Back to Bolivia

During the generous, month-long Christmas vacation I managed to sneak in a trip home to spend the holidays with family and still find time to travel parts of Bolivia before today, the 15th of January.

I was ready to travel to other parts of Bolivia to see mountains and see more of this large country. Plus, after living in the lowlands region which is distinct from its other culture home to llamas, quinoa, altiplano, indigeneity, and mountains more commonly associated with Bolivia as its indigenous culture constitutes a strong 80% majority.

The highlight of the trip was a 4 day jeep trip around the Salar de Uyuni- a.k.a. giant salt flats in Southwest Bolivia. Having not seen the 7 wonders of the world I still might dare to say that this could just be the 8th wonder. Mr. Peter Daniels and I were in good company with 5 Aussies and Patricio our Driver/Mechanic/Chef in our ’83 Land Cruiser. We managed to blow out two tires, see snow, desert, flamingos, llamas, pink lakes, green lakes, natural hot spring and lots of salt. Another highlight for me was that our talkative Aussie mates exploited Pete’s patient listening skills, finding him to be quite the attentive audience for tales of world travels, knowledge of Land Cruiser mechanics and stint with being phone tagged by the Aussie CIA equivalent over exclusive rights to US technology coveted by the Russian and Chinese governments.

The initial travel itinerary was adjusted due to transport complications because as it turns out-- political violence and blockades make it difficult to travel. Luckily, I travel lightly most usually without plans and much less reservations.

So, instead of staying the course the new plans became flip it and reverse it.

After finishing a tour of the giant salt flats in southwest Bolivia in an 83’ Land Cruiser with Mr. Peter Daniels and 5 Aussies, Pete and I scrambled to find a bus going in any direction AWAY from road blockades. We ended up with a ticket bringing us to a destination (Potosí) 2 hours from our desired destination (Sucre) and eventually found the last taxi leaving for Sucre. Luckily, this driver was willing to share his compact car with 3 large, jovial miners, me and Pete. Unfortunately, compact cars have 5 seats not six. And somehow, Pete and I found ourselves -for the first time- in a situation where we were smaller than Bolivians and therefore shoved into the front seat together; long-legged Daniels in the seat and me wedged between the Pete dashboard. This was only after I had to walk a block or so away from the taxi to avoid confrontations with the military police standing guard by the car, and then to later be picked up by the taxi on the other side of street where it WASN’T illegal to ride 6 in a compact car.

If it wasn’t for the 80’s love ballads cassette (2 times over) I don’t know what I would have done.

The next day we found a bus company to take us on our second 15 + hour bus ride back to Santa Cruz a hop, skip and a jump from my home in Montero. My seat happened to be beside an overweight man in a small gray polo that should have paid for half of my seat price as well as the entirety of his own. His lack of awareness for my personal space bubbles made me itchy and disgruntled and I didn’t much enjoy that the crumbs of his sandwich blew into my face as he ate it in the window’s breeze.

Somehow I wondered if I had really struck gold though when I discovered Pete would be sharing a seat with two girls and a turkey.

Anyone that previously doubted my "crazy, made-up story" about the Bolivian tradition of intoxicating a turkey pre-killing story before can ask Pete for the details.