El Sur in Review

2,392 pictures taken (the majority being selfies)

672 minutes of plank exercises done. Abs of steel!

470 words learned (including malapropism! And gibbous..)

242 kilometers hiked

198 hours spent on buses

170 miles hitchhiked

84 days

52 friends made

40 egg sandwiches eaten

28 nights spent at over 10,000 feet (AKA.. every night we were in Bolivia)

25 books read

23 pounds of mango eaten

20^th birthday celebrated! (with 3 cakes and 4 bars of chocolate. Uh oh.)

11 runs taken (4 on the Chilean coast, North and South! And 3 at over 10,000 ft)

7 Best Picture Oscar winners watched (cultural education)

6 trips to the pharmacy (but only 1 to the doctor)

6 alpaca sweaters purchased

6 months since our last reunion

5... The number of times we did laundry

4 days on a ferry

3 countries

2 rounds of antibiotics taken (all in one week! Also, 1 rabies shot received.)

2 tubes of toothpaste finished (and one was family sized. We’re serious about dental             hygiene.. even if we never wash our clothes)

2 girls

1 nose pierced! (Guess who, mom..)

Number of times we laughed until we died? TOO MANY TO COUNT.

Number of chocolate bars eaten? Who’s counting? (Not us, we can’t count that             high...)

Successful South American adventure?

We think yes.

Map of our travels

View Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and back in a larger map

Coroico: Almost Amazonia

Our journey into the jungle, began with a winding 3-hour van ride on The World's Most Dangerous Road as we descended 7,000 feet to Coroico. The town is built on steep mountainsides in Las Yungas (jungle at the base of the Andes, the geographic neighbor to the Amazon), thriving on coca farms (legal and illegal) and tourism. Salmon colored papayas, red bananas, and brick colored peanuts lay stacked in piles along the cobbled stone streets. Clouds hang over the lush greenery through mid-morning before being burned off by equatorial rays (16 degrees South). Every hotel boasts lush lawns and a pool to battle the year-round 30+ C degree heat and 85% humidity. The Andes loom in the distance, but the dry, high-altitude Bolivia we had grown used to over the past month couldn't have been further away from the muggy town. 

Center-mid is a van twisting along the WMD road
Sheer cliffs! The roadside cross-count was 70... rip. 

In typical Megan/Jihelah-style we breakfasted in the Mercado Central and then followed Lonely Planet's suggested 10km hike to Las Cascadas. Then, in more typical M/J fashion, we failed in finding the alleged waterfalls. Instead, we found ourselves outside in the heat of the afternoon, 1,000 feet above the town on a quickly-disappearing 14-inch dirt path. Within 2 miles, the path became overgrown with waist-height sharp grass and our exposed legs were rubbed raw and heavily scraped. Upon seeing a road 40 feet below us, we scrambled downwards, then continued down on the pitted dirt road for another half hour. Reminiscing on our previous failed waterfall hike in Sucre, we almost missed our chance to flag down the passing dump truck for a ride. Hopping in the back, we joined another 15 passengers and graciously accepted their invitations to recline on overflowing potato sacks. Despite the early turnaround, the views of the valley thousands of feet below us were spectacular. 

Lush jungle, a drastic change from the dry, highlands we've been exploring.

Skies starting to clear... time to hop in the pool!

Panorama

After two sleepless nights of relentless itching, we realized a) there is no escape from yellow mosquitoes and b) we weren't ready for the promised swarms of Amazonian insects. So, our plans changed again. Instead of heading north, deeper into Amazonia, we turned south.

Steep cobbled streets.

Jungle fever averted, we returned to La Paz to close our Bolivia chapter. We wandered on foot through the crowded capital on Indigenous People's Day and found ourselves in the same courtyard as Evo Morales... although sadly the throngs of people obscured our views as he spoke. Then we found our favorite peanut bar snack and stocked up. And finally took a precautionary trip to the doctor's office where we were diagnosed with salmonella (which sounds serious, but went away on its own after 4 days). Sadly, we missed a final goodbye with Ryan, Alder, and Mateo, but hopefully we'll see them again this summer when they make an Oregon visit. 

Officials watching the show in front of the capital building

Last doctor's trip for awhile... knock on wood.

So where are we now?  CHILE! Taking a series of 1-18 hour bus rides down the Chilean coast, stopping in large port cities and isolated national parks. More on that soon. Off to make the most of our final South American week. Ciao!

Lake Titcaca, and the trucha is tasty!

Leaving Ryan and Alder's beyootiful pad

After a long week battling giardia while taking advantage of the kind hospitality of our friends Ryan and Alder in La Paz (there was a flushing toilet, clean water, and an unbelievably cute baby! Not to mention a lot of good conversation about the Peace Corps/USAID life, and wildly tasty chow (not that I actually tasted it. Toast was more my scene...) courtesy of Betty, housekeeper turned master chef.), we got back at the traveling scene with an EPIC trip to Lake TITICACA – the largest high altitude lake in the world! (That’s a not a real title... but it is big. And HIGH – 3,808 meters!)

Our day 1 in Copacabana (the low-key lakeside beach town full of relaxed hippies and prosperous fisherman!) was a marathon of hammocks, an abundance of freshwater trucha criolla (the local specialty and Jihelah’s “favey faaaave!”), and napping. Our kind of marathon.

Hillside views of Copa

On day 2 we embarked on a sweet hike along the coast of the Titty, accompanied by several of the town’s most “malo” stray dogs. Many passerby informed us of our dogs’ bad reputations... Evidently they were notorious chicken-eaters. Uh-oh. 18 kilometers later we arrived at a beachy port where we hopped on a boat for the island Isla del Sol, the legendary Inca birthplace of the sun. Our favorite dog (who we christened Cacacara. Rough translation: poop face.... He ate a diaper) even followed us on this leg of our journey. He was a bold one.

The Inca trail 

Cacacara himself. Looking innocent on our boat to the island.

After a night of even MORE trucha eating, we hiked accross the island (still accompanied by our loyal Cacacara) to explore the ancient Inca ruins and La Tabla del Sol, which is supposedly where the sun was birthed and where Inca creation legend began. A late evening boat brought us back to Copacabana, where we dined on... wait for it... trucha, and then spent the next couple days exploring the surrounding area on foot and gazing in wonder at the grand Titty.

Isla del Sol

Tabla del Sol, and the man casually selling his artisan crafts on top of it!

Mid-hike photo shoot.

The Inca ruins of Isla del Sol

    

Mid-hike photo shoot round 2!

Our original plans involved ending our trip at Macchu Pichu, where we would be astounded by the major Inca action before spending an entire three days busing back to Santiago (where our return flights are leaving from..), but after carefully examining a calendar and being shocked by our dwindling number of days in Sur America, we decided to nix this phase of our travels in favor of extended time in Bolivia (including a wild adventure in the AMAZON...)

So this is a basket of llama fetuses that we found at a market in La Paz... I just thought someone should see it

Visiting the Mines of Cerro Rico

Hello Hello!

Mil desculpas for this late post (also, I'll edit this and add the photos as soon as wifi allows). Our tour of Potosí actually happened before the wild market action, but Megan proved to be more on her blog game than I. So here it goes, the post on “shocking” (Lonely Planet quote) Potosí, the highest city in the world.

Old colonial streets of Potosí at sunset.

Potosí was founded in 1545 when Spanish colonists discovered ore in Cerro Rico or ‘Rich Hill’. Nearly three centuries of imported African slaves and exploitation of indigenous peoples resulted in the famed silver paved streets of Potosí and an estimated 8,000,000 miners worked to premature deaths. In the 1800s, when Alto Peru became Bolivia, the Bolivian government took over mining operations. However, the cost of upholding regulations coupled with the dwindling silver reserves made the meager profits of the business unappealing for the government. This led to the current management system of the mine: a cooperative.

Previously, the word cooperative made me think of large health food stores or Oaxacan artisans agreeing to price minimums on their wares in order to prevent them from undercutting their livelihoods, but what we saw on our tour of the mine and the associated production (selling coca leaves, refining minerals, etc.) shed a different light on the word, one that condemned a city to de facto slavery. The Potosí Mining Cooperative ensures that in exchange for a 12% tax the miners are given free license to mine the mountain. The miners work independently, usually choosing to collaborate within a familia of 3-7 other miners. This freedom seemed to result in one unadorned dogma: more work = more money.

The road miners bus up every day to Cerro Rico.

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Our tour began at El Mercado de los Mineros, where miners purchase their own helmets, flashlights, rubber boots, coca leaves, and also various sizes of dynamite and lengths of fuses. Our enthused tour guide, Efraín, pointed openly to young and old men alike exclaiming, “Real life miners!”

Then we pulled on our very own miner attire: a thin protective layer over our shirts and pants, clomping rubber boots, and hard helmets with headlamps strapped to the top. Donning these goofy-seeming costumes we followed Efraín, marching up the street to the mineral refinery.

Complejo powder being churned in chemicals... the

disks rotate and have bottle caps attached to them to

aggravate the liquid.

When we arrived 15 minutes later, I thought we were at a viewpoint. It was an easy mistake to make because we were standing in a rubble pile that vaguely resembling an unfinished brick building and the missing sections of wall permitted a scenic panorama of the city below. But, no, the piles of baseball-sized rocks beneath the ramshackle walls were complejos—mined rock with about 12-13% sellable mineral content and 85+% basura. From there, the piles of complejos are crushed, grinded, pulverized, and then floated in various churning vats of open chemicals (including cyanide) until the ore is sufficiently separated and can be scraped from its toxic bath and exported (then manufactured and inexorably arrive back on Bolivian shelves to be bought as a finished product at quadruple the price).

Roof of the refinery... egg cartons.

Waste pool outside... keep in mind this factory

sits above a town with a population of 240,000

The nervously anticipated finale of our tour was a journey into the mine, and as a living horror and unforgettable experience, it did not disappoint. Outside the entrance a few pictures were shot, but before the ‘this-is-it’ mentality sunk in, we entered. Our headlights dimly lit the claustrophobia-inducing passageway as we trudged through ankle deep mud puddles, passed leaking odorous pipes (oxygen we were assured), and ducked beneath (or slammed into) uneven rock ceilings and protruding wooden support beams. It was hard to see, hard to breathe, hard to move, and hardest to image a lifetime of it.

Megan posing with Oscar, the 20 year old on his 5th year in the mines.

The highly virile El Tío

At his feet are (empty) bottles of 98% alcohol, coca leaves, and cigarettes...

 offerings given to the guardian of the mines before the miners drink/chew/smoke

Oxidized minerals on the tunnel ceiling

We moved out of the way as these two men

pushed 4 tons of complejos through the tunnel

FREEDOM!!

After 2 km of crouched walking we emerged, with slightly hysterical relief coursing through us as we gulped fresh air and felt the surging gratitude of having seen that lifestyle instead of having to live it. We removed our miner attire and settled at an Australian-owned cafe (while mining rights have been given to the people, the money and property of Potosí still remains in the hands of foreigners and elite Bolivians). There, we considered our outrage at the draconian livelihood, the pity we felt for this city whose poisonous economic lifeblood was clouding the citizen’s perception of choice, and the sanguine facade of pride Efraín projected onto the shame-stricken and exhausted faces of the miners. 

Seasick on a Chilean ferry, caught in a snowstorm 10 miles from camp in Patagonia, 45-hour bus rides across Argentina, fever stricken and sleeping on a chicken poo-covered styrofoam mat... discomforts of travel that make for grumpy hours and hilarious post-travel recountings. 10, 12, 14-hour days blasting holes inside a mountain where day and nighttime are indistinguishable, where 13-year olds work besides their 60-year-old mining padres, and where your uncle works, your neighbor, your brother, and eventually your sons, where you know no other options. These stories, the everyday ones of 10,000 Potosians, aren’t dinnertime topics or four-line responses you learn to spew when you are asked, “How was your trip?” They are the stories that steal slivers of our young, bright souls. But with enough small pieces from travelers, from Bolivians, from politicians, from people the cavernous space for positive change becomes illuminated. And from there the next generation of would-be miners can see a new path.

We got to see one of the weekly cooperative meetings 

Our discussion concluded with an analysis of Efraín. A detail I neglected to mention: he used to be a miner. For 5 years he worked underground, until at 18 he had grasped enough English to become a tour guide in the mines. A middle school drop out, he learned English from tourists visiting his jobsite. He told us guiding doesn’t pay as well as mining, but he’s learned a lot from foreigners about other options, alternative lifestyles. In the pits of hell (sorry about the drama, but it really was horrible), he spouts doctrines of Bolivian heritage and pride. But his life choices, teaching his younger brother English, partnering with other ex-miners to display the subterranean horrors/norms, and having his own child stay in school despite the comparatively lucrative pull of the mine exemplifies the “new path” of Potosian citizens. Veering from the histories of their fathers, and grandfathers, and great-grandfathers to create a new standard for happiness and success.

Best way to unwind... natural hot spring.

LOVING LIFE!

more soon :)

Market Madness

Since the close of our time in Uyuni we've been spending the majority of our time city hopping: from Potosí to Sucré to Cochabamba to La Paz, passing our days in the vibrant and over-flowing streets and our nights on bumpy, packed, and non-airconditioned buses. While the pollution, traffic, packs of dogs, and sheer number of bowling-hat-clad people bustling about their business and filling the city with life have all been a far cry from the pristine silence of the empty plains of Patagonia, by far the most mind boggling part of our urban adventures has been the market scene. Let me explain.

(Journal excerpt, 4.10.13)

Bolivian markets = da BOMB. They are UNREAL. They are OUTRAGEOUS. Literally, just overflowing mounds of bananas, glowing mangoes, kiwis, papayas, coconuts, SUCCULENT (as in... not rotten... and also very large!) grapes, shiny, shiny apples (like, maybe a little worrisomely shiny..), apricots, plums, MARACUYAS, the list goes on... fresh rounds of goat cheese, crispy bread loaves of every shape, size, and level of seeded-ness imaginable, racks of meat (seriously - there were cow noses. Splotches, fur, nostrils and ALL!) hanging raw and bloody, suspended overhead and all around... not to mention the cake ladies! Just giant, elaborately frosted wedding cakes. Rows and rows of them. And the little juice señoras, standing behind raised counters stacked 5 feet high with every fruit imaginable, blender cords in hand - ready to do battle and emerge victorious, master of the freshest juice you'll ever find... from the freshest fruit in the land of the grand. The potatoes. The avocados. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Stacked, piled, jumbled, rolling, escaping from the giant rice bags in which they await their fate as our (second!) lunch. Endless heaps of dried pasta. And rice and quinoa and beans. Stacks of flats of eggs.

And everywhere, the piercing shout of the vendors, selling their goods. And everywhere, the wails of the stocky mamitas upstairs, stirring pots big enough to shield a standing child completely from view, full to the brim with bubbling caldos, sopas de maní, de pollo, picantes, chorizos, sizzling pans of fried chicken and llama and casaucho. Pyramids of boiled poatoes, yellow pastas, and arroz. And more arroz. And more. Salsas of every hue of green. And red and brown.. hungry customers queuing up to receive their comida of choice with not a moment of wait. Never a moment of rest. The market is a welter of writhing bodies, energies, voices. Cacauphony. The plenitude of food, of action, is ineffable. It might just be that a day at the mercado central is the sine qua non of a true Bolivian experience.

Piggy backing!

In a rare moment that we opted to spend outside of the market in Sucré, we decided to attempt the much-acclaimed hike to Las Siete Cascadas (Seven Waterfalls). After more than an hour of climbing down a steep slope of scree with not a single waterfall in sight (we did see a barely existent trickle of a stream, though!), we somehow found ourselves in the back of a flatbed truck packed (literally there were 50 Bolivians all traveling with huge rice sacks of potatoes and corn. Also, there were 10 goats.) with people heading back to town.. All in all, a short hike, but a grand success, as far as riding smushed together with an entire villages worth of people on a long, BUMPY, and dusty road goes. Diggin' the public transportation!

I know you can't see the goats from this angle.. but they were down there. All ten of them.

El Salar de Uyuni: A continuación

Desert tour photo series ROUND 2! (Our internet connection was too slow to load them all at once...)

Sunrise on the salt flats

As the sky brightened, we began seeing the reflections of the mountains in the water

 

Pretty pristine. 

JUMPING FOR JOY! As always!

Salt flakes. In drier parts of the flats they would form ~2ft long hexagons

Cactus Island

Barely visible, but there's a canary yellow bird on top of the right cactus. (I'm the level under 'amateur ornithologist')

Had to. 

Birthday cake, me, and Cecilia at the base of the cactus island and the edge of the dried salt lake

Our Group: Megan, Me, Laura, Marion, and Adelaide

Just being awesome!

Cactus island panorama over the salt flats