leaving putre

After packing up we went out to dinner, then caught the ride we arranged to “Putre Alto”, the highway intersection where our bus is supposed to pick us up.

We arrive there around 8 pm and wait under a street lamp. The night before we were dropped off by the bus around 8:45, we figure things at customs should go faster today, so we show up early, in defiance of all the lessons we have learned about Bolivian time. After 5 minutes I am already bored of waiting and make a rock pile. (We have seen many rock piles, I still don’t know what they mean though)

In the distance, we can see the lights of trucks creeping down the mountain, coming from Chile. We can tell by the length and light placement whether there is a bus coming or not. We begin a discussion on truck length and wheel-count. How many wheels do trucks have? What exactly is an 18-wheeler? Are there 18-wheelers in Chile? Where do the wheels have to be and how many sets does it need to be an 18-wheeler? Do they have double or triple sets of tires? I begin counting the wheels on all the trucks going by (there was not a single 18-wheeler), there are a lot, they are all getting in their border-crossing before customs closes at 9:30 pm. Many of them flash their lights, meaning they would be willing to pick us up, so we are assured of hitchhiking possibilities. After an hour, we are starting to think that our bus was actually on time/early, and that we missed it. I have not yet given up hope, since everything in Bolivia was late, it’s safe to assume that our bus is late, not early. We begin debating the pros and cons of hitching.

At 9:15 we give up and agree to hitch on the first thing that stops and get as far as we can. We are freezing and tired. But! There’s a miracle! The next thing that comes is our bus! And it actually stops for us too.

Unfortunately, this is another one of those buses without heating, and there is only one blanket left, so we have to share it. It takes me hours to warm up.

Word of advice: never take a Bolivian overnight bus if you can help it. Other than that, Bolivia  is great.

more putre

Putre is located in the Lauca National Park, which according to my guidebook is a “don’t miss”, most spectacular national park in Chile, blah blah. We have one day.

At the tourist office they give us a tip for a 5 hour walk where we can see some ancient, pre-Incan cave paintings. It sounds interesting, but I am still a bit sick, my voice is still gone (I have been croaking for days) and not sure about the whole thing. We go anyway, figuring we can always turn around. She tells us it is easy to get lost as there are several forks in the road, and gives us an extremely poor black-and-white satellite map.

Of course, we get lost. At each fork in the path we are unsure…the map is no big help. We walk directly into a military training exercise and sort of stand in the middle of it, discussing which way to go. (There is a military base in Putre - you know, close to the Bolivian border and all).

The whole area is sandy, with a few bushes, and the military has driven all over in their jeeps, meaning it all looks like it could be a “road” like the one on our map.

We are asked to move because we are in the way of some pictures a military dude is taking. He keeps shouting numbers, and one group of soldiers is setting up a tent, but most of them don’t seem to be doing anything.

We ask one group if they have heard of the “Sendero de las Pinturas” (trail of the paintings), but they just look at each other and laugh. One in-command guy (I can tell that he must be an officer because he is nonchalantly yet authoritatively chewing on a piece of straw) has a look at our “map” and tells us where we are….much further than we thought. He says to go back to the big eucalyptus tree and behind it is the road we are looking for.

When we arrive at the eucalyptus tree, there is a road passing in front of it, and one behind it, so we take the one behind it, since that’s what he told us. However, we still have our doubts, and when we run into a lady on a horse she says we are going the wrong way. “Do you see that eucalyptus tree? Next to it is the path you want.”

We cut across fields of oregano (?!?!) instead of doubling back, and manage to intersect the correct path. At first the scenery continues in the same vein: boring, sandy, rocky, oregano... But then we walk right along a spectacular ravine, cross it, and continue along the other side on a very narrow path with great views and an excitingly dangerous drop-off.

We almost miss the paintings, even though they are on a gigantic rock. They have been vandalized by generations of idiots.

 

On our way back, we keep running into soldiers, they are everywhere. They shout things like “I love you” at us as soon as we get far away from them. Cowards. Back in Putre, we chill in the sun and knock off our clothes, causing a mini dust cloud…from the knees down I am the chalky color of the trail.

Putre fotos: http://chile.marahtyler.com/#26.0

putre

Next stop: Putre

In the afternoon we took a bus from La Paz to Chile, to Putre. We had worked out our whole trip all the way to Iquique with a Bolivian bus company because they are so much cheaper than the Chilean ones. We had arranged to be dropped off in Putre, close to the border, then picked up from there the next day with the same bus.

We were supposed to arrive in Putre at 6 pm, but at that time we were still at the border. We spent 2 hours at Customs, due to some guy on our bus who had a suitcase full of porcelain. Also, once again the bus company had lied to us about having heating…

The bus driver dropped us off at the side of the highway around 9 pm. He said, “Putre’s down there” and drove off. OK, great. We were thinking, “what the hell?” There were no signs of civilization, it was dark, all we could see were one or two street lights in the distance, which we assumed to be Putre. No one had told us that the bus doesn’t actually stop IN Putre.

We began walking down the highway, although we had the impression that Putre was in the other direction. It was cold and we had no idea how far we would have to walk. Walking at this altitude (3500m), with a giant backpack, is not easy.

It looked like a long walk, we suspected that the road looped all around the valley and back to Putre, which is at the bottom. Later, we figured out that it is 6 or 7 kilometers. Luckily, I had my hand-powered flashlight along (thanks, Dale!) to ensure that we would be seen by drivers and not run over. Not that there were any drivers. Putre is in a National Park in the middle of nowhere and no cars were passing. At least the moon was very bright that night. Bright enough for us to see the snow-covered volcano in the distance and the deep gorge to our left.

We got a ride in a mini-van, the second car that passed. A rabbit ran into the headlights and our driver chased it for a while which sort of creeped me out. He asked where we need to go, which place we are staying at, and I told him. He dropped us off at a different place, saying it’s good. The room is over our budget, but when we see it, we take it anyway. After Bolivia, it’s very nice. Everything is brand new, the hotel must have just been built. We have our own bathroom and breakfast is included.

la paz

Next stop: La Paz

I really liked La Paz, but unfortunately, we only had two days there. And even that was cut

short as our bus from Copacabana was road-blocked for a couple hours due to protests by fishermen. There was a local festival with dancing and intricate costumes going on, so we checked that out. And on our bus there was a very funny Peruvian hippie with a crooked didgeridoo who kept the whole bus entertained.

The roadblock left us with one evening and a day in La Paz. We didn’t get to do much, we went out to dinner (I had tempura, yum). The next day we just wandered around a bit and did postcard and bus-supplies shopping. We also bought coca leaves to chew on. Chewing coca is not as exciting as it sounds: tasted like grass and filled my mouth with leaf bits, ugh. And the effect was not very noticeable, like that of drinking too much coffee. But I felt cool anyway. We tried to chew as much as possible before we had to dump our baggy at the Chilean border. (you can’t bring any organic products into Chile - Chile is sort of island-like due to the mountain chain, and super strict about avoiding bacteria and viruses and stuff.)

La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, at almost 4000m, It is located in a valley surrounded by mountains, kind of like a giant bowl. The city has expanded to creep us the sides of the hills, from above it looks insane. I couldn’t get any decent pictures from the bus window so I've posted some I found online. We were going to go to a lookout point, but at the hostel they told us that is too dangerous to go there at 9 in the morning and we should forget it.

I imagine that La Paz is hellish in the summer.

There were tons of shoeshine boys and they all wear masks…no one really knows why, there are various theories;…to protect themselves from the social embarrassment of shining shoes, to protect themselves from the fumes, to protect themselves from being recognized by the cops…In any case, they are also camera-shy, so I only got fotos of them from farther away.

La Paz fotos are here: http://chile.marahtyler.com/#23.1

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This week there will be a post almost every day as I have already written them all. I am going to Santiago this week for a seminar with other experiment volunteers and have scheduled the posts to go online automatically.....cuz I'm so tech-savvy, ooh!

copacabana

Okay, back to Bolivia. It is around 6 am:

We arrived at the bus terminal in La Paz and continued directly on with a different bus to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca! One of the highest navigable lakes in the world, and the largest lake (by volume) in South America. (source: wikipedia)

In order to get to Copacabana we had to cross the narrow strait of Tiquina. Everyone had to get off and take a boat across.

Our bus went across on one of these ferries.

This poor sheep rode on the roof of the bus for 4 hours.

 

We had already picked out of my guidebook which hotel we wanted to stay at, “El Mirador”, because we wanted a view of the lake, but once we saw it, we started to have doubts about whether we could afford it:

However it turned out to only cost 5 Euros per person per night. We even had a private bath and there was a terrace right outside. (The shower turned out to be a catastrophe though, it flooded the whole bathroom.)

We had fried trout from the lake for lunch and that night we watched the sun set over Lake Titicaca.

The famous Titicaca lake trout have an interesting story, turns out they were native to the American great lakes and introduced in various south American lakes. Meanwhile, they have become extinct in the American lakes due to the introduction of the lamprey…and in Lake Titicaca, they probably contributed to the extinction of the Orestia, which was native to and only present in Lake Titicaca.  

My throat felt weird, by the next day I had lost my voice and didn’t feel so good. We took a boat to the Isla del Sol, an island on the lake. The island was revered by the Incas as the birthplace of Incan civilization/the sun…or something like that. There was zero information about anything there, so that’s about all I can tell you. There are lots of Incan ruins on the island, including a labyrinth, a temple, and a sacrificial table. It’s a 4 hour walk from the north end of the island to the south end, where the return boat leaves. It’s tough, the sun is out and the path is steep at times, we are panting at every little incline. But it is amazing.

Along the way we have to pay several times; each community apparently levies its own fines. There are people along the way sitting by the path, selling drinks, handicrafts. Also there are kids asking if we want to take pictures of them with their sheep, llamas or donkeys. There was one woman with her kid and a llama. We walked by and the llama was not looking too happy…then it spat on the guy walking behind us!

Incan staircase

There was a little girl who asked me to take a picture of her and her little sister…I thought aw, that’s cute…but then after the picture the older one said “Now pay us! One boliviano for me and one for her!” In retrospect, I can’t believe I fell for it…
I was like, “Wow, you drive a hard bargain. Would you prefer 2 bolivianos or 1 boliviano and the rest of our chocolate to share between the two of you?” They ended up going for the chocolate bar.

In Copacabana, there is a large church (pretty large for such a small town) and pilgrims come from all over to visit the Virgen of Copacabana, who is a big deal: "Our Lady of Copacabana" is the patron saint of Bolivia and known for working several miracles. And I just found out online that Copacabana beach in Rio is actually named after her, too. On the weekends, they bless cars in front of the church, with garlands of flowers and stuff.

The rest of the photos are here: http://chile.marahtyler.com/#25.0

borko

cartagena

my friend borko is also in south america right now. he is a great photographer, check out the rest of his pictures of colombia here: http://kontraband.tumblr.com/

tobi

Tobi macht auch weltwaerts, in Posadas in Argentinien. Er ist auch mit Experiment unterwegs und ich habe ihn beim Vorbereitungsseminar getroffen.

Hier eine Beschreibung seiner Arbeit:

"Das „Reserva Natural Urbana Rincón Nazarí“ ist ja mehr so ein großer Garten mitten in der Stadt, nicht weit vom Stadtzentrum entfernt. Die Hauptaufgabe des Reservates ist Umwelterziehung mit dem Ziel ein Umweltbewusstsein bei der Bevölkerung zu schaffen, welches bis jetzt nur sehr marginal vorhanden ist. Man schmeißt halt seinen Müll einfach auf die Straße oder verbrennt ihn vor dem Haus. Das ist Gang und Gebe.

Um dem Ganzen entgegenzuwirken versuchen wir im Reservat den Schulkindern einen Sinn für die Natur zu vermitteln, denn nur was man schätzt wird man auch schützen. Jeden Tag kommen ein oder zwei Schulklassen (zw. 8 und 14 Jahren) ins Reservat. Themen sind die Biodiversität von Misiones, die einzigartig ist in Argentinien (550 der 1000 Vogelarten von Argentinien gibt es in Misiones); verschiedene Strategien der Samenverbreitung von Bäumen und die entsprechende Form der Samen; verschiedene Arten wie sich Vögel ernähren und wie man von der Form des Schnabels auf die Ernährung schließen kann; und verschiedene biologische Kuriositäten z.B. Gewölle einer Eule die oft im Reservat ist, die Nester eines Vogels der zum Brüten in die Stadt kommt weil der Tucan im Wald seine Eier frisst, parasitische Pflanzen, und vieles mehr. Weitere Themen sind Umweltverschmutzung und Umweltschutz. Nach der Führung bearbeiten die Kinder in kleineren Gruppen verschiedene Aufgaben und präsentieren die Ergebnisse der Klasse. Ich helfe momentan mit bei der Betreuung, laber auch ab und zu mal was, zum Beispiel über den Komposthaufen den ich hier in Kürze anfangen werde. Außerdem betreue ich die Gruppen bei ihren Aufgaben. Viel geht halt noch nicht wegen der Sprache. Eigentlich passt es mit der Sprache mittlerweile ganz gut, aber manche Kinder verstehe ich einfach nicht, die reden so unglaublich schnell und nuscheln dermaßen... Das ist das Hauptziel des Reservates, Themen wie Natur, Biologie, Ökologie, Umweltverschmutzung, aber auch Pflanzenanzucht und Kompostierung den Kindern zu vermitteln."

Auf seinem Blog koennt ihr seinen Einsatz verfolgen:

http://tobi-en-argentina.jimdo.com/blog-1/

hogar life

I’m interrupting the account of my travels in order to tell you a bit of what’s going on at the Hogar.

The kids were on winter vacation from school for two weeks, so they were here all the time. However a lot of them were gone to visit family, or someone from the church took them along somewhere, so we didn't have so many.

We did one or two reading workshops with the smaller girls. We had discovered about 7 copies of a Clifford picture book in storage, so we started out with that. You know, the big red dog? The book was called “Clifford’s first Halloween” and it was all about him dressing up and eating candy and stuff. After they finished reading, we talked with them about Halloween to find out what they know. Linda said “Halloween is the day of the Devil!” Which was my first inkling that maybe this was not such a good idea. I said “No, no!” and started talking about trick-or-treating when I was little and the origins of Halloween. While we were talking, Tia Barbara came in to prepare for the Sala de Estudio and once she heard what we were talking about, she took me outside. She said that Halloween is considered occult and a forbidden topic and that we might get in big trouble if they start telling the other Tias about what they did today. And instead of having them draw the pumpkins, we might rather have them draw candy instead, since Jack O’ Lanterns are considered occult.

I thought it was pretty funny, but by that point it was too late. I told the other Tias about it later in the kitchen and they didn’t seem to think it was too bad either. But I think Barbara was more worried about repercussions “from above” (this is a Christian Hogar after all). She had no idea why, if the topic is forbidden, we had 7 copies of this book in our library. Later we gave them all to Tia Viviana (our boss) and I assume she got rid of them. (However, yesterday another one turned up in one of the houses!)

Another thing that we did over the holidays was make Kaesespaetzle, the German version of mac and cheese. Unfortunately, I did not think to take pictures of us, in the kitchen, with 8 children and giant pots and Spaetzle dough EVERYWHERE. They were not very authentic, because we did not have the right size holes to make the noodles….once a Tia got the idea of nailing holes in a can the dough was already too liquid and we couldn’t go back. So the spaetzle were really small, but at least they tasted good. We made a salad to go with it and also Apple Crumble.

We also went bowling with three of the girls, which was a lot of fun. None of them had ever been bowling before. Tabita was terrible, she couldn’t hit anything except the gutter and had a long row of 0’s…and then suddenly she bowled a strike!

 

Recently, two new girls arrived, I will tell you a bit about them and their reasons for being here. (Achtung, this does not make for easy reading!) One is 8 and one is 6.

The 8 year-old comes from a rural area and has not had much schooling. She has a younger sister who has some sort of brain damage as far as I understand, and is paralyzed. The mother would leave her in bed and walk the older sister to school, which apparently took a couple hours. One day, while they were on their way to school, some people came by and sexually abused the handicapped sister. I think that since then, she has not been back to school. She is behind and not up to the standard of her class. When she arrived she was incredibly filthy, the Tia had to spend half an hour scrubbing her and cutting her nails. She was also surprised when she found out that all the girls here have to shower every single day…I assume that they probably did not have running water where she lived. She also had encephalitis, but she seems to have recovered and so far it doesn’t seem as though it affected her in a major way.

Our new six-year-old was sexually abused by her father when she was 5 and put in a home. However, the home continued to allow her to see her abuser, so she was removed from that home and sent to us. She seems really bright and has a strong personality! She is even already standing up Maria, who is 9 years old and very bossy.

They arrived on the same day about 2 weeks ago and are still behaving fairly well. However, I think both of them will turn out to be real handfuls….the older one insults the other girls and lies (but then, they all do), and steals, and the younger one has already started refusing to finish her plate at dinner.

uyuni fotos

i almost forgot, here are the rest of the photos from uyuni:

http://chile.marahtyler.com/#24.0

uyuni continued

Our tour of the Salar started the next morning, beginning with the train graveyard. Supposedly, the last train that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed, which led to their untimely demise here in Bolivia, is here in the graveyard. 

Yeah, it’s probably this one.

I could have spent hours climbing around (although very short of breath due to altitude), but we have a lot left to do and the other tourists in our jeep are not so into it.

We drove on to Colchani, a town at the edge of the Salar, where the salt is processed. The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world, at 10,582 km² (4,085 square miles). It is at about 3,600 m above sea level and used to be part of a giant lake.

The salt is scraped together into little mounds, then transported to the “processing facility.” First it is dried, by spreading it out on a big table over these 3 furnaces;

 then put through this machine which grinds it up fine;

 Then it is hand-filled into plastic bags of about 1 kilo, which are sealed with a blow torch.

Because Bolivia has so much salt, (they have another salt flat too), it is worth practically nothing: 50 kilos of salt are sold for 9 Bolivianos! (~1 Euro! $1.50!) They can’t export it either, because all of their neighbors have their own salt flats! They should export it, unprocessed, coarse and “organic”, to Europe and the US and make a killing.

Anyway.

Because of the endless white plain, the tourists all hop around making weird pictures and playing with perspective:

 

There is a hotel in the middle of the salar, built entirely out of blocks of salt. There we engaged with other tourists in taking silly pictures. The tour compay serves us lunch in the salt hotel: llama and mashed potatoes.

As I said, the Salar used to be a huge lake….in the middle of the salt flat is an island out of coral, and covered by cacti. It is called  Isla de Pesca because of its fish shape.

 Back in Uyuni in the evening, we went to an internet café (where I received the emailed news that Michael Jackson is dead) and buy souvenirs and blankets, alpaca shawls, etc. We found a great greasy spoon to eat at: chicken and fries.

Boarded another bus, to La Paz. We had asked 3 times in the office if the bus had heating, we were told “yes.” Turns out the bus did not have heating. Which is really a problem at night, at these altitudes. It was another rough night. The “road” was so bad that I did not sleep. Eventually, I couldn’t hold out any longer and had to go to the bathroom. First I had to clamber over all the people sleeping in the aisle, then discovered that the light in the bathroom was broken. Which was probably not such a bad thing…

Eventually, closer to La Paz, the roads got better and I dozed off.