Sucre

10 Days in Sucre. 10 days well spent. 300,000 person white-walled town was a tranquil setting for more spanish lessons, volunteering, $1 lunches, my first South America professional soccer match and 4 am nights at the gringo bars and discotecas. Shared a room with Shaker (guy from Detroit who is one of the few Americans I´ve meet during the travels and even one of the fewer that I would want to travel with).


The Market



One of the most amazing things I´ve ever seen. Heaps of fruits, veggies, meats, juices all grouped together in their respective family, stretching a whole city block and 3 floors in height.

Prepared lunches ranging from $1 - 2 that is a heaping homemade Bolivian meal. The challenge is fighting off the women trying to lure you in to eating at their table without viewing the whole runway first.


My Casera (women I always got my fresh strawberry juice from for 40 cents for 2 glasses).

The Orphanage
Volunteered in an orphanage of 40 boys, Hogar Sucre, where I played futbol with the kids, helped with homework in subjects that I had hoped I would never see again, and continued my assult of awful Spanish speaking across the Sud Americas.


An amazing facility, especially in terms of the offerings provided in this "3rd world" country. From what I understood, when the kids turn 10 they learn how to work in the metal shop (welding, scuplting, etc) and the wood shop. There is a field of corn and other plants where the kids learn agriculture and I saw many of them weaving (all in addition to going to school). There also are 2 futbol fields, a horse and 3 dogs roaming around. By American standards there are a lot of dangers for the kids to grow up with, but its refreshing to see a place not safty proofing life from an early age.


I gave my camera to the kids and most of the pictures are from them.




The clothes often are "overly worn" and the shoes most likely lack shoe like qualities, but besides this and a different language, the similarities between kids here and there has never been clearer. The same excitement with life, hope and goodness exists within their actions and eyes. It´s even more impressive to embody this spirit with the life many of them have experienced.

Next
Arrived in La Paz this morning and will likely stretch out the birthday celebrations for a few days while touring this city that reaches into the sky.

Bolivia - Tupiza, Uyuni, Potosi

Bolivia is extreme in many senses of the word. It´s incredibly poor and rugged and beautiful and the first country I´ve visited whos culture lacks clear Western influence. It´s what I wanted to experience during this trip and the degree of poverty at times continues to be unbelievable and the beauty of the culture amazes.

Crossed border at Villazon and paid $135 visa fee (reciprocity at its finest) and was surrounded by markets overtaking streets, offers for $1 home-cooked lunches and wrinkled indigenous faces with blank stares hauling around backpacks made of folded colorful blankets.

Tupiza to Uyuni
Went on a 4 day 4WD tour between Tupiza and Uyuni with Shane (New Zealand) and Ant (UK). Most of the trip took place between 12,000 and 15,000 ft (altiplano region) where chewing on the ounce of coca leafs we bought for 70 cents from a corner store before the trip helped ease altitude sickness (note: coca leafs are legal and aren´t cocaine). Stayed in small adobe walled and straw roofed villages and one night a hotel made completely out of salt. Saw red rock formations (similar to Bryce NP), gysers, lagunas, deserts, more flamingos and llamas than you can count and the salt flats... which are amazing and almost indescribable

Getting schooled in futbol by the girls in the first town where we stayed

Small village hut

Laguna Verde

Flamingos

Salt Flats

Crazy perspectives of the salt flats as I crush Shane (image not altered)

Potosi
Took a night bus to Potosi (7.5 hours, $5). Laughing when our bus showed up and they started throwing bags on the roof and exhausted by the end of the trip. All seats taken and I had a women sleeping against my legs and a woman sleeping against hers, etc. Since no bathroom on bus it stopped halfway and everyone (men and women) used parking lot and road as the restroom.

Potosi Cooperative Mine Tour
Went on tour of famous Potosi Cooperative Mine. Famous for numbers of deaths it´s caused (believed to be over 8 million people in the last few hundred years) and continued unsafe working practices. Before arriving at mine stopped at a corner store in town to buy miners gifts... gifts included coca leafs, 96% alcohol and dynamite (yes they sell dynamite at the local corner store).

Ant, me and Shane before going under. Toured the tunnels and talked to miners for 3 hours about 300 ft underground.

And you think your job sucks: This guy had to take out 60 of these carts per day, each weighing about 1 ton. He works about 13 hours a day and makes 50 Bolivianos for his efforts ($7 USD per day). Most miners start working as teenagers and often die within 10 or 20 years from breathing in the noxious gases and dust.

Sucre
In the "modern" city of Sucre now. Likely will stay a week to study spanish and tour the surrounding area.

San Pedro de Atacama and Salta

San Pedro de Atacama

Explored this 16 block or so dirt road oasis town for a few days with the Dutch twins (Franca and Lieke) that I met in Caldera. All the buildings seem to either be hostels, restaurants or tour operators but somehow this pueblo manages to avoid most of the tourism tackiness that usually follows the foreign herds.



Rented bikes for 3 days to explore the surrounding landscape that has a strong resemblence to the red rocks of Southern Utah.

Valley de la Luna with salt floor

Great mountain biking trail that wound its way along canyon floor

Franca cruising under and through the turn

The perks of traveling with girls
Biked out of town in seach of a lagon with directions scribbled on a scrap of paper (i.e. turn right at the tree). 40 kms later we shockingly ended up in middle of desert / middle of nothingness (pictured below) far away from water. I headed back to town for a siesta while the girls continued to search out this pool of earth´s life blood.


Well soon after I left the girls got a flat tire and just happens the first car with 3 Chilian guys hit the brakes and gave the girls a ride back to town. The hombres were on their way to a hot spring and invited the girls to come along and somehow I ended up being "invited." Anyway the guys were great and we lounged in the hot springs and then went out to dinner with them. After dinner we drove again out of town, kicked the truck into 4WD, drove around a national park gate, and drank wine by ourselves in park usually quite crowded during normal hours starring up at the sky.

Walter, Hector, Hans, Franca and Lieke at the hot springs

Also, lucked into a free star gazing tour out of town with some large telescopes (this area is rumored to be one of the best places in the world to look up at night)

Salta
A largish town (500,000ish) with a authentic but friendly vibe. Highlights include being the only tourists at a local market and eating cheap, doing laundry for the first time in a month (a much needed thing since I only have 2 shirts), Asados (BBQ) on the hostel roof, playing in pretty competitive soccer games organized by the hostel with people from Argentina and the international futbol powerhouse nations, and listened to one of the better international complaint session about America from several who had started imbibing early in the afternoon.

Next
Taking a night bus tonight to the Bolivian border and crossing tomorrow. Franca and Lieke are staying in town and I´ll be traveling the next bit with a guy from England and a guy from New Zealand that I met at the hostel here.


ps, I´m running on 2 hours of sleep from a BBQ that went late into the night so if any of the above doesn´t make since this could be why.