Thoughts on La Paz, Bolivia

We have been in La Paz, Bolivia for almost a week now. Unfortunately I got a bug so have laid around reading and playing games on my Ipod and have gone for little walks. Beth has ventured a bit further, exploring the city's markets and street foods. Our hostel is smack in the middle of the Witches Market, where you can find ladies selling magical herbs and tinctures and dried llama fetuses.

Any kind of walk in La Paz is quite an event. The city sits on the eastern shoulder of the Andes at over 12,000 feet above sea level. The narrow, cobbled streets are steep and will have you panting like a dog in the summer heat before you know it. The sidewalks are thin to non-exisitent. A dull stink of sewer and grime wafts constantly through the air, and people are everywhere buying and selling and bartering. You buy can buy everything from toilet paper to sunglasses on the street markets. The food has been wonderful, although not helping my stomach bug. You can buy eggs, bread, jewelry, snake skins, herbs, small stuffed alligators playing little guitars, fake Rolex's and fake Ray-Bans. The drivers are ruthless which makes crossing the streets a stressful and death defying act.

Cathedral San Francisco

Throughout our travels we have frequented many beautiful churches. Cathedral San Francisco, sitting like a fortress two blocks from our hostel, is spectacular. The plaza in front is packed with market vendors selling flowers, food, juice, palm crosses and jewelry. Upon entering the church I realized what a sanctuary this must have been for people living in this fast-paced and chaotic city. The church was dimmly lit, and people were scattered in the pews praying or just taking in the unshakeable character of this building. The walls are made of huge stone blocks nearly 4 feet thick and really make one feel secure. Along the side walls you find ostentatious shrines to various saints.

In many of the South America churches we've visited, Cathedral San Francisco no exception, these shrines tend to be particularly gory and graphic, with bloody and savage representations of the cruxification. Paul Theroux, in The Old Patagonian Express, commented on this observation too. He makes the interesting point that in this part of the world, where the people have seen so much blood, torture and pain themselves, in order to make the sufferings of Jesus appear to exceed their own he must be represented with the utmost gore and anguish. He's right. The images are sometimes downright revolting. The shrines of the Virgin Mary are quite the opposite, however. Mary is always the idealic vision of a queen mother, perhaps reminiscent of the Spanish queen of the motherland during conquest.

Coca

Quickly upon entering northern Argentina and Bolivia we saw vendors selling coca. As a westerner the first thing I thought of was the synthesized drugs made from these leaves that are causing all kinds of havoc throughout the Americas. However, coca has been cultivated for medicinal, ceremonial and alimentary uses since the time of the Incas. It is deeply rooted in family tradition and social culture. It's therefore important to separate the plant from the drug that causes so much fuss. It is a way of life to drink coca tea, chew coca leaves to reduce the symtoms of altitude sickness, and maybe get your fortune told by "reading the leaves." None of these activities even approaches the experience of using the synthetic drugs. Their effects are mild and beneficial, with no harmful ramifications for the body.

In the 18th century, the Catholic Church banned the use of the coca leaf, calling it a weapon of the devil and an obstruction to broad scale conversion of the natives. The church then rescinded this stance when they saw how much harder the natives worked in the silver mines while chewing coca. In the great mines of Potosi and elsewhere the amount of coca consumed by the workers often exceeded in monetary worth the gold and silver extracted.

Moving On

We are heading east to Santa Cruz, Bolivia today to spend some time on a little family run vegetable farm for a week or so. Beth is quite excited to get digging in the dirt and maybe hang out with some animals. We are hoping the lower altitude will help me recover from my bug.

Bolivia and The Salt Flats

We made it out of Argentina and crossed into Bolivia at the little outpost town of Villazon. We needed to stay in La Quiaca, Argentina for a day so that we could allow the Bolivian Consulate to swindle us out of 2 weeks living expenses. It is clear that the relationship between the U.S. and Bolivia is not particularly strong. Evo Morales instituted a "reciprocity" fee for Americans just to enter the country ($135 per person). It is equal to the fee the U.S. charges Bolivians. Not only did we have to pay, but they mandate all kinds of photocopies of our important personal documents likes pictures, credit cards, Yellow Fever vaccinations, Bolivian hostel reservations, etc.

Once we managed to jump through all their hoops we walked across an ugly concrete bridge manned by armed guards into what is clearly another country. There is a big difference between Argentina and Bolivia. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. Only 10% of the roads are paved, illiteracy is high and many people still claim pure indigenous Quechuan blood. The country is the most rugged, highest in elevation, and the most isolated country in the hemisphere. It is called the "Tibet of the Americas."

We walked around Villazon for a few hours while we waited to go to Uyuni. Unfortunately, the best thing about the chaotic and dirty village is the train that takes travelers out of there. After 11 hours of the Expreso del Sur stopping and starting and shimmying we pulled into Uyuni at 1:30am. We wandered through the desolate town with a hundred other travelers searching for our forcibly reserved accommodations. We found ours and zonked out.

The next morning, just after rolling out of bed, the hostel manager accosted us to let us know that there were 2 more spots on a 3 day 4WD expedition into the Salar de Uyuni and southwest desert of Bolivia. It was leaving in 2 hours. We hummed and hawed about it until she dropped the price for us and before we knew it we were on our way. We were crammed into a sweet Toyota Landcruiser with 3 sisters from the Los Angelos area and 2 French guys. Our masterful driver and guide, Cornelio, drove us across barren and desolate landscapes, through creeks and mud, and around volcanic geysers and fumaroles.

The Salar de Uyuni covers 12,000 square kilometers. There are no roads across the flats. Each driver just drives across the white and open plain of salt. The locals harvest and process the salt for export as well as harvesting the salt for building material. Our first night's accomodations were in a building made mostly of salt. The walls were made of salt bricks with salt mortar. The tables and chairs were also made out of huge blocks of salt cut from the salt flats. We got really lucky with our tour. There were many other tourists we ran into along the way whose drivers were mean and unpleasent. Some said that they weren´t given enough food to eat, and just didn´t have a good experience. We had wonderful food and wonderful company all around. It couldn´t have been better.

On day two, we visited lagoons of various colors where flamingos causually walked their high step walk picking at whatever they could find. The landscape between the lagoons was barren desert surrounded by high volcanic mountains. We drove to a pass at 5,000 meters (15,000 feet). It was miles of sand speckled with marginal shrubbery, dust being kicked up by the truck in front of us, and an intense sun beating down on us. It was clear that Cornelio had little patience for being stuck behind other tours. We could relate to his driving after living up at Spruce Knob for years.

Some of us at The Mountain Institute tossed around a theory on driving the washboard and pothole ridden road of Spruce. The theory was the faster you drive over the holes and washboards, the smoother the ride. Cornelio proved this theory to be true time after time. Driving across the desert was like driving on a 15 lane highway, everyone always trying to pass everyone else. It was easily the closest we have ever come to being in an off road overland race. I loved it. On the third day we woke up before sunrise to see the sun come up over a landscape of boiling mud pits and steam funneling up into the sky from the ground.

All in all, it was another grand adventure. We arrived back in Uyuni early in the evening of the third day, found a cheap room costing us less that $6 US, and slept. We are now in the highest capital city in the world, La Paz. It is a high speed city, smelly and choatic, with markets that sell everything from fine street cuisine to baby llama fetuses. Weird.

Out of Argentina

As we walked through the cobbled streets of Humahuaca, Argentina, passing the stray dogs and endless markets where women in brightly colored clothes with mouths full of coca leaves sell jewelry, trinkets and all manner of woven goods, we realized that we´ve been on the road for a long time. We´ve seen all kinds of things and met all kinds of people. Fear not, this entry is not going to be like one of those sit-coms where they revisit all the zaney adventures from the old shows. If you want that, you should reread the old posts and hum a wistful tune. We decided it would be fun to do a 3 month round-up. Why 3 months? Because initially we set out for a six month journey. Of course our dwindling funds cause us to reconsider daily the possibilty of six months, but nonetheless we feel we´ve come to a halfway point.

Some unintentional symbolism has accompanied this benchmark. Through the cracked bus window on our way to Humahuaca from Jujuy we saw a rather unceremonious sign indicating the Tropic of Capricorn. Though we are still in Argentina, we clearly entered an entirely new cultural and geographical zone on our 3 month anniversary. Those picturesque Andean hills and hardscrabble Quechua towns you might envision in Bolivia are here in Northern Argentina too. So without further rambling...

Hours on a Bus: 208
Nights on the Bus: 8
Nights in a 1 1/2 person tent: 36
Miles hiked: 177
Pairs of shoes destroyed: 2
Packs of Ear plugs bought: 4
Times we thought we lost the camera: 2

Times we lost the camera and then found it: 1
Countries visited: 2
Border Crossings: 10
Empanadas eaten: dozens
Days we spent more than our daily limit: most
Knives lost: 2
Sick days:8
Lowest Latitude: 55 degrees

That is all we can think of right now. Any other suggestions?

Junin De Los Andes, Argentina

The region of Patagonia covers the entire bottom third of the South American continent. It´s world renowned for trekking, climbing, and fishing. As most of you know, I´m an avid fly fisherman, so I packed my rod, fishing gear and waders, and have been lugging them around for the past three months. My fishing goal of 30 fishing days has not yet been met, but I am half way there. Our latest excursion was to Junin, just one of the many places in Patagonia where the fishing is "the best in world." It is amazing how many Patagonia towns claim to be the trout capital of Argentina and how many rivers claim to be the best or most important river in the world. The trout are not native, but they are thriving in these waters and people from all over the world flock to fish here. It is a huge industry and the most expensive around it seems in terms of guides and other similar services. We went to another of the most important rivers to fish. They wanted $100US per day just for the license. Big business.


Junin is a small town of maybe 10,000 people. The Lonely Planet said it is the kind of place where you see the same stray dog over and over. It is true, and in fact, we didn´t see the same one dog over and over. We saw the same four, and they also slept outside our tent while we were there. Beth puttered around town and went for walks while I spent my time on the river. She had a stray dog escort everytime she went into town. Unfortunately a few of the mornings I also had a stray dog escort to the river. They had a great time playing in the water and scaring away all my fish. I had to resort to yelling and throwing rocks at them to get them to go away. They were sad.

I put myself on a strict fishing schedule of 6:30am to about noon, and 3pm to 6pm. I spent the 4 days fishing the Chimehuin that is said to be another of the best rivers in Patagonia. It is late season so the water is low, and the fishing a bit more difficult. I caught fish using dry flies, nymphs, and streamers, both floating line and sinking tip. I caught both rainbows and browns. Most of the fish were only about 12 inches, but I landed an 18 inch brown which ended up being my biggest fish thus far.

It has already been worth lugging the gear around. When we are rich, I would like to come back and spend more time fishing. Now, my sights are set on some kind of Amazon fish...maybe piranas or something. More research needs to be done.

I apologize for the lack of pictures. USB is technology that hasn´t quite made it to Humahuaca.