La Paz, Bolivia

We arrived in La Paz yesterday. It was a whirlwind leaving our apartment in Santiago for the last time, at 4:45am, and dealing with delayed flights in the Santiago airport, but we made it. After anticipating our entrance to Bolivia all morning, the Bolivia customs was no problem, and we haven't been robbed yet!! The altitude is a good introduction to what we'll face in Peru, and while we can feel it, I think we're acclimating well. We ran into a girl from our Teaching Chile program who was living in Valporaiso yesterday and toured parts of La Paz with her. Today we did our own version of a walking tour, taking it pretty slow. Tomorrow we fly into a town called Rurrenbaque where we will spend the night and then take a 5 hour ride in a dugout canoe to the Bolivian Amazon jungle. This was our big splurge for this trip and we're excited to see what it has in store for us. Unfortunately we don't have the equipment with us to upload pictures for the next few weeks, but we'll try to keep the blog updated.

San Pedro de Atacama

Last week we traveled to the Atacama desert in Northern Chile. We spent three and a half days there not including the 50 hours round trip on the bus.

Who would have thought the desert could be such a beautiful place? The Atacama desert is the highest and driest in the world. The Altiplano (Alpine Desert) is littered with volcanic peaks, many of them active, of up to 5000 - 6000 meters (X3 plus some change = feet). It was hard to believe that we stood at altitudes almost as high as Mount Rainier without much snow or water, but our lungs believed otherwise. The Altiplano has a rare beauty that is unique to the North of Chile. Among the many volcanoes were turquoise lakes, massive volcanic rock formations, geyser fields, and deep canyons.

We stayed in the tiny town of San Pedro de Atacama, though very touristy and expensive on the central streets, it maintains the distinct culture of Northern Chile's desert inhabitants. The smaller villages (pueblos) of the Altiplano provided an even more authentic glimpse into this culture. It was amazing to see how they use what little water is available (run-off from the Andean peaks) to survive and cultivate the land.

On our first day we rented bikes and rode through Valle de la Luna. We explored caves and rock formations, and watched the sunset over the desert. The next day we toured the Altiplano lakes, canyons, and nearby volcanoes. Our last day we left town at 4:00am to watch the sunrise over El Tatio Geysers near the Bolivian border at an altitude of 4300 meters. We nearly froze waiting for the sun to rise at a temperature of 10F, but it didn't stop us from stripping down for a dip in the thermal pools. After a relaxing afternoon in town we hopped a 24 hour bus back to Santiago.

We now have 5 days to pack up and say goodbye to Chile before we head North on our trip home. We'll try to keep the blog posted as we travel through Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, but no guarantees.

Birthday Ski Day

Cam's sister Lindsay and her friend Peter came to visit us in Santiago. Lindsay and I share a birthday month and both got to spend our first birthdays in the southern hemisphere. We decided to do something wintery because it's not often to have snow in June. A big group of gringos from our Teaching Chile program piled into a van, rented gear, and hit the slopes at a nearby ski hill, Valle Nevado. Now we all have the unique pleasure of being able to say, "When I was skiing in the Andes..." Happy 25th Lindsay and Debbie!

Buenos Aires

We recently took a 4 day trip to Buenos Aires, and the city lived up to all of our expectations. The architecture, food, culture and entertainment were excellent. Buenos Aires is beautiful, yet it also maintains the edginess of a South American city. It has a very international feel (especially compared to Santiago), owed to the large population of residents referred to as Porteños, whose ancestors immigrated to Argentina from all over Europe. Though it was not as cheap as we had heard (steak and wine for $5 is a thing of the past), we had a great time. The city continues to recover from the economic crash of 2001, as evidenced by the rising costs and continued restoration of the historic neighborhoods. We stayed in a San Telmo, an old neighborhood famous for steaks, street markets and tango dancing. We wandered all throughout the city, had great food and wine, went to an excellent tango show at the famous Café Tortoni, and experienced the national pride of Argentina at a soccer match between Argentina and Ecuador. We had an amazing time in Buenos Aires and would love the opportunity to return someday.




This is a video taken after Argentina scored their only goal of the game in the last 2 minutes of stoppage time, phew!!



This is a video of a street performer at the San Telmo Antique Fair, listen for Cam's laughter!