Salar de Uyuni

La Paz to Potosi

Bolivia is cold. Maike and I alternate being sick - Dandy Fever, Juggler´s Despair, Inflated Eyeball, Cecil Fielder Belly - we have it all and this naturally diminishes my enjoyment of this country substantially.

La Paz is a fibber´s delight - it is uphill in every direction. Here is the picture that I wanted to take but could not muster the initiative due the incredible uphill climb required.

We leave via the World´s Most Dangerous Road to Coroico, a pleasant place to count your blessings on arrival. The road seems to claim our onward bus to Rurrenabaque as it never arrives. We re-schedule.

From Rurrenabaque, we arrange a three-day tour of the nearby Pampas. The accommodations are basic and they make you catch your own dinner but the scenery is fantastic and the wildlife plentiful. Our camp is dominated by a group of London sixth formers, all girls. Their incessant choruses of "Katie Madding! Shut your mouth!" is a bit intrusive at first but over time it irritates less as I realize that it needs to be said. She does talk a lot. And such rubbish!

The itinerary offers the opportunity to swim with pink dolphins but omits the relevant detail that the dolphins are swimming with alligators.

Turtles. Birds. Frogs. Snakes too - our guide allows for three hours to locate an anaconda but he fails to allow for our limited attention span.

Capybaras appear to disprove Darwinism. Hmmm…perhaps there is something to this intelligent design idea after all.

"Katie Madding! Shut your mouth!"

The capybaras defense mechanism is as follows:
* Watch carefully as danger approaches.
* Panic and yelp.
* Run three feet.
* Relax.
* Repeat.

We pop back to La Paz to juggle our flights with LAN. The LAN office in La Paz possesses no authority and is not allowed to telephone the head office on Santiago for fear of the long distance charges. The service is naturally slow.

In general, it has been my experience that offices consistently offer poor service as an opener perhaps to see if you will accept it. Those changes will be billed and you won´t fly on that date and the only available meal is leftovers. If you respond with a calm but disdainful rejection of this reality however, you can dictate your terms (there is no charge and I will fly that date and I will have the same meal as the captain plus three glasses of wine) with a remarkable degree of success. It works with LAN...eventually.

We take the bus to Sucre. One of the attractions here is the well-preserved dinosaur tracks recently discovered on the grounds of a cement factory. UNESCO is considering whether to grant World Heritiage status to the site. They had better hurry up, here comes the dynamite truck!

"Kate Madding! Shut your mouth!"

The mines that made Potosi the richest city in the world are still active hundreds of years later. You can tour the mines and see the appalling conditions that the workers endure. Maike goes but my lumberlung flares up and I think the better of it.

Bolivia

Peru Photo Set

This is Machu Picchu.

Here is some Spanish that I learned by watching a sub-titled version of Pirates of the Caribbean on television:
"Mono!" - "Monkey!"
"El Perla Negra" - "The Black Pearl"
"Bienvenido a Caribe, amor" - "Welcome to the Caribbean, love"

Not too useful yet, but I remain optimistic.

Aguas Calientes

Machu Picchu is reached from of Aguas Calientes. You can see the site from the peak of Putukusi behind the edge of the town. It is a tough uphill hike, but ladders are offered in the places where you would otherwise be tempted to turn back and the local wasps are happy to prompt you into activity if you stand too long in one spot. This view is your reward

Machu Picchu! Sweet!

Machu Picchu

Cuzco

We arrive in Cuzco in time for the Fiesta del Sol but not in time to get a seat.

The Pisac market sells everything that you might expect and a few things that you might not. The market stretches on and on, with stalls selling the same goods repeating endlessly - the experience is a bit like being in a low-budget cartoon. Sara evades my camera and our questions about what she does back in Los Angeles.

The Cuzco movie theatre is screening Scary Movie 4, which it subsequently sidegrades to Garfield 2.

We make arrangements to travel to Machu Picchu. Maike had learned of directions not requiring the step of forking one hundred dollars over to PeruRail but we pass as they require a commitment of twenty hours and include statements such ´ask someone where the trucks going to the power plant depart´.

Colca Canyon

Arequipa is Peru´s second city and the departure point for tours of the Colca Canyon, the deepest but not grandest canyon in the Americas. The road to the canyon passes points in excess of 4800 metres but both timeless and modern remedies for altitude sickness are available. Coca leaves are chewed with a tiny piece of limestone which catalyzes the pharmacologically-active aklaloids. Coca cookies are chewed with milk which catalyzes the delicious taste.

The main attraction in the canyon are the Andean condors which leisurely glide on the rising thermals, hunting for a mid-morning snack. This one has spotted my cookies!

The canyon also features the cliffside tombs of Inca notables and the ancient stepped terraces still farmed by locals.

Chip?