Hola chicos y chicas!!

Around ten days ago we left Cusco and took a long bus ride to Puno, which is one of the largest city on the shores of lake Titicaca (gotta love the name!). The next day we took a long boat ride towards a far away peninsula where we were going to spend the night with local indigenous families. The weather on Lake Titicaca is deceiving. The sun was shining and the temperature was very nice, somewhere around 20 degrees so most of our group went suntanning on the deck. However, it is easy to forget that the lake is located at an altitute of 4000 meters above sea level which means either use lots of high factor suntan lotion or get heavily burned...which is exactly what happened to many (mainly British, talk about confirming stereotypes...;-) group members who ended up with some nasty 1^st and 2^nd degree burns...ouch!

When we arrived at the local village, we were assigned to families. Given Thomas´ recently broken collar bone, we hooked up with a family that lived pretty closed by the center of the village. And we were lucky as some of the people in our group had to walk for half an hour to reach their family homes. The people on the island live off agriculture and in very poor and simple circumstances. Our family did have electricity but no running water and the toilet was a big hole in the ground located outside next to the pig barn (because of the smell...??). Furthermore you had to pass two big cows (scary!!) on the way to the toilet which at night was pretty creepy. The family was really nice!

The two youngest children stayed with us all the time, too curious to leave us alone for a second. Our Spanish lessons definitely came in usefull since we were able to speak to them, have fun and play cardgames (always reassuring to know we have got the speaking abilities of a 6 year old!). Finally at night there was a big FIESTA! Our whole group got dressed up in traditional clothes and the whole village gathered at the local school where everybody performed traditional dances and drank beer. Lots of fun!!

The day after, we got up early and visited the famous floating islands of lake Titicaca. Although we were impressed by the islands themselves and the traditions that are kept by its inhabitants, the whole thing has basically transformed in one big tourist trap which was quite disappointing. Later that morning we left the lake, hopped on a bus and drove towards the Bolivian border and on to La Paz. Bolivia is much poorer than Ecuador or Peru and like it or not that probably attributes to the upholding of many traditions. For example La Paz, the largest city of Bolivia, is the only city that we have visited so far in South America where almost all women still wear traditional clothing, really amazing. The day after we arrived we stumbled upon a Dutch run bar called Sol y Luna. To our delight they had real Dutch specialties on the menu. You cannot imagine how great the taste of Bitterballen, Kipsate or real Dutch made Shoarma is after more than 5 month of abstination...yummie!!!

The following morning we set off to one of the main highlights of Bolivia: the saltflats of Uyuni. After a 5 hour busride and an 8 hour trainride we arrived at the town of Uyuni, located at around 4000 meters in the middle of nowhere. After one last night in relative comfort we got on the jeeps and rode off into the desert. The next three days and nights were just spectacular and undescribable. The landscape is mindboggling, unlike anything we have ever seen. Beautiful colorful mountains and lakes...

...lots of flamingos (we thought they only lived in the tropics, but appartly also survive at -25 degrees in the middle of the desert)...

...vast uninhabited desert plains...

...small villages in a Mars landscape where you wonder 'what the heck do these people do for a living??', warm at day (+30 degress) and very cold at night (-5 to -10 degrees), clear blue skies.

We took about 1000 pictures during a 3 day time period and we really had diffulties later on chosing which to dump and which not, because almost all of them were just great. The Saltflats of Uyuni are 1/3 of the size of The Netherlands and provide for an unbelievable sea of white, as far as you can look which was simply unreal. All in all an unforgettable experience!

After 4 days we took a 6 hours busride to Potosi, a town with the largest silvermine in the world. Eager to get back to civilisation (warm showers, clean toilets and good food ranked high on the list after some of the dirtiest toilets - no showers - we have seen to date) it was quite a nerveracking ride. In fact the road to Potosi from Uyuni is unpaved which meant that we got shaken to the bone for 6 hours in a row, while zig zagging through mountain passes...barf. In the dark, we hit a sanddune at full spead, sending people flying into the seats in front of them. It was a miracle nobody got hurt. In Potosi we visited the silvermine and to please the miners we bought presents like drinks and coca leaves, but also real dynamite (!!) - every boy´s dream. In fact, as part of the visit to the mine we build our own bomb, which we subsequently blew up in one of the hills close to the mine. The sound was just defeaning and made all the guys feel like little boys again (you should have seen the grins on their faces)! Thomas tought about buying some dynamite to take with him for New Year´s eve party, but luckily was talked out of this by Mischa.

After Potosi, we headed for Sucre. Bolivia´s capital has a great climat and is a bit unlike the rest of the country: much richer, beautiful and completely finalised buildings, clean streets and a white church on nearly every corner. Here, we spend a very relaxing afternoon on top of one of the hills surrounding the city, drinking wine and having a very nice meal. Our GAP tour also ended in Sucre and we enjoyed a great farewell party on the last night, eating 600gr steaks in some kind of cantine and drinking beer in the popular (Dutch owned) Joyride bar.

The next day we were off to La Paz, once again on our own...snif! A part of the buzzing city that La Paz is, there is really only one big highlight to the city and that is the city prison (San Pedro Prison), probably one of the only prisons of the world that you can visit as a tourist. Unfortunately they quit the organised tour after a prison riot broke out while some tourist were inside. Travel agencies did not want to end up being responsible for tourists trapped in a prison...So we looked up on the Internet how to get into the prison and did not get any comfort from what we read. In fact it was all very dodgy. Apparently you had to go to the plaza in front of the prison and look for a big black guy with a joker hat... he would help you bribe the guards, who would then let you inside the prison (mind you there are convicted killers inside and the police is nowhere to been seen). However, both Phil (one of the girls of the GAP tour that also returned to La Paz) and Mischa reeeeeaaaalllly wanted to go. Afraid of being called a sissy boy, Thomas stepped over his doubt and we decided to take our chances the next day. We walked to the main plaza and of course...no sign of the black jokerguy. So Thomas decided there was only one thing to do and that was to walk to the prison entrance and ask the two policemen standing there in his best Spanish if there are organised touristic tours to the prison (we all had a big laugh about this later .... pretty amazing to go the entrance of a prison and ask the police for a tour!!). To our surpise they answered 'yes' and shortly after a guy came running out and took us to a little room just outside the entrance of the prison where we all had to pay 200 bolivianos (= E12.50) - this is effectively the bribe to the policemen so they let you in. Once inside we were assigned to a prisoner that spoke English and 5 nasty looking bodyguards which were also prisoners...

The tour was revealing to say the least!!. About 1500 prisoners live in an area of about 50 meters by 50 meters, most of them are in there for drug related crimes (80%) and most of them (75%) are still awaiting trial instead of serving a sentence. There are no policemen or official guards inside the prison, guards are prisoners appointed by other prisoners. Inside money is the main divider. Rich people can buy cells for about USD1000 with TV, telephone, internet access and private showers. Poorer people have to buy their own cell for about USD100 that is around 4 meters square. Unbelievable but true is that prisoners lock their own cell from outside (instead of being locked in) and can wonder around freely through the complex. Wife and kids can live in with the prisoners for a fee of 10 bolivianos per day (!!). Actually, we met a prisoner that had bought a three story cell in which he lived with his wife and kid. While the kid went to school outside the prison every morning, his wife earned a decent living by backing very nice banana cakes and selling them to other prisoners. The conditions did not seem that bad. There were bars and restaurants everywhere you looked and some areas even had a sauna (!!!).

One thing that the prison is best known for is the quality of its cocaine. In fact, at the end of the tour we were guided into a little cell where we had to pay our tips and could buy and use cocaine. Of course Mischa, Phil and Thomas, good samaritans, thanked for the offer but two English blokes that were in our group took up the challenge and both snorted away 1 gram of 90% pure cocaine right in front of us, which was once again a weird experience. Maybe not the cokesnorting, but the fact that it happened in a little cell in a prison in La Paz Bolivia while 6 inmates where observing us..... weird!!

That night we walked by an Indian restaurant where we ordered Vindaloo and Chicken Madras. The guy serving us explained that they took pride in the fact that they (alledgedly) served the hottest Vindaloo in the world and that if you would finish your plate, you would be entitled to a T-shirt!! Of course we accepted the challenge and one of us came to regret it...Mischa did not even break a sweat but the Vindaloo was soooooo hot that Thomas still has to regain feeling in his tongue and his stomach protested until 3 days after...in fact, the next day he had to remain sick in bed.

The day before yesterday we said goodbye to La Paz and flew to Santiago de Chili. The contrast between La Paz and Santiago could not be larger. Chili is a really developed and rich country. In fact, Santiago is probably more developed than most cities in Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona. The wheather here is great with clear blue skies, 30 degrees Celsius and a nice cool brise. The people are also different, they are young and hip and you dont see any indigenous people around. Santiago is known to be a gourmet city, especially the district that we are staying in called Bellavista and we have taken full advantage of that!! Lots of good food and lots of great cheap whine (Chili´s and Argentina´s main vineyards are just around the corner)...what else do you need?? Well... maybe more money...because our burning rate is quite high at this moment...;-))

Tomorrow we take the bus to Mendoza in Argentina and from there we continue to Buenos Aires. We will be back soon!!

Love,

Mischa and Thomas