Buenos dias! Yes, it is 1:45am on the 3rd of January, and I should be sleeping, but as I have literally not had a moment to get to a computer all week, I had to seize the moment. And it will be just a moment, unfortunately. I haven´t even been very good about writing in my journal ( not a little black book, but rather, a small light blue book with white flowers...not as edgy).
As I mentioned before, the Salt Flats and Altiplano of Bolivia were amazing. When I get home I will post pictures for you to see the wonders. Hard to capture in words, but apart from the Salt Flats, which we hit the first day of the trip, you hit many other lakes and terrains that are so unique. It had rained a few days before we hit the Salar de Uyuni (as they say in Spanish), so the ground literally reflected the sky. Surreal. These flats are only mined manually by folks in the small town bordering the flats, so they hope to be there a while. No machines- just our crazy caravans of 1980´s Land Cruisers.
Apart from the salt flats on this tour we hit many lakes that have distinct colors because of the mineral composition. And many of these lakes have flamingos en masse living and thriving there. The flamingos share the water with a few varieties of other birds, and nearby on dry land we found many vicuñas prancing around. They are the smallest of the llama, alpaca family...and so elegant. We also saw two randomly roaming ostriches...just racing around the dry, rocky terrain. Crazy! We were the only car to stay in the town of San Pedro de (something) on Christmas Eve, and after settling into our humble yet cozy guest house (sorry kids, no hot water!) we were served dinner by our cook, Leonidas, and were quite happy with a nice soup and pasta. I had bought a red candle for Xmas and the group (Christian from Italy, Lizzy from England/New Zealand, Emma from England/New Zealand, Sarah from Ireland/South Africa and Valerie from France) enjoyed dinner together and a couple of games of Bullshit before we decided to scour the streets for any Xmas activity. Oh, and we all had a small glass of rum and coke to celebrate...but we decided to keep it light on the rum. After all, we were at nearly 4, 800 m! It wasn´t close enough to midnight to find people at church, but we did find this local youth band (plus a few older dudes) practicing for a Xmas music festival in Chile, and they invited us in to listen to a few songs. It was awesome!" The music was not awesome, and in fact I nearly went deaf when the tuba player blew in my ear, but hey. They were sincerely trying to make some nice music! That was out Christmas Eve night.
Christmas Day we climbed in elevation to 5,000m. That is friggin´ way too high for me. I was a space cadet. And to boot, we stayed at the most dodgy guest house ...only a ramshackle toilet and no sink or shower. I found out later someone said there was an outdoor shower, but with 60 kilometer/per hour winds, I was glad I didn´t try it! We were near Laguna Colorada...a spectacular lake that had a vibrant red hue to it...I forced myself to not be left behind, and I climbed along this windy corridor up this rocky hill to get a view of the lake. This walk would have taken someone at sea level with no wind probably 30 mins, maybe 40 mins max. It took me over 2 hours. I had to keep stopping to get my breath, and to not feel dizzy. There was an amazing view at the top, but I felt like I would be blown down before I made it. Xmas was never such a challenge before! I do have some awesome pictures of those 3 1/2 days in the outback of Bolivian, and loved my group, and our guide, Luis Mario, who was always in a good mood (even when we got a flat tire!) but geez! That night, I was miserable. We were all 6 in the same room (same as the night before) which was fine, but the mattress was rocky, and there was NO heat at all. In fact there was a major draft in the place, and so they gave us each like 10 layers of alpaca and wool blankets, which is a great idea, but they were so heavy it felt like I had 2 people laying on top of me and I was suffocating. So I put some blankets under me, and some over me, and threw my rented sleeping bag over me, too, for good measure. Then after I tossed and turned all night, I got sweaty, and had to take more layers of 10 pound blankets off of me! I just could not sleep with my heart racing. The altitude does wacky things to you.
I forced myself to eat something each meal, while in Bolivia, drink tons of water, and drink lots of mate de coca (coca leaf tea) to try and help with the altitude. What I didn´t know was that I needed antibiotics-- but when you have been in the car/bus from La Paz to the border of Chile over a few days, you actually have NOT hit any major cities where you can pick up some over the counter solution. That happened on Saturday when I returned to La Paz...my head was just pounding and I could not function. Yes, my oxygen levels were low, and oh, I am anemic? Who knew. But what made it all better was the Septicide (Cipro with a nice safe coating) and just high tailing it out of La Paz and over to Peru. Cusco was just enough lower in altitude, and by Sunday night the 28th, I had a nice bed and was ready to get better.
So, a bit about my first week in Peru and then I have to get a few hours of sleep! I met up with my friend Veronica and her 2 good friends Dustin and Divakar around 11am on Monday the 29th. None of them was feeling that great yet, as they had just landed in Cusco from Lima. Big altitude adjustment. We did the city tour of several of the Inca Ruins sites near Cusco, and we also visited the Catedral in Cusco, and the place of reverence to the Sun (the name starts with a Q and I can´t recall the spelling) and got a taste for how much history lies in this region. Amazing. We all 4 got along pretty well, I thought, and so from Monday through today, Friday, we had a blast. I will write more about my first week in Peru on the next blog entry. Have to get a few hours of shut eye before Divakar and I are off to Manu, to explore the Peruvian jungle. We will be back on January 6th and I hope to write more then.
In sum...I am healthy again, Bolivia was interesting and worthwhile, but quite a test, Peru has been great, having fun with Veronica, Dustin and Divakar, met some other awesome SF people along the way, seen some incredible historic places, and am ready for more!
Hasta pronto! Feel free to email me if you like... love to get notes!
Besos,
Michele
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