Full Circle

Santiago is Europe. Its about as developed as much of the western world and it was a huge shock, especially coming from Bolivia - the poorest country in South America.

Santiago has large tree lined avenues, modern buildings, an efficient metro and, uuh... music in the streets. It was great seeing my birthplace for practically the first time, even though I've been told that its changed a lot. In fact in front of my parents´old apartment is the modest looking Santiago Ritz-Carlton. We found a groovy hostel in a huge old house for the first night, and spent the whole afternoon laying in Barrio Brésil's park, eating ice cream and reading in the grass.

The next day we added a 5th person to our travelling circus in the name of Nadja Jing. Click here for her blog. Yes, we now have 4 blogs for 5 people. That means you get to read 4 renditions of the exact same events 4 different times. And if anyone manages to do that and stay awake they get a free smoking monkey.

Now as I was saying, we were lazy for most of our Santiago stay, finding a great hotel with TV (we're TV deprived, ok.) and a garden. We spent most days waking up late and wondering the various parts of the city in search for tents and parks to lay in.

One day we randomely saw a soccer game after power-walking through most of the city looking for Moncia (who was in a meeting). We got to watch Chile vs Peru in the completely red national stadium surrounded by snow capped Andean peaks. Pretty cool. Chile beat a lethargic Peru 2-0 and we were satisfied.

Some time after (ok, so I lose track of days... you know time doesn't really exist anyways) the rest of the circus went to Valparaiso while I stayed back to track down some of my parents' old friends. I was able to meet them all and it was thorroughly enjoyable seeing them and hearing about my short childhood spent in Santiago.

Oh yea, and some time before we decided to be rebels and Tattoo and pierce ourselves. So SM got a lotus on her back, Nadja got a nose piercing, and I got a pokemon sticker.

Northern Chile

No, really. Its time to make sense. Snhkkkkk.

So as I was saying, we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama tired and sweatered only to find an adobe bricked little village in the middle of lots of sand. We were about to despair about the lack of hotel rooms when we found a nice one with a courtyard and picnic tables and in other news a French Baguette Guy. This makes no sense. Anyways, the next day we rented bikes and sandboards and did the dunes in style.

I have never had so much sand in so many places before. We spent most of the time walking up an enormous sand dune and the rest we spent falling down it. It was fun. SM did the best descent, going halfway perfectly and then falling in great style and rolling everywhere (see video below). Yes the little black dot is her.





The afternoon was spent watching France lose the Rugby world cup (hee hee) and the next day we took the longest bus ride OF OUR LIVES for 24 hours all the way to Santiago.

San Pedro de Atacama

After a grrrrrrrrrrryu we had some tea. n hkkk.

It was fun. the end.

Superlatives bath

I can now die happy.

In Bolivia we went on a 3 day tour of the biggest salt lake on earth and an extremely amazing national park. It was amazingly epostouflante. Like being on another planet... we went from bleak stretches of white salty infinity to islands completely drenched in cactuses, we drove through a 4ooo meter high desert, blood-red lagoons, emerald-green lakes pierced by towering volcanoes and populated by bright pink flamingos.

It was probably the greatest most mind-blowingly splendid fabulously incredible (etc, etc) trip I've done in my life.

We began our journey in Uyuni, a little western town in the middle of nowhere bordering this immense salt lake. We shopped around for a few tour agencies, and spent most of the day laying around in streetside cafes eating panqueques and.

We left late next morning in our 1985 Toyosa Land Cruiser with us 4, two British guys, our driver slash guide- Manuel and our cook. We bumped through the desert for a few minutes before reaching the train cemetary, where all the trains from the 1800s went to die. We then continued to the salt flats, first visiting a salt making factorty. The process is surprisingly simple.

1. Scrape salt off ground

2. Heat salt to dry it

3. Crush salt & add iodine

4. Package salt

The salt flats are 12 meters of solid salt resting upon a huge lake, which, in the rainy season becomes completely saturated with water resulting in 5cm of it covering the whole flats. After much ooohing and aahing at the salt, its flatness and infinity we visited a salt hotel and an island covered in thousands of cacti. We then drove off the salt flats and to our own salt hotel where everything from the beds to the tables and chairs were made of salt. And yet the food never had enough. Weird.

After playing an exhausting game of soccer with the village's children we sat on the bball court to admire the stars, with no electricity in the village nor a moon we got a great view of the sky- milky way and all. 5 am wake up call the next day and we drove off through variyng degrees of desert and towering peaks, stopping to take a look at a smoking volcano (from afar) then visiting at a series of lagoons filled with flamingos and surrounded by brown barren peaks. This whole place was completely devoid of life except for the occasional vicuña herd (like llamas) and the flocks of flamongos. or flamingos.

We bounced through some more bleak moonscapes of rolling sand hills and multicolored mountains till we reached a bunch of surreal looking sand-worn rock formations in the middle of vast valleys of sand. Then we stopped at a blood-red lagoon dotted with even more flamingos and llamas. And apparently the redness is due to some unpronounciable mineral found in there.

Next stop was a cold hotel in the middle of nowhere where we played cards, dirt rugby and gazed at yet more stars. We settled in our beds wearing every possible clothing item in our bags (I think I got up to 6 layers and it was waaay under freezing) and slept until the ungodly hour of 4am where we rolled out of bed and into the frosted dirt landscape to the geyser fields where we jumped out of the car, ran around and took photos until we coudn't feel our fingers anymore- then ran back into the car and started a swearing marathon at the cold. We did this 3 or 4 times until we reached the hot springs at around 6, where we decided it would be smart to take a dip.

Well it was great. The smouldering lake surrounded us with hot springs gnawing away at the night ice around them, all covered in the glow of the early morning sun. We sat in these boiling pools (37ºC) for a while until breakfast was ready and then got out and had some cold pancakes (at least we were warm from the springs). Getting back into the car we realized that it was still under freezing because our swimsuits were frozen solid onto the side of the jeep.

The last stop was the green lagoon- an emerald green pool with a perfectly conical volcano pearched just behind it made for an amazing view and lots of great photos before the hoards of tourists disembarked from their own land cruisers.

We then crossed the border into Chile going from this surreal bleak landscape to perfectly manicured roads and modern cars.

El Minero Del Diablo

Potosí was once the largest city in the world, surpassing both London and Paris in wealth and population. It once had the largest silver mine in the world, discovered by a llama herder who got lost on the Cerro Rico mountain at night and lit a fire to keep warm- only to see a trickle of molten silver form from under his fire. From then on Cerro Rico has been exploited for its mineral wealth, with an estimated 8 million. Million. slaves and forced laborers dying in these mines.

Nowadays the mines are owned by the Govt. and worked by mining cooperatives, with every group of miners selling their own produce and paying only a percentage tax to the state. This is good in that the profits go directly to the miners, and they can organize themselves as they want in respect to working hours and conditions. But its also bad because they have no uniform safety standards or regulations. Nobody regulates the mines except for the miners themselves.

The Cerro Rico is basically a mountain of red rubble perforated by hundreds of mineshafts and crisscrossed by dirt roads. The working conditions in these mines are among some of the worst in the world. They are heavily prone to cave-ins, there are often poisenous gases and minerals and the heat can be stifeling (more than 45º in some places). The dust inhaled by the miners gives them silicosis, which results in death. Most miners dont live more than 10 or 15 years after entering the mines. Most miners do this because there is nothing else they can do to survive.

That said, it is apparently good money, if youre lucky. In every mine is a statue of the Tio, or devil, which the miners worship when inside the mine, and a cross on its entrance to prevent the Tio from coming into the outside world. They have thin metal tracks running into the mouth of the mine all the way until the end where the drillers use their pneumatic drills to make holes for the dynamite, which they then blow in the afternoons, resulting in several tonnes of rubble that are then carted out on the metal tracks, dumped into a truck and sold to the town's various smelters.

Me and Charles visited one such mine, stopping at the miner's market first to buy presents of fizzy drinks and dynamite for the miners, in addition to the ubiquitous coca leaves. We then took the bus up to the mountain, stuffing ourselves with coca leaves like chipmunks before arriving. All the miners have a large bulge of coca leaves in one of their cheecks, chewing and spitting periodically. They are supposed to give you more stamina, help you breathe and work harder. I don´t know if they did us much good, but it did take us forever to fall asleep that night.

The mine passages were tiny. The ceiling was held up by a thatchwork of wooden planks. To descend to the third level we had to crawl on our hands and knees through thick layers of mud and powder dirt that got everywhere from our hair to our nostrils, making it hard to breathe. There is no ventilation, no escape route no regulations or guarantees. Despite, or because of these atrocious conditions the miners were surprisingly upbeat, all with a very unique sense of humor and often with smiles on their faces.

They day before we had watched a movie about a child miner in these very mines. The movie was very... direct/moving/harsh/depressing... a mixture of these words. But upon visiting the mines the reality of it sets in, and you realize that these people don't think about the chances of cave-ins or noxious gases, or the fact that they will die prematurely, they just think about doing their work for the day- and the comraderie and humor helps them get through it.

Potosi & Sucre

We left the chaos of La Paz on the very back row of a rickety green bus. I dont know what the others were complaining about, but I was comfortable in the middle of the row, with all the legspace I needed. I quickly fell asleep as we bounced through the outskirts of La Paz and onto the neverending altiplano, waking up only at 4:30 am, once we had reached our destination. We took a confused taxi to our hostel and, waking all the other sleepers, we settled into our uber comfortable bunks just in time for the sunrise.

Potosi was... lethargic. On a rien foutu. And we loved it. We spent the day moving from bench to bench, too tired or uninspired to see the few worthwhile sights (well, its not hard to be uninspired when the most popular attraction is the monetary museum). In the afternoon we watched a movie called ´Cocalero´ about current president Evo Morales´electoral campaign. Evo is Bolivia´s first indigenous president, campaigning for the poor, indigenous and for the coca. Thats the good part. The slightly worrying part is one of his preferred slogans: ´Muerte a los yanquis´. He also seems a bit single minded - not acknowledging the problems of cocaine in the country nor focusing much on how to improve the Bolivian economy.

Inspired by our movie - watching streak and the TV in the hostel we spent the evening watching the end of ´The Motorcycle Diaries´ and then, one of my favorite movies ´Requiem for a Dream´. We ended the night thorroughly depressed. but contently so.

The next day we took a swerving taxi to Sucre, the ´constitutional capital´ of the country. There's a terse rivalry between La Paz (where the president resides) and Sucre (where the supreme court is based) on who is the country's capital. So much so that the day we left La Paz there was a huge march through the city demanding that the govt. stay put in the city. Similarly, Sucre was full of banners and posters declaring it to be the ´Capital Plena de Bolivia´.

We took a much better liking to Sucre, the white city, even though we did nothing more than eat and bench around all day. We spent some time in the Joy Ride Café having the best coffee of the trip so far and then watching a hard-hitting documentary on child miners.

La Paz

La Paz is the messiest, ugliest, most alive city we've been to so far. Every street is chaos incarnete with the directionless traffic, the market stalls lining the sidewalks and the continuous streaming of people scurrying through the streets like ants to an anthill. I absolutely adore this city.

It probably has to do with the fact that I love the chaos and disorder of developing countries, the pure life teeming on the streets. You can tell right away that Bolivia is the poorest country on the continent, with the ever expanding capital bearing these marks in the no-frills buildings and modest boulevards of the city. We arrived from an ever expanding outskirt town with unpaved roads and bare brick houses, our first glimpse of the city was that of this photo, a massive bowl-shaped valley completely covered in red-brick buildings on each side.





The bus dropped us off at the cemetary with the crematorial smokestack looming over us. The traffic is as bad (if not worse) than Hanoi, with barely any traffic lights (or cops) in the whole city the cars and micros are free to roam as they want, with hoards of pedestrians frantically crossing the street and plugging the holes between vehicles.

Our accomodation is smack in the middle of the Witches Market- an area teeming with little stalls selling llama fetuses (to bring luck and prosperity) and an array of hundreds of potency pills and potions.

What I love the most about this city is that on its streets you can buy anything and everything imaginable. They sell everything from ribbon to hair, pots to cameras, iPods, fish, towels, shoes and hairspray. We passed areas that had a balls of wool in a rainbow of colors, limes of all shapes and colors, music from all the decades and all the plumbing equipment you could possibly want.

We then walked to the center of the bowl to the modest presidential palace with neighboring bullet-riddled buildings and down the main business street - complete with skyscrapers and ski-mask shrouded shoe shine boys. We even caught a movie (Lucky Number Sleven) in English in a cozy movie theater and went to an interesting contemporary art museum located in one of the last few colonial houses on the streets.

The Morning

The day we left the Isla del Sol was pure bliss - I have rarely had such a nice day.


The night before I had set my watch for 6:30 am to catch the Titicaca sunrise outside our bedroom window. I'd woken up during the night to a perfect half-moon and its reflection onto the lake shining through the window. I briefly woke up to a mediocre sunrise when my alarm rang only to then turn over in my warm bed and sleep an hour more.



At 8:30 I groggily opened my eyes and reached to my bedside table for a tasty breakfast of strawberry yoghurt and chocolate Oreo's (Mmmmm). The next hour was spent reading about Chile and planning the next month of our trip. After a warm shower and a paper plane making session with two local boys we set off down the hill to catch the 10:30 am ferry back to the mainland. The air was crisp and the breeze just enough to keep you cool.

I spent the ride talking to SM and admiring the shifting blueness of the lake. Once arrived in Copacabana we stopped for a delicious lunch of chicken fajitas and white wine on a sunny terrace with great music playing in the background. We basked in the sun while waiting for our food and then reluctantly picked up our packs and boarded the bus for La Paz, following the bleak landscape and lake contour for much of our 3 hour trip to the capital.




I have rarely been so relaxed and content as that morning, with the perfect weather, scenery, and company. And it hit me once again that I'm on the vacation of a lifetime.

Lake Titicaca

Yes, it has a funny name, but there's nothing funny about its grandeur. The lake is 6 or 12 times larger (one of the two) than Lac Leman in Switzerland and far more imposing. Its the highest navigable lake in the world at 3,400 meters above sea level. The days (in the sun at least) are warm and the nights are fridgid.

We arrived to the lake at Puno, one of the ugliest towns we've seen so far with all the buildings made of unpainted brick with metal beams sticking out of the tops. It has absolutely no charm or interest except for strangely manicured trees in its centra plaza. We came to Puno because its the port from which we can visit the lake's unique floating islands.

These tiny islands are made from the abundant reeds growing in the lake. The roots of the reeds are used for a base and then the reeds themselves are piled over each other and crisscrossed for extra strength. These reeds are the livelyhoods of these people - they can be eaten, used for their islands, to make boats, their houses and crafts. As the bottom reeds rot off they must be replaced twice a month to keep their islands floating.

These people moved out to the lake centuries ago due to fighting between their tribe and another stronger one, giving them the only choice to escape or be decimated. Nowadays these islands are very touristic, with the locals welcoming boatloads of tourists with their crafts ready to be sold, but they're still a very unique experience.

After visiting the floating islands we took the collectivo (a super-squished van) and then a sort of cyclo to the Bolivian border where a Peruvian border guard tried (and failed) to steal my money. We arrived in the Bolivian town of Copacabana at dusk and found the cheapest hotel in the world (1.3 USD) to sleep in.

Early the next morning we set off for the Isla del Sol, where the Incas supposedly sprouted from. That island is magical. It is the Mediterranean. Everything from the landscape, the crispness of the air, the blueness of the water to the olive trees and plentiful thyme growing in the arid landscape reminds me of southern Italian islands like Sardenia. The landscape set off a yearning for Mediterranean food in both me and Charles and soon we were drooling to the thoughts of a cold rice salad and fresh rosé wine. Unfortunately all we got for lunch was a greasy chicken sandwich and a melted chocolate bar, but that did just fine.

We puffed up a hill to find our hotel (its not easy to walk up hills at 4000 meters) overlooking the lake and we promptly set out to hike the island. Our mission was to get to the north side of the island, where they had the Inca ruins of the temple of the sun and their alledged sprouting point. Ledgend has it that a husband & wife (and brother & sister) came from the earth of this island and continued into the Andes to Cuzco where they established the beginnings of the Inca empire.

We stopped for lunch on a hill overlooking a beach and it was too nice not to take a siesta. So an hour later we got up and realized that these ruins were a lot farther than we had anticipated. Well, we finally reached the ruins (a bunch of stones piled onto each other) but were so happy with the hike that we weren't even dissapointed. We then walked through the nothern village in the hopes of catching a boat back to the south, which would avoid us having to walk 3 hours back in the dark.

Well the last boat had left 4 hours before, but we found a guy that was willing to take us. The lake was choppier than we (and the boatman) anticipated and we spent most of the ride dodging huge waves and watching water slowly trickle into the boat from the windows. When we finally arrived the boatman smartly positioned the boat paralell to the waves and with a fierce wave and an unbalanced deck it sent the boat flying sideways and Sao Mai tumbling into the water. What followed was a franatic effort to get SM out of the water and to catch the boat before it floated away (all of us were on the dock). We managed to get the boat back and recover SM as the toothless boatman hurridly jumped back in and set off back to the north.

The Road to Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is the most important archaeological site in South America. Its standard photo of the stone ruins surrounded by imposing mountain peaks is on everything from T-shirts to mousepads. Its the one most over-hyped tourist destination in Peru. And its every bit worth it.

Of coure no pilgrimige to Machu Picchu is complete without taking on the 4 day Inca trail to reach the sacred site. Of course the Inca trail is also overpriced and almost impossible to do unless you book months in advance. So we didn't. But we did do an 'alternative' Inca trail which still made us feel Inca-y and cost a hell of a lot less.

We started the first day by taking a 4 hour bus ride up a 4000m mountain (just like the Incas did) and then down halfway where we pulled our pristene mountain bikes off the roof of the bus and began our 5 hour descent. It was awsome. I have never downhill biked for that long through villages, waterfalls, rivers, jungle and cemetaries. We went from freshly paved road to joint-jittering rock paths. Our first casualty was SM, with her back brake not working she was flung over the front of the bike and into the abyss. So she scraped her arm, and got to trade bikes with the guide- who later threw her bike on the ground in disgust claiming that it wasnt a good bike. Really?

Next Monica's chain fell off a few times (not to mention some pant-wetting issues), an Irish guy fell off his bike and broke 2 gears off, William got 3 flat tires (giving up and carrying his bike for the last 100m), Charles hit a rock and broke is wheel, and a few more chains fell off. I was the only lucky one with no problems at all except for having the same back break as SM, but it didnt cause me any difficulties.

We arrived to our hostel in Sta. Maria tired, dirty and jolted, but thorroughly satisfied. It was the first time I'd slept at a gas station, and before going up we played deflated soccer with a ball-hungry dog.

The next day we hiked through the ghost town of old-Sta. Maria that had been destroyed (along with most of the train tracks) by the raging Urubamba river during '97's El Niño. We walked up a mountain through Coca plantations and onto an old path once used by Inca messangers.

The locals either chew the coca leaves or use them to make tea. They're supposed to give you energy to continue your manual labor and help with altitude sickness too. Here the growers mostly sell their leaves to cocain producers that give them good prices for their harvest. The Govt. has tried to subsidize farmers to grow other products but the fact that they still get better prices from cocaine producers and that its growth remains legal for cultural uses means that it hasn't made much progress.

On the old Inca trail our nature-friendly guide bent over a yuca tree to show us the leaves, breaking it in half in the process. Instead of destroying the evidence we decided to cameflauge ourselves in yuca leaves and blend in with the local surroundings. It worked so well. After descending to the river and walking along its rock-strewn edge (and through japanese gardens) we corssed the river in a DIY cable car, finally arriving at the blissful hot springs.

The huge pools, still under construction were hugged on one side by the granite mountain rocks, overlooking the river on the other. We steamed there for 2 hours, taking a twix (Twix!) break and being bitten to death by tiny bugs when we reluctantly dried off.

We spent the night at the little village of Sta. Teresa, being followed by 'Take on me' we watched a local soccer game before going to sleep in our roofless room (The roof was plastc tarp.). We woke up at 3:30am to some drunk guys haggling on top of our heads, but I was able to continue dreaming of being crowned king in a supermarket (yea...).

The final morning we bussed down to hydroelectroc city and spent the day walking down old railroad tracks and making train noises- another highlight of the trip. We finally arrived in Aguas Calientes, the town below Machu Picchu and settled into our hostel. By now we'd accumulated an array of interesting smells with our 3 day old socks, dusty pants, and disheveled hair. Just the way we like it.

Next morning's 4am wake up call had us marching (then huffing, and gasping) up the mountain to the site of Machu Picchu for what was the hardest walk of the trek so far. We reached the summit sweaty and out of breath, but proud for being the first visitors of the morning - that is until 2 minute later when we hear the hum of bus engines and the hiss of pneumatic doors opening to unleash 50 tourists onto the steps of the ruins. Bastards.

After entering the site we ran to the other end of the ruins to get our ticket that would allow us to climb Wayna Picchu (the peak looming over the ruins). We ran because our guide told us to and cuz they only let 200 people climb that mountain a day. The booth was closed. It would open at 7. What ensued was the running tour of Machu Picchu as we sprinted back to the guard house at the top (and opposite end) of the ruins where our guide would begin his tour. The tour begain. Halfway through the tour (and after 7am) our guide instructed us to return to the booth to get our tickets so we could climb it later. Again, we dashed to the booth only for them to tell us that we must climb the mountain right away. Not wanting to miss the end of our tour we ran back (again) through the now-familiar ruins and up the hill back to our guide. I was pissed. Later, at the end of our tour we got the opportunity again to try the booth, but in protest I decided not to climb it and spend an hour sleeping in the sun instead.

Machu Picchu is everything its said to be-and more. The ruins are massive, the stonework flawless, the surroundings breathtaking and tourists numerous. After out tour we spent some time wandering around the site and after losing each other one-by-one I spent an hour just laying in the grass and admiring the imposing site.

The afternoon we made our way back down the mountain with running bus-boys and took the 2:30 train back to Cuzco. We reached Cuzco tired, hungry, happy and badly needing a shower.

Cuzco plus 1

So after finding out that I'd had a 39.8º fever the whole day I spent that night writhing between shivering under 5 layers of blankets and sweating under a thin blue sheet. This continued until the wee hours of the morning when I finally was able to get some sleep. The next day was better, though still worrying as the thermomiter said I had 36º and then 35º and finally 34º...I'm now waiting for my blood to freeze and my body temp to drop below zero. Then everyone can have alex popsicles.

Apart from the family tradition of Cuzco sickness we like this place a lot. The city was the Inca empire's capital until the Spanish came and brutally buried all evidence of that by building cathedrals over temples and spanish houses over palaces. What remains is a curious mix of grand colonial architecture built on the sturdy remains of Inca fortresses. The regular houses are all of uniform whitewashed walls with red terracotta roof tiles while the city is spaced with fountained plazas and arched buildings resting on superb Incan masonry of rocks fitted so well together that it looks disneyland fake.

I decided to rest for a day to be 100% ready for our upcoming trek and spent the afternoon wandering the smooth cobblestoned streets of Cuzco. I don't think I've ever been to so many museums in one day, beginning with the Inka museum, then the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Regional History, the museum folk art, a monestary museum... etc. All very interesting and most very free.

I also stumbled upon the local market which had a great selection from ceviche to homemade chocolate, coca leaves to llama sweaters. All dirt cheap and full of chaos.

Inbetween sickness and museum hopping we went on a half-day walk through 3 Inca ruins near Cuzco, getting off the bus at the small water-themed Tambo Machay and then walking down to some site starting with a P and ending at the impressive Saqsaywaman with its jagged puma-teethed walls of huge rocks.