.  DUH!  Brazil nuts are great because the Brazil nut trees can only exist in primary (that is, old growth and original) forests.  So, the Brazil nut harvest is good for the forest.  The gold, on the other hand, requires the use of mercury to dissolve gold found on the river banks.  This mercury is often dumped into the rivers threatening ecosystems and the people that live here.  But, seriously, how hard it is to find boats that are sifting for gold on the riverbanks...it's a huge, open river for goodness sake!  Well, I asked about this and learned that if the government were to crack down on the illegal gold collection, Peru would see a rise in drug and coca farming in the jungle region.  I suppose that Peru believe that the lesser of the two evils, some river pollution or gangs of drug traffickers, would be to let gold collection continue.  We humans always seem to find some way to hurt nature, but let us just hope that Peru maintains their stronghold on this protected are of the Amazon for all of our sakes!

The Rainforest and Its Protectors

  A true highlight of our trip was our brief forray into the famed Amazon jungle.  Just a 50 minute flight from Cusco (just 20 years ago it was a 25 to 30 DAY journey for locals to get to Cusco from the port city that we landed in) we were in the thick and tall Amazon jungle.  We took a 3 hour river boat (read: a large canoe with a motor) to a lodge in the middle of the jungle for our one day jungle experience. 

Our deluxe transport.

The rainforest held mysterious relationships.

We saw three types of real, live Macaws (the really colorful parrots) flying high in the trees near piles of alkaline clay which they eat to neutralize their acidic diet. 

We also saw capybara, the world´s largest rodent that is about the size of a dog and about as cute as a guinea pig (truly, cute). 

   The sounds filled every space with birds, insects, and rushing water.  The Amazonian jungle is truly as magnificant as the movie Fern Gully or its ripoff movie Avatar would make one think it is.  Some sounds are unreal and need to be recorded as sound effects for movies (one bird sounded like the whoosh and pop of a Pringles can being opened for example). Our lodge had electricity only for two hours a day.  Lighting was provided by candles and kerosene lamps.  There were no doors for the separate rooms in our unit, we had mosquito nets around the beds and only three walls; the missing wall looked directly out into the jungle.  In one of the most beautiful experiences of our entire trip, we went out on a boat in the middle of the darkness of night to search with a spot light for the reflective light of caymen (alligator like creatures).  Besides spotting some adorable yet mischievous looking babies, it was the sky that held my attention as I gazed amazedly at the lighting that abounded from everywhere in the sky.  It felt like the world was ablaze.  Truly magnificent.

This little cutie was only about 10 inches long (22 cm).

   But alas, after we spotted an enormous and sinister spider (about the size of the human baby's head that I am sure that it wanted to eat) and saw beetles with bioluminescence (they glowed in the dark) it started to rain. 

   Given its namesake, I would have expected rain in a rainforest.  But this was a lot of rain.  After about 18 hours it stopped and the river was at least 20 ft higher!  In the morning, while it was raining, we put on our rain gear and went hiking through the rain forest.  We tried a natural anesthetic plant (it worked better than novacaine when we chewed it), we found a green leaf that was used as a red dye.  We saw a leaf used for impotence that was illegal for export because a European company had a patent on it and we found a flower that was used in bath water because it contained salicylic acid (the active ingredient in aspirin).  We bailed out a canoe and rowed to trees that were large enough to shelter us from the rain inside their trunks.  We went above the canopy and saw monkeys running away from us.  The rain forest is amazing!

Jungle sloshing.

  Almost to punctuate the horror caused to the rainforest by farming, we visited a farm that was across the river from our lodge.  Farming is particularly bad for the environment here because there are no nutrients in the soil.  The trees suck everything from the soil leaving only a hard layer of clay (the ground really was hard).  So, to replenish the nutrient, farmers often slash the crops went they have been picked of their fruits and then burn them to replenish the soil until the process renders the land completely useless in about five years.  But, we were getting to taste some amazing mango, hot peppers and sugar cane until the forest attacked us.  I am not kidding.  The one in our group who was allergic to bees got stuck by a wasp.  As we all waited for the stinger to be removed we all started to scream as a swarm of wasps attacked us.  They were crawling all over us as we ran and they CHASED us across the farm.  I sustained three very painful stings while others sustained 7 or 8.  Apparently the wasps wanted us to know the ills of farming in the rainforest :)
  Our last day revealed toucans, tree frogs, and bats to us and let us know firmly that there was much more to see in the jungle.  We will definitely go back one day!

The Mountain People of Peru

  Who discovered the Inca holy site (actually a town of 500 people with a very important temple inside connected by stone-pave Inca trails trails originating from all around South America in 1911?  Hayram Bingham is what most text books tell you.  Yes, this American did discover it for the Western world, but certainly the locals who live on the Inca trails (PAVED TRAILS!!) knew about it.  These are the mountain peoples who live much today like their ancestors lived.  They farm potatoes and freeze dry them for Inca soup (a minty soup made of ground freeze dried potatoes processed by a lengthy back and forth process of bringing the potatoes to the cold mountains and down to the warmer valleys). 

  They serve the local fruit beer that the porters who carried our tents and cooking supplies up the 4-day long Inca trail that we climbed drink as sustenance to carry their unimaginably heavy loads.  Yes, they eat guinea pig (the brain is particularly delicious evidently) and many (such as the porters and guides) carry on the tradition of going to Machu Picchu each day with their sweat and energy.  ¨Don´t be lazy,¨ ¨Don´t lie,¨ and ¨Don´t steal¨ are the three most important rules, transgression of which in the mountains is dealt with harshly by the community leader. 

Nine hours of hiking up hill, and this lady is there to sell local beer.

The superhuman porters.

   These proud people are the purest descendants of the Inca civilization, and even today they are discriminated against in the cities (their first language is Quechua, not Spanish, and so they are identifiable).  Except for some distinctly Spanish introduced cultural elements such as a bull fighting ring (apparently the bulls at times were used to represent the Spanish to vent frustration at the ruling class), the people here are very hard for a foreigner to understand (except for the "Inca Bucks" coffee shop near Machu Picchu...I understood that one). 

  Shoes, for example, are a difficult adjustment for any rural person from the Inca regions to adapt to (as reported by a man who we talked with who had come from a very poor mountain neighborhood and had succeeded in going to college).  It is also very foreign to have a town in which the sun streams down the alley ways as it lights up a Temple of the Sun on the nearby hilltop with sheep from the house across from your hostel who are let out of their yard to wander BY THEMSELVES four or five blocks of winding lanes to their grazing pasture for the day (we also felt them push their way past us back to the same house unaccompanied in the evening time). 

There go the sheep!

This baby cow wasn't as brave as the sheep.

   Just like our campsites, much of the walk to Machu Picchu was so high that it was often shrouded in clouds, imbuing a certain mysterious nature to the lands and people inhabiting the Incan highlands. 

   While the locals here certainly do not have an enviable lifestyle, there is the very strong allure of mystery to keep travelers interested and happy while exploring the many Inca ruins that are surrounded today by the descendants of their original inhabitants.

The Inca Trail (for anyone considering visiting Machu Picchu)

   This blog post is for any out there who might be considering going on the Inca trail to hike to Machu Picchu.  I have normally refrained from just describing what we have done...but if you are thinking of going then this post is for you.  The Inca trail is not the royal Inca trail.  The royal Inca trail is made such that the Inca (the semi-god king of the Incas) could be carried when going to Machu Picchu.  Besides those who get sick on the trail and are carried by porters all the way up and down (this actually happens...the porters' strength knows no bounds), no one is carried today.  In fact, the trail that we take is not flat.  On day 2 of the hike, you walk up 3500 ft to an altitude of over 13,000 ft.  You move at the pace of a turtle over thousands of stairs because you can not get enough breath to go any faster.  On the way down, you brave perilous vertical steps (we saw one unfortunate soul pull his shoulder out of its socket after he tripped).  But on days 1, 3, and 4 for all of your hard work, you are rewarded with gorgeous views of canyons and jungle, or a mysterious cloudy and foggy terrain that obscures the drops beside your path and make you think that the world ends two feet to your left.  Flowers abound in beauty and the occasional llamma and Inca ruin provide ample variety to make the journey highly pleasurable.  The last day culminates in the viewing of Machu Picchu, that, if you are lucky, will be cloud free for a sunrise view of the sun streaming through the sun gate on a neaby hilltop that guides the light directly to the sun temple in the middle of the partially restored town.  Or, you can still enjoy walking around a cloud covered, rainy Machu Picchu by remembering that it is not everyday you walk through a city in the clouds (and certainly the irony of arriving at the sun gate as the rain starts to pour will not be lost on you either).  If you decide to go on this trip, I highly recommend traveling with GAP Adventures who provide a superb tour complete with a visit to a local town where the women show you how they make their handicrafts from the Alpaca that run around your bus as you arrive.  Incidentally, the GAP tours employ these womens´ husbands as the porters.

This cake was made for WHILE CAMPING!

These are Inca stairs.

Example of Inca ruins that you see along the Inca trail.

Stairs that you must climb to get to Macchu Picchu.

One view from Macchu Picchu.

Inca Lands: Peru and Bolivia

  The Inca civilization was enormous, powerful, extremely forward thinking, and extremely short lived.  But, the indigenous people identify continually more with their most recent non-Christian past.  Multiple languages including the Inca language of Quechua are regularly spoken in the rural communities of Bolivia and Peru (especially in the high lands where the Incas had their capital in Cusco).  Unfortunately this cultural heritage of the 100-200 years that most of non-Brazilian South America was united under the rule of the Incan civilization is looked down upon by those of European decent in all of South America.  But at least where we went near to the holiest and grandest ruins of the Inca civilization near the capital of Cusco there were many proud people to show us the customs, traditions, and religion of this long destroyed but still living civilization.  Today, the last Inca princess lives in Cusco and markets sell the condor feathers, llama fetuses, masks, and ritual items needed to present in burial for blessings from the mother earth, Pachamama.  We saw such a ritual for health and watched as sweets, a llama fetus, confetti, and even a cross were combined with a prayer to Pachamama in a mock Inca wedding ceremony.  We also watched as offerings were made to a devil statue inside the Potosi mines in the form of lit cigarettes, coca leaves, and alcohol to excite the devil to mate with and thus please Pachamama.  In a very odd hybrid religion, houses near Cusco (in Peru) have two bull statues with a cross in between them to symbolize and increase fertility. Christianity for some is a something that is practiced in addition to traditional religion, and sometimes it seems that Jesus is taken into the pantheon of local gods for worship (hence the cross given as an offering to Pachamama in the wedding ceremony).  I can not pretend to understand much of how Christianity and the local religions mix today, but both are clearly alive and respected in a very peculiar blend.

We have rooster windvanes, they have bulls and crosses for fertility.

Bolivia is Almost a Tourist Destination

  Should you go to Bolivia?  Yes, and no.  It is a wonderful place to not feel like a tourist.  If you want adventure without the neurotic safety of Europe or the US then go.  If you want unbelievably inexpensive everything (a chicken meal might cost $1.5), even in tourist areas where local companies have not yet learned to jack up the prices for tourists, then go. But, as I have described, be prepared to get sick by the food and the altitude.  Be prepared to experience a lacking tourist infrastructure that might have prevented our unsafe and uncomfortable 4x4 jeep experience.  The tourist infrastructure is lacking to the extent that even decent postcards are hard to find!  Tour operators even have difficulties.  For example, the double decker tour bus we took around La Paz had to avoid clipping the mass of electric wires hanging on the streets.  The top deck of the bus was open, which threatened any passenger with decapitation should they have stood up at the wrong time.  Lastly, while super dangerous roads are being replaced with only slightly dangerous roads, they aren´t being replaced too quickly.  We once waited over an hour for the road ahead of us to literally be built.  The road workers razed and cleared about a 100 foot section of road as we waited.  Bolivia is almost a tourist destination, but not yet for the feint of heart.

Never will I complain about the Pennsylvania department of transportation road construction again.

The Bolivian version of the Guillotine.

Bolivia´s Internal Strife

  When people think of Bolivia, I believe that they often think of drugs and unstable governments.  I have already discussed the drugs.  How about the government?  Well, Bolivia is experiencing a relatively stable period despite the communist graffiti we encountered.  People still hate the military for its roles in coups over the past decades that have sent the economy spiraling downward.  One college student with whom we talked said that the high paid military ¨suck the blood¨ of the country.  When referring to the government procurement of a castle that was sold a number of years ago to the military, the government ¨took it back from them.¨ This concept of the government being an entity separate enough from the military to warrant it taking something was somewhat foreign to me.  But, then again, a country with three separate army groups that do not specialize in different types of war is also foreign to me and it feels slightly dangerous (there are three armies in Bolivia, one that works for and protects each government branch including the executive, legislative, and judicial branch).  Unrest is just beneath the surface in Bolivia.  It is never a good circumstance when the politicians in a country are also the richest people in the country...nepotism and bribery are always close at hand.  Bloody protests just a few years ago killed three students who were angry that the capital of the executive and legislative branches of the government were being moved from the historic (and beautiful) capital city of Sucre to the business capital of La Paz.  However, just like the university whose law school once was home to priests converting indigenous people to Christianity, and then a torturous prison for enemies of the state, and now a learned hall of juris prudence, Bolivia is fully capable of great changes.  Hopefully this period of peace will turn to one of prosperity and herald stability for a country wracked with the pains of poor governance for so long.

Historic Sucre.

Coca Leaves and National Identity

  The innocuous narcotic plant, the coca plant, with its small leaves filled of cocaine is part of the life blood of Bolivia.  We were given coca leaves at each meal to chew or put in tea to relieve altitude sickness after we felt the side effects of the plant (our mouths went numb--novacaine is a derivative of the coca plant and cocaine).  You could buy hard coca candies or coca flavored toffee.  The miners chewed big wads of the stuff to filter dust in the mines as well as to suppress their appetites so they could work 12 hour shifts and to give them the strength to do their terrible jobs.  When we bought the coca leaves for the miners, we were asked to buy a mediocre catalyst for the leaves that would bring out the cocaine better instead of the baking soda that would cause addiction very quickly.  Too many times we heard locals tell us of the power of the coca leaves to give you super strength and heal your ills. 

These are coca leaves with the various activators beside them.  We were choosing what to buy as gifts for miners at this stop.

  Coca is obviously a highly political issue.  The President of Bolivia earned his fame by protesting the destruction of coca farms that was promoted by countries such as the US trying to eliminate the influx of cocaine into their countries.  We saw graffiti calling for the ousting of USAID, the US agency that gives aid money in return for the destruction of lucrative coca farms.  Even during the reign of the Spanish, coca was initially demonized by the church as an impediment between the indigenous people and Christianity until it was found that leaf could help the silver miners work better.  While the international drug problems of cocaine use may originate from production of coca in the highlands of Bolivia and Columbia, Bolivia has been using Coca leaves for so long that drug use does not seem more of a problem then cigarette use in other places in the world. In fact, use of the coca leaf for religious commune with gods, for gifts during marriage, and even historically as the currency of the Inca people secures this controversial plant as an extremely important part of the past and present Bolivia.  (As a side note, the leaves taste terrible and the numbness in the mouth is not pleasant.  But, then again, the 96% alcohol whiskey that people drink here doesn´t go down so smooth either.  Then again, at least you know the dangers of the alcohol because it comes in metal containers that the toxic chemicals in my chemistry lab would come in and the only reason you know that it is drinkable and not good for laboratory experimentation is the small ¨potable¨label on it.  No more than one kilogram of coca leaves may be brought in your luggage out of Bolivia.  No local whiskey can be brought on planes because it is an explosive.)

Here is the alcohol...refreshing no doubt!

There is No Memorial at the Potosi Mines

  Potosi is the highest city in the world, which surrounds a mountain rich in silver, tin, copper, and zinc.  This town was the largest city in the Western Hemisphere in the 1600s.  This Bolivian town sustained the entire Spanish monarchy for over 200 years through its silver production.  The mines have seen the deaths of 8 million African slaves and local Bolivians during their 400 years of production.  But, there is no memorial, there is only a brief mention of the poor conditions people were forced to work in.  Perhaps this is because conditions are little better then they were 300 years ago for the 5,000 workers attempting to eak a living out of the mines today.
  I toured the mines and even the thrill of being in an active mine paled in comparison to the horror of having to actually work in one.  We donned boots, hard hats and lights to wind our way through the labrynth of mines.  We perilously walked over 100 foot chasms.  We dodged falling debri and even ran from some dynamite that had just been lit deeper in the tunnel (the blast blew wind threw the tunnels out at us).  We crawled and climbed and spent 3 hours in the dark world that workers spend 12 or more hours in a day.  Bolivians work very, very hard for their jobs.  We saw this all over the country in any shop, but the pinnacle of hard work was being done by the 14 year old boys who had sledgehammers for crushing rock before it was brought outside.  $20 a day for one of the boys because his job was nearer to an exit and was thus cool.  Deeper in the mines where temperatures reach over 100 degrees F (32 degrees C), pay can be $30 per day.  That fixed pay is only for the helpers.  The manager of a section of the mine who directs where to dig gets paid only for what they find.  In fact, the dynamite that exploded while we were in the mines was only being set off because it had been improperly placed by a new manager.  The new manager was 16 years old and was given the position as his inheritance after his father died only one week ago in the mines.  The worst part of the mines was definitely the drilling room.  Workers with no masks used a jackhammer in a cubby hole-sized room that had so much dust that I could only see one foot in front of me.  These miners are paid hansomly at $10 per hour but have a very short life expectancy.  The experience in the mines was nothing short of tragic. 
  The only pidly comfort I took was that we had purchased gift bags for each miner we passed while in the mountain.  The bags including cookies, coca leaves (more on this later) and dynamite (yes, we legally purchase dynamite and coca leaves prior to entering the mine) and outside the mine I was able to by some souvenir rocks from some of the children of the miners.

Here is the dynamite.

This is the devil gorging in his gifts inside the mine.

This is a 14 year old boy crushing rocks.

Here is a miner carrying a bag of dynamite across a chasm.  He has a wad of coca leaves in his mouth.

Here is us climbing through the tunnels.

Hilarious in Translation

  There is a company named Bergens from Norway that makes outdoor clothing -  clothing that is perfect for travel in South America in fact.  Unfortunately, Bergens is very close to the word for male genetalia in Spanish.  Hence, the female Norway passenger on our trip who had sweatshirts with ¨Bergens from Norway¨and ¨I ´heart´ Bergens¨ enjoyed her warmth but not the very strange looks she got from locals.

The 4x4 Jeeps of DEATH

  Imagine having to cram into the backseat of a jeep that did not have enough space for your knees to go straight in front of you.  This is an uncomfortable arrangement even when there are two people sharing the seat, but your knees can be angled inward to allow for proper fitting.  Now imagine that because one of the three jeeps in your group breaks down in the middle of nowhere, your jeep that is filled with 6 people no must take on an extra 3 people.  So, your knees in the backseat go from medium security prison to maximum security solitary which isn´t quite as bad as the seat in front of you which now has one person who is forced to lay across three peoples´ laps with their feet sticking out the window (seriously).  You wonder why the jeep has not called in for a replacement, and then you realize that none of the jeeps have any form of radios on them.  This arrangement of discomfort lasts for two days of traveling before you get your replacement truck only two hours before you reach back home.  Alas, this is only the backdrop for the real excitement of the trucks...

One person did not quite fit in the vehicle.

  Begin Day 2 on the salt flats.  Our truck spins out doing a half donut before driving into a sand bank and coming to a stop.  30 minutes later, the window will not shut in the front requiring us to dine on dust cloud after dust cloud from the trucks in front of us. 

  But, even when the window was fixed it did not matter for when we tried the air conditioning more dust poured from the air vents than an ostrich must breath when it puts its head under the sand.  2 hours later the passenger front door will not open requiring an elegant fix by shoving a screw driver in between the chassis of the door and the hood.  3 hours later we notice that one of our reflectors has popped out and is hanging by a wire.  4 hours later we were stuck in the mud.  We pushed and we pushed, but only after the drivers dug the wheels out did we actually move the car.  End Day 2.

  Begin Day 3 in the clown car from hell.  At some point our spare tire has been put onto our car.  But, our spare tire has exactly 0 treads (a picture will come later).  So, just like on Day 2 when we spun out, we fishtailed constantly.  This was especially frightening when we we on a one lane road with a precipitous drop on our left side as was quite normal for Bolivian roads.  Our only consolation if we died on the road was that it would be a cute grave site filled with many fluffy alpaca who were grazing below us.  To free up space in one car, we left our chef at a hostel while we went to tour sites.  Our chef was supposed to then walk for 30-40 minutes through the desert to meet us in the middle of nowhere on the road.  Yeah, that was a great idea (remember, NO RADIOS).  So we stop and wait looking for the little lady who is our chef dressed in a boulder cap and bright dress to wander up to our cars.  She did not show up, so we had to extend our stay in the cramped jeeps to go look for her.  It turned out that she had found a different ride back to town and left a note at our hostel for us.  At least our trip was almost over, or so we thought.  2 hours from town, our truck stopped unceremoniously.  Our treadless tire had blown a flat.  So, we took out the jack, and the wrench, and the our spare tire.  Oh wait. What?  You mean that the spare tire that our car was carrying belongs to the other car?  The other car that was ahead of us on the road and who has no idea that we stopped?  Why don´t you radio, oh.  We rationed our water, made a large help sign on the side of the road and began betting on how long it would take the other car to come back for us.  Only 8 cars passed us in the desert over the next 1.5 hours until our help arrived.  The flat tire was icing on the cake.

Fortunately our group in the jeep was great and we had fun when we felt that there was no imminent danger.  But, travelers beware the next time you are in the Twilight Zone that is the surreal salt flats, for the Jeeps of Death are lurking, ready for their next victim.

Three Days of Randomness on the Salt Flats

   The main reason we came to Bolivia was to see the salt flats.  All I knew is that there was salt and (being a good chemist) that the salt flats had the world´s largest amount of lithium.  So what are salt flats really like?  Well, it was miles of hard, white salt in one-foot hexagonal patterns on the ground.  For scale, the salt flats are approximately 200,000,000 times the size of our Boston apartment.  However, unlike our Boston apartment, the hostel we stayed at on the salt flats was actually made of salt! Salt beds, salt walls, salt floor, salt dining room tables, and (ironically) extremely bland, unsalty food.  Of course, you do not go to the salt flats and just drive around on this dried up sea floor of white salt for 3 days. You explore the surrounding areas, and, in fact, there were a cornucopia of weird things to see surrounding the salt flats including:

1. A grouping of rocks that stood straight up from the group in peculiar shapes that reminded one of a Salvador Dali painting.

2. Flamingos standing in lagoons that varied in color from green to red to blue.

3. Snow-covered mountains.
4. Ever-changing barren landscapes of rocks with purple hues.
5. Wind storms that propelled salt at painful speeds. 
6. Islands in the sea of salt covered in flowering cacti.
7. Mirages so real that I truly empathized with Wiley Coyote of Luney Toons fame all those times he tried to drink sand because he thought it was water.
8. Pits with boiling mud.
9. An active volcano steaming in the distance.

10. Steam vents shooting from the ground 13000 feet above sea level.

11. Hot springs.

Needless to say, with all of these surreal sights, every time we stopped on the salt flats felt a bit random because what we were seeing was so out of place.  However, stopping anywhere was a delight because we had the misfortune to be riding in 4x4 jeeps that were better known as the Jeeps of Death by Michelle and I...

What Goes Up Must Come Out

  I have always taken my oxygen for granted.  Not so in Bolivia!  From the moment we touched down, I was literally gasping for air.  Altitude sickness from the decreased oxygen in the air when you are up so high is a strange beast.  Some people do not feel anything, others get light headed or a headache, and still others get sick.  I just couldn´t breath, much less breath while carrying my suitcases.  With blue lips, Michelle escorted me to the hotel the first night.  In the middle of this fitful night´s sleep punctuated by periodically waking up gasping for air, Michelle mysteriously got sick in the middle of the night with stomach pains and throwing up from the altitude!  Fortunately we both made it through the night, and besides sounding like we were 99 year olds weighing 400 lbs each as we labored up and down steps for the next couple of days, our altitude sickness gradually subsided.  Who knew that we could get sick just by showing up to a place! 
  Altitude unfortunately was not the only sickness inducing part of our trip to Bolivia.  The lack of tourist infrastructure (see next post) lent itself to food that was not entirely healthy.  Although we had eaten 3 times with a group already in a nice little vegetarian restaurant in Bolivia´s colonial legislative center, Sucre, the bowl of cream soup that I ate had me in terrible shape with a huge bout of food poisoning a few days into our stay in Bolivia.  Even Michelle felt stomach cramps because of the taste she took of the soup.  48 hours of Poweraid later I was back to normal.
   Another incident occured when, like old pals, food and altitude teamed up on Michelle.  Our last night in Bolivia was a celebration with our travel companions.  Michelle ordered a fruity peach daccari and liked it so much that two hours later she ordered another.  She became tipsy, and then, with no warning, her body skipped the drunk phase without passing go and plunged her into the alcohol poisoning phase with nausea and dizziness!  We had forgotten that alcohol hits you 10 times as hard at altitude as at sea level.  More toilet time an hour later and all was well.  But still, Bolivia had taken its toll on us in the form of our vital fluids and we were happy to fly away to happier stomach fields!

  As a side note, I was uncomfortable one other time on the trip, but it was Bolivia´s wildlife that nabbed me.  I was taking a picture of this really super adorably cute bunny rabit chinchilla relative with a long furry tail on a rock outcropping in the desert, when its evil set in.  It jumped with such awesome speed that I couldn´t help but follow my photographic instincts and move to get a picture of its deft skills.  But, its insiduous trap was laid, for when I moved, a small rock by my foot impeding my way resulting in a full face plant on the rocks beneath the evil chinchilla.  I could almost here its malevolent laughter as I nursed my cuts and bruises.  Be wary future travelers, cute animals are not all that they seem.

Don't trust his cuteness...it lies.

And You Thought San Francisco Had Hills...

  La Paz, Bolivia, the capital of the country and the location of the the country´s main international airport.  At 11,942 ft above sea level, this sky high city is built onto crazy hills with a difference in height between the rich lower portion around 8,000 feet and the poorer upper section at 12,000 ft.  For scale, the heighest peak in all of Northeastern United States is Mount Washington at a height of 6,900 ft.  Houses are built on hills with enormously sharp decents, to turn off of the main road, one often takes an off ramp underneath the main road as each side street is a story below the previous one.  Often, only the eucalyptus trees with their long roots hold enough soil in place for houses to be saved from land erosion and plummet hundreds of feet.  The rich neighborhoods of the lower areas are placed here because there is a whopping 10 degree Celcius (20 degree F) difference in average temperature between the lower and upper sections of town, and the air is much thicker in the lower sections.  We marveled at how the city was built into these large hills, and were very glad that we had a bus to take us around...walking on the inclines was a full body workout!

Cocaine, Zebras, Tradition, oh my!

   Bolivia, the fifth largest South American country, and the only one that is totally landlocked, was our next destination.  Known for its poverty, lack of tourist travel, and vibrant indigenous population, Bolivia was a totally different world then anything we had seen so far.  The urban areas reminded us of Africa because of the roaming dogs, the street vendors, the trash on the roadside (and in every field across the country), the adobe and brick architecture (although there were much more brick structures in Bolivia than in Africa), and the well-used feeling of buildings whose plaster was inevitably falling off.  Beneath this superficial venear of first impression we found a deeply hard-working, proud society.  Many, many women dress in a hybrid of Inca and 16th century Spanish attire complete with two long braided pleats in their hair, a boulder cap, a skirt with stockings, and a brightly colored blouse and shawl.  The most common language spoken among locals is one of two Incan or pre-Incan languages Quechua or Amara.  The hard lifestyle of a Bolivian whose major source of income would likely be some sort of farming is worn on the face of locals whose furrowed brows, lack of expression, and general gruff demeanor might seem intimidating.  This image is softened by the children who can be found walking with their parents or being carried in a blanket slung over the shoulders.  The children´s angelic smiles and puffy cheeks reveal the love of family that lies beneath the rough exterior of this enigmatic people. 

   Modern society seems to clash here in Bolivia where cross walks (zebra crossings) need constant monitoring by men in full zebra costumes (once we saw a moose costume, appearently the costume store was not familiar with its zoology) who literally push people back onto the sidewalk when it is not their turns to cross.  The more modern Christian (Catholic) religion that the Spanish brought to the region when they arrived in 1533 is often turned into a hybrid with local Inca religions.  Markets teem with the local foods Bolivia is known for including many types of corn, potatoes, beans, and grains such as quinua with no sight of any prepackaged sauces or foods of modern society.  And finally, modern drug trafficing is cast in sharp relief to what I might call the heart of Bolivia, the coca leaf, that is used more than tobacco in Europe and is more instrumental for religious and ceremonial purposed then wine in Western religions.

Look how many people can fit into a pringles can on the salt flats!

Or, you can sleep in a salt hotel on a salt bed!

Zebra crossing.

Traditional clothes at a graduation ceremony.

   Bolivia was a fascinating culture with extraordinarily weird physical surroundings such as snow capped mountains, deserts, and salt flats.  Let me take you through some of the highlights...

Three Random Tidbits

1. If you are following the saga of my watch, I fear that the hero we thought would be the end of my watch woes is tiring. My '80s Casio watch loses 22 seconds of time every day. I thought that I would just leave well enough alone lest I tempt fate by buying a watch that explodes on me Mission Impossible style or is stolen.  But, then the strap on my Casio watch broke forcing me to buy a fifth watch.  This new watch is "Yangkey" brand, which might be a Chinese brand attempting to tap into a Northeast American market.


2. People in Argentina and Chile bring around thermoses everywhere from which they drink a tea called mate. And I thought the prevalence of tea drinking was an Asian thing.


3. There were advertisements on the plane to travel to Colombia with the tag line "Columbia, the only risk is wanting to stay." Hmmmm...

Traveling Can Be Tiring

  Travel is starting to drag.  After initially being on a bus in Africa for 8 hours every day, I thought that the rest of the trip would flow by, but alas, the last six days have been just too much travel. First, we spent 5 hours traveling to Buenos Aires from Patagonia, then slept the night to go back to the Buenos Aires airport (a one hour taxi ride away), flew to Iguazu Falls and had to wait to see the falls until the next day before flying on the fourth day back to Buenos Aires. But, our flight was rescheduled for 8 hours later (we waited in the airport all day) which landed us in Buenos Aires at 9 p.m. When we picked up our bags, they were soaking wet all the way to our clothes in the middle of the bags. Apparently, our bags were in the rain storm that knocked out the power while we waited for the day in the Iguazu airport (it hailed as well). One hour later we arrived at our Buenos Aires hotel, spent 2 hours setting our clothes to dry and using the hair dryer on them. Three more hours to sleep and back to the Buenos Aires airport at 4 a.m. A 5 hour flight landed us in the Lima airport for a 13 hour layover. We arrived in La Paz, Bolivia at 1 a.m in time to catch a transfer for 1 hour to our hotel so that we could leave on a bus at 8:45 a.m. 5 hours on a smelly Bolivian bus with a closed bathroom, then 7 hours on a train   with just enough leg room between us and the passengers who faced us to have to stagger our fit (mine went between the Bolivian lady's in front of me). 
   While at least there were movies playing on the train, they were playing on a TV that would have required me to turn my seat in the reverse direction of the train motion and then read English subtitles...my stomach would not handle that.  So, for at least 30%  of the train trip, Michelle and my only form of entertainment was trying to look preoccupied with the very flat and boring scenery out of our window to try and avoid looking at the women in the seat 1.5 ft in front of us who was attempting to breastfeed her baby for what seemed like an eternity. 
Whew. Glad that's over!

Over the falls in a barrel

   The reason for going to Iguazu Falls is the cataratas (falls) of course. Metal bridges
are built above and below this expanse of rushing water that is greater than 6 times
larger than Niagara falls. The falls are magical. Full rainbows glide across the sky
when the sun peaks out and the spray at some falls soaked us through. Blue and red
butterflies alight everywhere and on everyone (more so on my bright red flower look-
alike shirt). Birds eat fish, fly into the falls, and fill the air with their melodies. At the
pinnacle of our visit to the falls, an enormous torrent of water spills hundreds of feet
down to a conflagration of mist that plumbs into the sky so high it could easily be seen
from the plane as we left.
  The end of our day was capped with a hike to a light fall with a swimming hole next
to it that enabled us to explore under a fall, not just beside it. The setup and walkways
in the parks reminded Michelle of a nature Disneyland (there was even a tram), but
even this infrastructure did not impede upon the shear beauty of this world wonder.

This bird lives underneath the falls.