Travel-Trotter

We finished our time in the Atacama desert by doubling back to the pool to look for a towel and water bottle.  No luck.  We sped out of town and got a look at the geology of the valley of the moon.  We had a long drive of 8 hours some of which was on the coast.  It looked a lot like the rugged California coast but totally parched with very little vegetation.  Maddy insisted on stopping at a sculpture called Mano del desierto.

we finally arrived at Bahia Inglasia our beach town for several days, we went out for Sushi as the kids were clamoring for it. Then walked the beach and watched the sunset.

The next couple of days we did a combination of school work and beach time.  Maddy also got some good time at vchief.  The beaches were full of shells and the cove that the town was located in was an interesting mix of rocky promenades and beaches.  The girls had a great time exploring and collecting shells.  We spent a ton of time in the pool as well, we finally got a kitchen and started making some of our own meals.  It was fantastic to have more energy associated with being at sea level.  The weather was gorgeous and we were happy to be getting our beach time in.

We decided that even though we were a bit behind schedule that we would drive into the night to make it to San Pedro de Atacama our base for exploring in the region.   It was Saturday night and there were tons of people out in the town, we didn’t realize before hand that the town was a big backpack haven and seem to be kind of a party town.  We didn’t have reservations but we were able to find a hostel a bit outside of town.  we had our own room with 12 beds for the two days we were in town.   We crashed early because we were tired. The next day we went out and found breakfast and discovered that the geysers that we had planned to see were not accessible due to rain. In the driest desert in the world?!?!  Instead of the geysers and hot springs we visited several lakes in the south with flamingos. The lakes in this area are a very important hydrological features in the desert but would have been more interesting if it hadn’t rained on us every day in the desert.

We then went to a community pool had a good swim and had a lovely time soaking up the sun and the water. We were going to end the day in the valley of the moon but it started raining and there were too many clouds to see the sunset. Every road we went down had large puddles and the arroyos were full of water.

Previously I had read that there was a drought in the area and that they had not received precipitation in six years but once they did receive water 2 years ago there was a massive bloom of flowers due to the rain.  We  searched for color and flowers but no avail there was none to be had, probably in about two weeks it will be gorgeous.   Sunday night we went out for dinner and Maddy took the kids home and I went in search of the Packer game. I caught the second half and celebrated the win over the Cowboys by meeting some new friends and speaking bad Spanish and showing my Wisconsin spirit.  Go Packers!!

Beneath the hulking smoking Volcano Ollague, I stood gingerly kicking the front right tire on of our Toyota Siena van.  The border agent had informed us that one of our tires was flat just minutes before.  I was stuck in no man’s again between Bolivia and Chile.  We had successfully exited Bolivia and were waiting on the customs agent in Chile to get a new temporary import permit for our van.  They apparently were on a shift change.  The agricultural agents were very helpful and tolerated our children and all their games.  The last 60 miles of the road out of Bolivia were particularly rough and bumpy, so it was not that surprising that the tire was flat.  It looked like the tire was slowly leaking air, I almost thought we could drive to a repair shop just outside Ollague but the customs delay prevented that.  I decided that I should change the tire there in no man’s land, I was almost all the way through and I sheared off one of the bolts on the axel arrrgggghhh.

Once I put on the skinny spare we were off but with only 4 bolts, it should hold until we get to a big city to fix it.  Our custom agent signed off on our import permit and we got directions to the nearest place we could fix the tire.   After finding a nice man to fix the tire we were back to four full tires.  We pulled out of town and got an up close look of the  volcano for the next 30 minutes, it was smoking out of the southern side, we were informed that it could erupt at any time.  It’s good that we didn’t get marooned at the border.  Fixing a tire at 12,000 feet is not for the faint of heart.

So when we started planning our trip I had a special obsession with the Salar de Uyuni, we finally made it to the largest salt flat in the world today and it did not disappoint.  What an incredible place.  We arrived in Uyuni on Thursday we checked into our hotel which was somewhat overprice compared to what we have been experiencing so far in Bolivia.  Once we got situated we headed out and acquired a tour company because we did not want to take our van out of the salt flats… smart move.  Once we got our tour lined up for the next day we ate dinner at the Minuteman pizza joint, very good pizza, and hit the sack.

Our tour didn’t start until 10:30am the next day so we did some school work and at breakfast.  Julie was having a not so great start to the day screaming at Mimi for a shirt that wasn’t hers, it wouldn’t the last time during the day that she would have a screaming fit.  Anyway so we got picked up by our tour guides Jose and Nancy and proceeded out toward the Salar.  We first visited the train graveyard, left over after the war with Chile cut Bolivia off from the coast.  The kids climbed all over them and we all had lots of fun being daredevils.  We then visited a village that processed salt for sale, lots of trinkets and salt crystals for sale.

After that we headed out to the salt pan… there was a bumpy dirt road that led to the edge of the salt, once past this there were some major ruts and swales that were filled with 1-2 feet of water that we had to navigate to get to the main part of the Salar.  We were outfitted with a 4 wheeled drive SUV that handled the drive pretty well, our driver was also very patient and had obviously been out many times, again a very good choice we didn’t decide to do it ourselves.   Once we got out there it was pretty incredible, the day was very hot and the clouds seemed to stay at the edges of the Salar just hanging around to give us amazing pictures.  We first visited a “Gayser” which seemed to me to be more of an ordinary springs within the salt pan.  Somewhat unimpressive but were all were just excited to be on the salt pan and anywhere you looked there were cool pictures to be taken.

We ate lunch at this salt hut out on the salt pan that was very busy, fun people watching and the girls loved just playing in the parking lot collecting salt and building salt castles.  After lunch our guide took us to an area that was covered with a thin layer of water, not more than an inch deep which had the affect of reflecting the clouds and making for incredible pictures.  We stayed there and took pictures for several hours and took every different goofy picture you could image.  We have included a few good ones with the post.

After a while, the kids and I began investigating several small holes in the salt and we discovered that some of them had really cool crystals of Halite that we could pull out.  We proceeded pull out crystal after crystal until my hands were literally bleeding.  We did find some neat specimens we will need to dump the rest at some point, these discoveries rendered the crystal that I purchased for 3 bolivianos (40 cents) rather worthless.  Oh well.

We stayed for the sunset and got some really neat pictures of clouds and sunset colors, it was an utterly satisfying and exhausting day.  We all went home and took showers because we were filthy, but we all had such a cool time.  All that time learning and planning to visit this place was a well-placed obsession.

We ate breakfast and zipped out of Potosi, the drive to Sucre was only 3 hours so we were able to do some activities in the afternoon in Sucre.  We got a hotel for the first time in two nights and everybody enjoyed the fancier place to stay.  Maddy had to do some work so the girls and I went to a dinosaur museum.  The Cal Orck’o museum is home to the largest number of in-situ dinosaur foot prints in the world.  We were able to get an English speaking tour guide by ourselves and had a great time looking at all the life size dinosaurs models and learning about the fossils and amazing diversity of dinosaurs that were living in this Cretaceous environment.

After we completed the museum the girls and I walked around the downtown of Sucre, we happened upon the Mercado and got the girls some ice cream for being so good at the museum, we wondered around the market taking pictures and resisting any attempts at buying any items.  We were going to get a soccer ball but Julie couldn’t decide on the color.  The downtown area was a Unesco World Heritage site and it was quite interesting again with narrow streets and beautiful squares and churches.  We went back and retrieved Maddy and went to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant and had an empanada the size of Caroline’s head.

I have discovered that older Bolivian people like to touch Mirabelle’s hair, I am assuming because it is red.  She is getting tired of it so we are coming up with a phrase for her to say… No Tocar.  Next stop the Salar!!

After the border debacle in Peru we packed up our rental in Copacabana and got out of dodge.  I got the hotel to accept some of the American dollars that we brought with but they are very picky if any of the dollars are even slightly ripped.   Due to getting waylaid at the border we were behind on our driving schedule so we decided to stop in Oruro half way to Potosi so we would avoid driving at night and the girls wouldn’t go bonkers being in the car for that long on the first day.  It was great to have the van and the sense of independence that one gets with a car, like we were 16 again.  The driving in Bolivia is crazy people half obey the laws of the roads but all our interactions with police have been very positive with such things as asking directions or being stopped at checkpoints and such.  We didn’t see much of the town of Oruru other than we heard the Dakkar road rally ended in the town only a couple of days early,  we got pizza and hit the sack.

The next day we drove to Potosi; the drive in itself was amazing and beautiful there were some beautiful canyons that showed off the natural rainbow colors of the hills.

Once we arrived in town we realized that the old town was not set up for modern day cars and after driving around the same area three or four times we realized that google maps were wrong and there was no way to actually drive to the hostel we were staying at.  We finally got a parking spot and walked to the hostel and checked in.  Potosi is famous for it’s silver mine, Cerro Rico, the mine is a huge conical mountain adjacent to the town, it was apparently associated with Miocene caldera volcanic complex which left concentrated deposits of silver, lead zinc and copper.  The mine began operation in the late 1500’s and the wealth that came out of the mine was largely responsible for Spain’s emergence as a world power in the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

We didn’t go get a tour of the mines as we didn’t think it would be safe for the girls, as we have read it is a bit of a health and safety nightmare.  We did go on a tour the Spanish mint where all the silver ore was refined and minted into coins bound for Spain.   We only spent one day in Potosi to stay on schedule.  Our hostal was called the Koala Den and we had a whole 8 person dorm room for the five of us.  The old town of Potosi had quaint old alleys and plenty of churches.  If we weren’t so stressed about driving I think we would have enjoyed the city.

Our time in Copacabana on the shores of lake Titicaca was a bit more mellow than expected given some illnesses and some rain. We didn’t make it out to Isla del Sol as planned, but we did catch up on some work and homeschooling. And we had some fun activities too.

On our last day we hiked up to Horca del Inca on a big hill near town. Mike and Julie were still feeling a bit sick to their stomach, and Caroline was tired so the three of them cut out early. Mimi was eager to hike, so she and I continued up to the top.

We couldn’t find the actual trail so we just scampered up the steep rocks until we were about 2/3 of the way up the mini-mountain. It was really fun and Mimi loved it. Both she and Julie are proving to be good little hiker/climbers this trip! Eventually we did find the trail and followed it up the rest of the way. The view from the top was gorgeous and there was some cool structures used by pre-Incan people for astronomical purposes.

After that we meandered home and had some noodles for lunch (lots of starch in our diet these days- I’m hankering for a gigantic salad!)

The kids had been begging pretty much every waking moment since we got to Copacabana to go on these hamster wheel floaty things on the lake. We finally gave in and let them go. The girls and Mike went out, while I stayed on shore with our stuff. Apparently Caroline was too afraid to let Mike spin the wheel for them and spent a lot of time screaming (she’s our nervous nelly) so the twins said it was no fun and she “wrecked it” for them. They tried to talk us into going again but we weren’t up for that… oh well. I think they will look back and remember it as a fun time regardless.

Later that afternoon Mike headed out to pick up our new minivan from the border. But that is another story entirely for him to tell….

The van… the lynch pin to our entire travel plans, without which we would not go as far as we planned and sure not get to Patagonia.  We purchased a van from a couple in Peru and just needed to take possession of the car and acquire a temporary import permit as the car is titled is Wisconsin.  We planned on meeting up with the seller at the border of Peru and Bolivia near lake Titicaca for the exchange.  I went alone to meet up with Pepe who was traveling from Lima.  Pepe was a bit late due to weather, so when he was getting close I took a taxi to the border and exited Bolivia into the border no man’s land.  Once Pepe finally got there we transferred the remaining money to his wife.  Pepe then had to exit Peru to relinquish his temporary import permit so that I could get my own temporary import permit in Bolivia.  Things were going smoothly until Discovered there was a three hour line to get in and out of Peru although Pepe was able to get through the line faster that one would normally.  He then cancelled the import permit and we switched the plates in no man’s land, yes we put Wisconsin plates on the new van!!  Rocking America’s Dairy land in South American.

We were bumping up against the closing time to exit into Bolivia so Pepe helped me get the car through customs.  Which was good because the guy was irritated that we were there so close to the border closing time and talking really fast in Spanish.  Pepe had to sweet talk the guy into letting us through.  By this time it had started raining and it was coming down in buckets.  Finally got the import permit, only thing left was to enter Bolivia right?!

I got there just in time in enter except for the fact that apparently I can’t exit Bolivia and go back in without entering Peru… oops.  So the van was in Bolivia but I had to go and wait in a two hour line to enter Peru, so I was forced to wait in the rain by this time the Bolivian was closed so I was forced to spend the night in Peru at a Hostel, the last bus at the immigration office was nice enough to give me a ride to the nearest town.  I met up with very nice people that helped me along the was but navigated the border issued with only a a bit of discomfort.  The next morning I got up early exited Peru and entered Bolivia picked up the van without further issues.  We finally got our van!  I am exhausted.

It was a slow day around here. Mike was feeling under the weather, so I had to take over home school duties. Was feeling pretty distracted because I also had a lot of work to catch up on… but I found once I really focused on one girl at a time we made lots of progress. 

Once we got through that I was eager to take a hike up the mountain behind our hotel. I could only talk Julie into coming with me, but that was actually great because we got some quality time together and she was such a great little hiker! She was eager to scamper and climb up the rocks. And she didn’t whine once 🙂

We got to the top to enjoy an incredible view of lake Titicaca and the surrounding hills. But it also started raining on us at that point. So we didn’t linger and were quick to get back down. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon working and taking care of some trip planning (booking a week at the Marriott in Santiago on points- thank you credit cards!!). I haven’t found it too hard to work on the road but we are lucky to have sufficiently good internet thus far and strong cell signal. Though we are struggling to get a strong enough signal to upload pics to this blog!

Dinner was at a little Italian place next to our hotel. Pasta was drying on a rod right next to our table- the chef came and scooped some up to cook for us… talk about fresh!!

We all arose at 6:00am the next day to board a bus for Copacobana on the shores of Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian side of the border.  It took us several hours just to get out of La Paz, there is a highway being built into the city from Copacabana but several of the river crossing were not completed.  I wish I had a video but if you can imagine and large bus fording a river with significant banks, I swore were going to get stuck and need to get out and push.  Once outside the city the road was paved and there was smooth sailing.  The route to avoid venturing into Peru required us to cross part of the lake… all the passengers deboarded and the bus was put on a barge and traveled separately from us and our travelers who bought tickets and boarded a wooden bottom boat with an out board motor.

After some amazing scenery of the lake and interesting rocks along the hillsides we arrived in the Copacabana.  We checked into our bungalow at Las Olas, a very interesting rooming establishment where all the building look like they are out of the hobbit.  We put our bags down and ventured down to the shore, where lots of tourist boats and paddle boats.  Although to my surprise the Bolivians still out numbered the gringos by a good margin.  We played on the beach for a couple of hours and got some amazing food at La Orilla and headed home.