The Amazing Amazon II!

Part two

We spent the afternoon learning about jungle medicine from two Shamans, one was well educated, spoke two or three indigenous languages as well as Spanish and English, the second fellow did not have any English. They have jungle medicine for just about everything from stomach problems, ulcers, diabetes, heart problems, parasites, you name it and they have a cure for it. Most of the medicines are made from the native roots, bark or leaves of various plants, trees and vines. They were so convincing I bought some Dragons Blood for insect bites and some Una de Gato for sore joints! Loreen, skeptical Loreen, sat through a cleansing session to have all her negative energy removed. The Shaman first blew some kind of smoke all over her and then went through a long chant process were he beat her on the head a few times with a rattle made from leaves. She took it a lot better than I thought, we'll see how the results turn out, but she still has the odd bit of negative energy towards me at times, so hope it works soon!

Loreen gets Shaminized!

We visited the indigenous Yuaga tribe, a group of hunter/gatherers that have not really adapted to the agricultural way of life along the river. They seem to have adapted well to the tourist trade as the "village" we visited was pretty staged, a large central teepee style area where they performed tribal dances for us, one Loreen and I even got to take part in, Loreen with an elder gentleman, no teeth, tee-hee, I with a winsome lass.

Yuaga Dancing

The rest of the village consisted of several little booths where the villages sold homemade trinkets, bracelets, baskets etc. We did not actually see any homes but we're assured that the elders in the village still only dress in the traditional grass type skirt.

Two of the men did do a blowgun demonstration, very accurate, shooting at a four inch post with a painted target from about 100 feet, they both hit the target, I however missed the post.

The not so great blowgun hunter!

One young lady had a pet baby sloth in her booth, which Loreen wanted to adopt and bring home, couldn't get the deal done though.

Loreen and her baby sloth

After you crash a boat through the trees and weeds to get to a few lakes only accessible during high flood water we were fortunate to be able to see the world's largest lily pads, the Victoria Regia.

How is that for a lily pad?

Then, one of the guides took us to his uncle's rum distillery, wow equipment from the 1880's and still working. The rum is made out of cane sugar juice that is left to ferment for 24 hours and then into an old still. The alcohol content is only about 18% but the sediment content from the Amazon is about 10%. He makes four vintages, a white, a mix with some fruits, one with ginger and then the kicker, seven herbs or jungle Viagra. We had a taste of them all, but did not buy any as the sediment in the bottom of the bottles was pretty wild. Although most of the people in our group bought bottles!

The Still

The product, jungle viagra on the right!

As part of the original river boat tour we were to visit a family home and as this was not scheduled by the lodge Loreen had a small chat with our group leader and voilà we suddenly had a home to visit the next morning.

It was a very basic home, built on stilts, with wooden floors (many of the homes built on the ground have only dirt floors), it consisted of a kitchen with a cooking fire on the floor, a social or living room and two bedrooms. The lady of the house who was twenty five and her three children were home and answered the guides questions. A herd of children showed up to see all the gringos, including an 18 year old girl with her two little ones (3 and 1). Now I really had a problem with Loreen as she made friends with the girl and then thought that we should try to bring her and the little ones home with us. I managed to talk her out of it! I mean we have no home now, so I said I didn't think our housing budget was large enough for us, three new people and a sloth. That get her attention! And besides the river people appear to be perfectly happy with their life.

Loreen wanted to bring this family home

The home owner and her three little ones

Then off to the village kindergarten and primary school, the herd of children beat us there along with a few more (a large crowd considering they are on summer vacation and school does not start until March). Both were one room schools where the teachers taught all grades and subjects. The children were very enthusiastic and interested in where we all came from and told us what they wanted to be when they grow up, most want to be teachers. The school and the study material seemed just like the country schools we used to have in Canada, maps on the wall, the alphabet, etc.

Students in their classroom

Coming home from another non catch fishing trip, off in the distance we could see this guy standing up in his boat holding something, showing it off. I thought it was a big catfish, but as we got closer the guide recognized it as a caiman. Sure enough there he was, in his dugout canoe, wife and two little ones, with a nine foot caiman or alligator. The wife was calmly doing her laundry (like her husband catching caimans is an everyday occurrence), while he showed off his caiman.

Jungle Loreen, caiman wrestler!

Our last night at the lodge a group of enthusiastic high school students entertained us with local indigenous dancing. The last dance was about Anaconda Women, who snuck into a village after all the people had passed out from some bad air and revived them with her anaconda. Sure enough out comes this sixteen year old girl with an eight foot anaconda and dances through the tourists draping it over their shoulders, I picked that point of the evening to disappear for a while!

Anaconda Woman!

Our group was thrust on Explorarama at the last minute and they, especially Cesar and Willy the tour guides, showed us an excellent time. I'm not sure how the boat cruise would have turned out, but I would recommend this group of lodges.

Cesar and Willy, showing us how to drink jungle rum

The Amazing Amazon!

Part one!

Our days at Ceiba Tops, Amazon Explorama Lodges (www.explorama.com) are pretty regimented, breakfast at 7:30, a two to three hour excursion at 8:30, lunch at 12:30, another excursion at 2:30 and dinner at 7:30 again. The rest of the day is free time, pool, hammock, etc.

Our first excursion was a jungle walk where we looked at the flora and fauna of the Amazon jungle, well mostly flora, as we did not see any type of animal. Lots of trees, vines, flowers and of course insects, millipedes, spiders, ants, more ants and one poisonous tree frog.

In the afternoon it was time to go piranha fishing, out across the Amazon in a flat bottomed boat. The river at this point is about three and half miles wide and flowing about nine kilometers per hour. Due to the high water many lakes and side streams are flooded contributing huge amounts of debris, logs and water plants, etc into the main stem.

Going into the Piranha swamp

We just kind if slide around the debris, and pretty soon are forcing our way through the trees into flooded areas to fish for piranhas, ugly little critters, but good to eat. Not much success, twenty two tourists, and the boat drivers were the only ones to catch any fish, which the cooks fried up for dinner, the four little fish amounted to about one flake per tourist! Poor fishing is due to the flooding - we will try again later in the week.


Piranha

The second morning we went about twenty minutes by boat were we all loaded into motokars for a short ride to a town of about 3000 called Mazan. This is a trading town on the Napo river and the road we took is the closest point between the Napo and the Amazon. The area around Mazan has all been cleared for agriculture growth.

Our motokar!

The ride was very fun, it was like the Amazing Race, 11motokars, sometimes passing each other on a narrow little cement road, just wide enough for two motokars.

The race is on

 Then into the town which looks quite prosperous and busy. We went through the food market - raw fish, chickens and bush meat, lots of fruit and veggies and even the chewed mash that is used for the local brew (we did not buy any). The women pound this root, then chew the pulp and spit it all back into the mash where it ferments. When you want to drink it you buy a bag of the mash, mix it with river water and wowsiers!

The fish and chicken market

We watched chickens being carted up the path to markets, bananas and veggies coming to town in a motokar. They were loading a big wooden ferry boat to go to Iquitos - the bottom deck with cows, buffalo, pigs etc, middle deck hammocks for sleeping and top deck for luggage. It will take about 24 hours to get to Iquitos. I wanted to watch them loading the livestock, but we could not wait. Although we did pass one with chickens tethered on the top deck, two roosts looking over the edge at the gringos going by, a pair of pigs in a pen at front, shades of the 1800's on the Mississippi!

People, Livestock  and Freight Boat

River families survive on fish from the river and the veggies and fruits they grow in their gardens and the plantations. Breakfast is usually fish and bananas and then lunch is bananas and fish, they usually only eat two meals per day. They also raise chickens, some beef, water buffalo, bananas, etc, but these are not for the family but for the market place, to be able to buy clothes, gasoline and other products that they now require. The water will continue to rise and flood until May and by that time some of the villagers will have to build rafts or platforms above the water to keep their chickens on.

Then we were back into the motokars for a twenty minute ride to the village, Indiana, located back on the Amazon. This was once a leper colony but some Canadian missionaries came with medicine and built a church and convent. They have since moved the lepers away, and now it is a little commercial town. It got its name from a local indigenous boy that went to medical school in Lima, then Peru, Indiana. He moved home and renamed the village Indiana.

There are fresh water dolphins in the Amazon, a much feared water animal by the river people. River people is the name the indigenous peoples in the Amazon area of Peru call themselves. Their total way of existence is tied to the rivers. These dolphins are bigger than the salt water dolphins, have more flexible bodies and are pink in color, especially the males. There are many legends or myths of people being taken for marriage by the dolphins, amongst other dolphin tricks! Although we seen a few, they do not perform acrobats like other dolphins, but only surface to breath and then dive again. Pictures are almost impossible, for me impossible, to take.

There is a large US Drug Enforcement Agency presence on the Amazon as a lot of product (cocaine) is transported on the river out through Columbia and Brazil, one dock has several large tug and freight boats sitting there, all confiscated by the DEA.

River barges confiscated by the joint Peru/USA drug agencies

The afternoon was spent at an animal rescue center, where some animals are treated, rehabilitated and supposedly set free again. Maybe, it is more of a tourist attraction as most of the animals seemed free to leave but quite liked mooching and socializing with us gringo tourists.

There were several monkeys, a couple of which had a great desire to take your water bottle, open it, have a drink and then try and get you to have a drink also. One was busy trying to put the lid back on and knew it had to turn the opposite direction, but couldn't quite get it to thread.

Macaw

My highlight was a pair of juvenile three toed sloths, the little female was heading some place on the ground, at three feet per minute, while the male just hung in the tree napping.

Just hanging out!

Loreen was thrilled (not) with the sixteen foot Anaconda laying on the ground, as well as the baby anaconda and the baby constrictor that was cranky and would bite people.

Take note, neither Loreen or I are in the picture!

 And the most prehistoric turtle ever, a swamp turtle, it looks right out of Jurassic Park.

The turtle

Amazon Explorama Lodges have five lodges scattered on the Amazon and Napo rivers, which are of various levels of convenience from open rooms with mosquito nets to fully enclosed with air conditioning. We were put in the most luxurious Ceiba Tops Lodge. At the very rustic Explorama Napo Lodge, an hour and half by speed boat from home base, we had the opportunity to walk above the canopy.

On the Canopy Walkway

The highest point of the canopy walkway is 112 feet above ground, about 2,000 feet long consisting of fourteen separate spans. They are slung from the trees by cable, with nylon ropes attached to form a web which you walk within. The bottom is made of aluminum ladders end to end with a wooden walk way attached. It is quite a rush, especially when the next person steps on when you are in the middle of a span and it feels like it jumps three feet in the air. I did not see any wildlife, birds or even many insects - I was too busy looking for frayed rope and broken ladders. This was Loreen's idea if course.

Highest point

All the lodges have mascots, macaws or parrots, that squawk for their crackers, but my favorite was Raul, a long legged water bird, that thinks he is human. On the thirty minute walk to the canopy tour, Raul tagged along, sometimes at the front or in the middle or at the end, like he was checking up on us. When we came down, at a separate tower there he was waiting for us to go home. Then when we went to visit the shamans, Raul was having a nap until he heard us crossing the bridge, then up he gets and hastily proceeds to the front of the group to make sure we don't get lost!

Raul

Lima Peru and heading for the jungle

On our way to a six day river boat trip on the upper Amazon River we stopped for a couple of days in Lima, Peru. Lima has between 8 and 10 million people, dependent on who you are talking to. We are staying in the district of Miraflores, which is one of the nicest districts in Lima where the rich Peruvians and foreign business people live. It is modern and safe with lots of restaurants, shopping and condos along the ocean. It is hard to believe the contrast to other areas of Lima, such as the shantytowns with no water or electricity, mostly made up of country people looking for a better life!

Beach in Mira Flores, Peru

Lima is an old city and the architecture reflects the different ages and influence of European styles of construction. The main downtown pedestrian street has varied styles, a 1700 French style, beside an 1850 style Italian, next to a 1980 modern building with some colonial Spanish across the street.

Loreen and I in front of the Presidential Palace of Peru

We visited the huge Cathedral of the Franciscan Order with art from the 1600s, murals of the life of St Francis of Azzi, the founder of this Order. There were 36 murals in all done by some Italian artist, they do not know who. These murals, painted on white washed adobe walls, had started to deteriorate and were covered up by canvases of the very same scene painted by local artists and were just discovered a few years ago when they took the canvases down to restore. There was also one room of four by eight foot canvases depicting the life of Jesus that came from Rueben's workshop.

The Cathedral

Then into the catacombs, where they estimate that some 70,000 people were buried. There are many areas about four meters deep, three meters wide and four meters long full of bones and skulls, all original, none made in China, our guide said. They filled these areas with bodies and lime and when they ran out of room they would dig them up and move the bones to a round pit about twenty meters deep and drop the bones in there. It is just amazing.

We met our 21 travel partners and all went out to dinner on the G Adventures. It is a good group of mostly middle aged Canadian couples.

Then off to Iquitos, a city of about 400,000 inhabitants and 70,000 motokars which are noisy three wheeled motor bikes with a two passenger seat. The only thing I can say about Iquitos, is you have to go there to get on the upper Amazon River. It is accessible only by air or boat.

Our six day boat tour was cancelled due to boat problems so the tour operator booked us into a luxury lodge located about 40 kilometers downstream from Iquitos on the main branch of the Amazon River.

On the way to the lodge we stopped at a manatee rescue/research center. The fresh water manatee in the upper Amazon are endangered and they have set up a center where they rehabilitate injured and orphaned manatee and get them back to health to reintroduce to the wild.

Then on to the boat for our two hour trip down river to the lodge. We were on the river after dark and the captain navigated with no lights, which was pretty scary for the amount of debris coming down stream due to the high water. Once in awhile we would hear some motor running and think it was a generator on shore, but no it would be another boat meeting us on the water, some of these had no lights whatsoever, you would just see the silhouette go by off the side.

The lodge consists of 75 individual cabin and a large central complex of lobby, dining room and bar, complete with swimming pool, slide and a hammock area for siesta. All the meals are buffet style and everything but alcoholic beverages are included. Although the river boat and sleeping on the river would have been a lot of fun, I am sure that the lodge is an upgrade and it seems like it will work out well.

The lodge has a few resident birds and animals, a scarlet macaw,

 a juvenile tapir,

a young deer

 and a few transient monkeys.

All but the monkeys are friendly and like to be talked to and/or petted.

Our guides, Willie and Cesar, tell us there are no seasons here, just high water and low water. High water peaks in May, it must be something as whole islands in the river are now covered with water. Some people have moved from their homes and some plantations along the river are flooded out and will need to be replanted.

On the Amazon

Sedate Sucre and Manic La Paz

It was a three hour drive from Potosi to Sucre through mountain valleys and farm land. There are big farms growing barley for beer, and small farms with a multitude of livestock, such as goats, sheep, cattle and llamas all grazing together, and a few burros used for transportation.

Moving cows in Bolivia

Through some of the villages we would encounter dogs lying on the shoulder of the road, now why would a dog want to just lay on the road? Loreen finally figured out that where there was a dog there would be a flock of goats grazing nearby and that the dog was there to keep the goats off the road. Amazing, as the dogs were of just about every breed.

Sucre, called the City of White, is the nicest city we have seen in Bolivia, I will get to La Paz later. It is a requirement of the downtown core to white wash the buildings every year, so Sucre is clean, and no brown brick or grey cement or adobe buildings as in the other Bolivian cities we have been to.

City of  White

This was originally a village of indigenous people because of the presence of two rivers and was also a sacred site. Colonization came from the Spanish mine owners from Potosi wanting a more favorable climate and altitude to raise their families and Sucre was established sometime in the late 1500s. It was the center of the South American cry for independence and declared itself free of Spain on the 25 of May, 1809. Full independence was granted 16 years later.

Many of the buildings are built in a square with a central courtyard, this was done so that the rooms would receive light and air from two sides. The hostal we stayed in was a sixth generation family home converted into a hostal, spanish for hotel. It was four stories with twenty some rooms (each with private bath), dining area, courtyard and still a living area for the family. It was a good example of the wealth of the mine owners.

Bolivia is a poor, poor country, one of the poorest I have been in anywhere, and it is reflected in the stature of the villages and the cities. Mines still operate here, with one of the largest silver mines in the world, but very little is paid to the people that work there, and although they are not in poverty as most of the country, they still cannot afford good housing or safe water. Sanitation is mostly non-existent in any but the better hotels that cater to the tourist trade and perhaps the city centers. But what can you expect in a country that has a record of political strife, 190 some governments in 170 years.

La Paz, nothing previous in Bolivia could have prepared me for the manic energy and wall to wall people, traffic and street vendors of La Paz. In fairness we landed there the week before Carnival weekend, so it was busier than normal, but Keenan assures me not much. Cars bumper to bumper, moving at about five feet per minute, street vendors on both sides of the street, people crossing at all points and walking up and down the streets between the vehicles. Cars honk at each other constantly, a car gets stopped at an intersection, even for a second, the whole block behind them honks! It was absolutely manic.

Main Street La PAz

The downtown of La Paz is situated in a big bowl, maybe 1000 feet of steep descent, and all the streets funnel down into this central area. The first evening when we returned from dinner it was raining hard and the water was four and five inches deep in the streets (no storm sewers here!) We got soaked!

The street vendors were setting up for carnival weekend, so as well as the usual day to day vendors, there were vendors selling confetti, carnival sweets, masks, costumes, fireworks, home made alcohol, fetishes and probably any thing else you had a desire for.

Traditional Bolivian Dress

Keenan took us for a stroll through the side street markets, where the locals shop, although the city did build a big commercial area and moved a huge number off the streets, there are still a multitude of street shops, little stalls six by eight where the vendors bring the goods in the morning and pack them up and take them home at night. The whole city appeared to be one big market.

The most intriguing was the witches market. Although most Bolivians are Christians, it seems they all still stick to the old traditional indigenous religions as well. So you buy a llama fetus to bless your house with, any sort of charm, plant, dried bats, frogs, rodent mixtures for good luck, health, love potions, bad luck spells for that guy down the street with more money, basically anything your little heart desired. It was startling when Keenan yelled "Dad, look behind you" and I turned to be face to face with a dozen llama fetus in various states of maturity, some still not quite desiccated and giving off a bit of odor. Also to be bought were offerings to Pachamama Mother Earth, which is the goddess of all gods in their religion - the richer you are or the more you need her blessing, the more you add such as sweets in the form of many plants and animals, herbs, etc., then you take this to a sacred place or your house and offer it to Pachamama by burning the offering and praying. I did not go so far as getting one of these, but I did buy a three headed Pachamama statue to bless me, you know the saying, three heads are better than one!

Potosi

We took the bus from Uyuni to Potosi, in places a one lane dirt road that is so narrow the front of the bus seemed to be hanging out over the edge of the cliff going around corners. At least it wasn't a chicken bus, where the passengers get on with their chickens and vegetables for the market, although it did stop every time someone flagged it down on the side of the road.

Road to Potosi

A few times, going downhill, our bus had to back up the road until it found a wide enough spot to let the vehicles coming up get around us. Unfortunately Loreen was in the front window seat and was scared to death, after the five hour bus ride I have finger print bruises from my knee to my shoulder!

All through high mountain passes I cannot believe how these people eke out a living trying to farm on their small pieces of land hanging on the edge of the mountain, living in stone homes with no heat that we could see, and it does get cold here. Bolivia, like other South American countries, seems to have had a sucession of governments more concerned with their own wealth than the well being of the people.

Potosi, wow, this is the Bolivia Keenan has tried to prepare us for. I am amazed, bewildered and confused all at the same time. The highest altitude city in the world, Potosi is a maze of single lane streets hanging on the mountain. Cars, buses and people all compete for space in the street, crossing when there is a break in traffic, and even at the cross walks cars take priority. They don't stop at intersections, just honk, I guess who ever has the loudest horn has the right of way.

Ladies visiting on the street

Once the largest and richest city in the world because of rich silver mines here, Potosi is now the poorest city and province in Bolivia, which would make it the poorest in South America. The first mining was done by an indigenous man in 1544, but was taken over by the Spaniards in 1545. Local indigenous peoples were taken as slaves and forced to work the mines, and one Spaniard mine owner even took a bunch back to Spain as slaves when he returned.

Potosi Silver Mine

Today the silver is mostly played out and all the big owners have left. Potosi survives on what mining is left, but it is now done through local cooperatives that the miners themselves own. The type of mining done is very dangerous underground mining, sometimes through passages so small that one must crawl through. The miners' life span is very short due to lung disease, but the widows get a ten dollar pension per month!

The Yellow Building was a family home

During its glory years - 1545 to the late 1700s - a total of 36 large churches and cathedrals were built, today 8 are open, the rest have closed including the Saint Teresa convent, which was the safest place to put your daughters due to extreme violence in the city. The mine owners and other wealthy families also built huge mansions here, some of which now have been turned into hotels and government offices.

Front of Church that was never finished

Now we are off to Sucre, a few hours away, at lower altitude and where the really rich mine owners lived.

Bolivia, sleeping in Rock Huts and Salt Hotels

Leaving Chile we spent an hour getting through the Chilean border, which is the main border checkpoint to both Bolivia and Argentina, and it is almost as hard to leave Chile as it is to enter. Then off to Bolivia we go, our driver assured us that the crossing into Bolivia would be a lot quicker. Up over a little rise and there was Bolivian border control, one small building with two border control guys, quick look at the passport, entry stamp and away we go. Five minutes maximum.

Bolivian Border Crossing

After transferring our luggage from Jose Miguel's jeep into Wilson's jeep, apparently the red tape involved to cross the border with clients is incredible, so one driver in Chile, new driver in Bolivia, we set off through the Altiplano traveling north. It is a high altitude rocky desert in the middle of mountain peaks, some of which were volcanic, at least one is still active with steam coming out.

 The Altiplano is now a national park and is part of multiple-country effort to protect the sensitive terrain and several species of flora and fauna that are threatened with extinction.
Within the vast mountain desert ranges are a number of lakes named after the color of algae in the water, Laguna Blanco (white), Laguna Verde (green) and Laguna Colorado (red). The brighter the day the more color in the water. All these lakes support massive flocks of South American Flamingo, which was a surprise to me finding these sea level birds at 4500 meters in elevation.

Laguna Colorado



Laguna Blanco

 Animals here consist mainly of llamas and vicuña, both of the camel family. Llamas are mostly owned by indigenous farmers and are the largest of the four South American camel families. Vicunas are a much smaller undomesticated animal.

Vicunas

There are also foxes, small wild cats and various types of smaller rabbit and rodents. Most are very rare and sightings are special. We did however find one little rabbit hanging out on the trail looking for treats.

Bolivian Rabbit

The first day we climbed to 5000 meters which is much too fast to acclimatize and we all suffered from a bit of altitude sickness. At lunch we were short of breath and as the day went on we all had migraines and felt like we had the flu.

Lunch in the desert

Then Keenan and Loreen sampled the waters at a hot pool in the middle of the Altiplano.

Hot Pool

 That night we stayed in a rock hotel on the Altiplano that is managed by a local Indigenous family. The hotel is totally constructed out of native rock, except the bed frames which were concrete. The generator is turned on from 6:00-10:00 pm, and then lights out. The water is heated with solar power so you have to make sure you take your shower when you arrive. With the hotel located at 4400 meters, the nights get very cold, in fact there was ice and some snow the next morning. We all spent the night with splitting headaches and insufficient sleep. We still enjoyed the day, our guide/driver, the hotel and the staff, if not the night.

Rock Hotel

Next morning after cold water washes (a good way to wake up), we enjoyed a nice breakfast accompanied by cups and cups of mate de coco, a tea made from coco plant leaves that helps fight altitude sickness. Then off down the trail on a 200 kilometer drive to Uyuni and the Salar (salt flats).

We descended through some pretty wild mountain passes, including one that is located on a portion of the Inca trail used to go between Peru and northern Chile and Argentina. This pass is one vehicle wide through broken shale rock with house size volcanic rocks sitting on the slopes above the trail, seemingly just balancing in the shale. I was thinking that this little pass must be pretty wild with water flow as the snow in the highlands melts.

Pass got steeper and the rocks bigger as we descended

 The altiplano is located amongst a number of old volcanic mountains that have spewed forth huge volcanic rocks. These rocks are scattered across the altiplano and some are the size of large buildings and come in various shapes. Some of the formations have been caused by wind and water erosion while others are the result of the molten rock cooling. One are called the rock garden is several kilometers in size.

Volcanic rock named the Tree of Life

Volcanic rock named the Condor

Tonight we stayed in a hotel located on the edge of the salt flats. The hotel is totally made of salt formed into bricks and then built like a brick house. Only the roof was not salt, but made of poles covered with reed mats. It did have all the amenities, hot water, etc., but no electricity. Seems a thunderstorm had taken out the electricity between the hotel and the village, so we dined by candle light, not sure what we ate, but it tasted good!

Built entirely of salt

Inside the Salt Hotel

Then the salt flats, an area some 12,000 square kilometers of salt from centimeters to 28 meters in depth. Blinding white for miles and for vast areas no horizon, just a vague line where the salt and sky meet. As it is the rainy season large portions of the flats were covered by water, and as the surface looks like ice, I wondered about breaking through. There are areas where you can get bogged done in the salt, but the tour drivers and village buses that roar back and forth are well aware of the bad areas, so we had no mishaps.

12,000 square kilometers all the same!

Our guide/driver set up a nice picnic table and chairs on the salt for our lunch. We dined on llama schnitzel, quinoa (an ancient grain), green salad and Bolivian wine.

Loreen putting me in my place

Keenan, Wilson and Loreen having llama lunch

Then back into Uyuni to visit the train cemetery. It is amazing what you can make into a tourist attraction, this one, the retired engines and cars from the Bolivian train system. As a main terminal for trains, Uyuni received all these retirees and shunted them off to a couple of side tracks. A number have been cut up for parts, mostly it seems to recover the tubing from the boilers. Now a play area for locals and a draw for tourists, these trains sit there and quietly rust away.

Heading out for the hills

Keenan swinging in the playground

Passenger car that missed the corner

This ends our Salt Flat/Altiplano portion of Bolivia, tomorrow a bus ride through the mountains to Potosi, once the silver capital of the world.