Day 41 – The Altiplano Brings the Cousin of Death (Leaving Bolivia)
Location: Southwest Altiplano, Bolivia and San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010
Last night, a man tending a local store was screaming at someone in La Paz over a crackling radio that the town had run out of coca leaves. “La Paz! La Paz! Necesitamos coca. No tenemos nada! La Paz! La Paz!” The edges of his mouth were stained with a green crust of his last wad of chew. We had a good laugh about his coca craze. Read more…
Day 40 – Pelicans of the Altiplano
Location: The Altiplano, southwest Bolivia
Date: Friday, November 19, 2010
I am not on earth. This is someplace else. Mars. Maybe a Jupiter moon. It’s the kind of place that makes you realize that there’s nothing new under the sun. That Salvador Dali was a copycat hack. That it can be both freezing cold and sweltering hot at the same time. A place where a lake bed looks like a starry night sky. Read more…
Day 39 – Why I Came to Bolivia (Salar de Uyuni)
Location: Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
Date: Thursday, November 18, 2010
The Salar de Uyuni is why I came to Bolivia. The horizon to horizon salt flats, the world’s highest and largest salt lake, are one of the strangest places on earth. Now that it’s over, I can’t help but think that this three day trip’s given me its best on the first day; that I’ve started with dessert; that in the opening credits I’ve found out that Bruce Willis is dead people, too. What’s left to see? Read more…
Day 38 – Urine A Show On A Bus
Location: Bus from La Paz to Uyuni, Bolivia
Date: Wednesday Night, November 17, 2010
I’ve endured many bus rides (Vietnam, South America, etc.), but until today none have made my brain fall out of my ear or given me standing room only seats to a Vegas show.
The bus was from La Paz to Uyuni where Jamil–my Canadian friend from Isla del Sol–and I would start a three-day tour through the bizarre southwestern Bolivian Antiplano (most notably the Salar de Uyuni). It was a mere 12 hour overnight trip. Read more…
Day 37 – The La Paz Cough
Location: La Paz, Bolivia
Date: Tuesday, November 16, 2010
I have the La Paz hostel cough. It seems like everyone here at Loki Hostel has, at one point, had the sniffles. A combination of late nights, dry altitude air, and cold means at some point you’re probably going to be under the weather. It doesn’t help that most of us are sleeping at least 8 to a room, which makes any bug easy to transfer. Read more…
Day 36 – Ethnics at the Plaza and Museo
Location: La Paz, Bolivia
Date: Monday, November 15, 2010
La Paz is a mix of the new and the old. Young adults with iPods walk with their mothers in traditional dress. Glass high rises sit blocks from shanty towns. Internet cafes are just steps away from the old remedies of the Witches Market. Old men chomp on wads of coca leaf while, at late night club Route 36, foreigners take a more refined form of the stimulant through their noses. Read more…
Day 35 – Death Road Was Not Made for Pessimists
Location: Camino de la Muerte, Outside La Paz, Bolivia
Date: Sunday, November 14, 2010
Welcome to Bolivia’s El Camino de la Muerte or the famed Death Road. Until 4 years ago it was one of the only ways to get to the north of Bolivia from the south, which meant a lot of traffic on a winding, one lane (3.2 m or 10 feet wide) gravel road with drop-offs of 600 meters (2,000 feet). The road is so narrow that when big trucks made the turns, one wheel was always over the edge. Unlike the rest of Bolivia, cars are required to drive on the left so that the downhill driver can get a better view of the edge so he can properly poop himself. Read more…
Day 34 – La Paz
Location: Streets of La Paz, Bolivia
Date: Saturday, November 13, 2010
Wandering the streets today, shopping for a Death Road mountain bike trip, we once again experienced the madness that is La Paz’s city streets. Bus after bus rolls past, barking out destinations to potential passengers. Pedestrians dart in and out of traffic. The colors of a street market pop against the bluest sky of any city in the world. Read more…
Day 33 – Mostly Illegal
Location: La Paz, Bolivia
Date: Friday, November 12, 2010
South America is the land of the illicit cure. Whereas East Asia is known for its weird stuff (needles in face, tiger piss, heated cup massage, etc.). South America’s cures are mostly illegal. Think cocaine, San Pedro, and ayahuasca (a powerful hallucinogenic). Read more…
Day 32 – Traffic Zebras
Location: La Paz, Bolivia
Date: Thursday, November 11, 2010
La Paz is a wild city. Not only is it seated in some dramatic mountains, it’s a strange combination of cosmopolitan and developing world. As you pass through the outskirts of the city, you see everything typical of a non-Western city. Masses of people move through dust covered streets crammed with a random mix of shops and street vendors. Men offer all forms of transport from collectivo vans and taxis. Mixed with the crowd are women (for some reason it’s mostly women) in national dress: bowlers, colorful scarves, and black, formless dress. Children mix in, fearless as they run through the streets, seemingly unattended. Read more…
Day 31 – To La Paz
Location: Roads to La Paz, Bolivia
Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Today we said goodbye to Isla del Sol. A leisurely boat ride back to the mainland later and I was scrambling to grab my luggage and buy a bus ticket to La Paz. The island was nice, but mainland Copacabana didn’t seem to have much left for me. I was ready to move on. Read more…
Day 30 – Isla del Sol
Location: Isla del Sol, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia
Date: Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Isla del Sol may have gotten its name from a legend that says it is where the sun—god to the Incas—was born. Or, perhaps it got it from the legend that the first Inca emperor and his wife—the sun gods in human form—rose here from the lake to found the empire. Read more…
Day 29 – Bolivian Immigration Is Mostly for Americans
Location: Border and Copacabana, Bolivia
Date: Monday, November 8, 2010
Copacabana in Bolivia is a sleepy town on the edge of Lake Titicaca. It is not the one in Cuba or the one in Brazil. It’s a waypoint to either La Paz or Isla del Sol, the mythical birthplace of Inca civilization. It’s charming enough, though so small it doesn’t have a usable ATM (the one that’s there only takes cards from a Bolivian bank). Read more…
Day 28 – Most Boring Seat in the World
Location: Roads between Arequipa and Puno, Peru
Date: Sunday, November 7, 2010
The sprint continues. After an overnight bus from Lima to Arequipa and a two-hour wait, I was aboard a cheap bus to Puno.
As luck would have it, I ended up in the seat behind the driver, just like on the bus from Ica to Lima. For 6 hours I contemplated why this is the worst seat possible. A list: Read more…
Day 27 – Leaving Lima
Location: Roads out of Lima, Peru
Date: Saturday, November 6, 2010
No more delays. Futbol game is done. Stomach’s almost back in order. Gear’s packed. Clothes are washed. It’s time to hit the road.
But not without first thanking the generous folks that let me stay in their spare bedroom. Karem’s family, top to bottom, has been more generous than I can describe. When my body betrayed me, they gave me medicine and were there with helpful advice on how to best recover. Taking care of an overeating foreigner was more than they bargained for. I appreciate all that they did. Read more…
The Overpacker 