The Cast
Adam - aka CanadienTwenty three year old accounting student hailing from Toronto. Our resident polyglot, speaks English, French, Spanish and is learning Hebrew.
Braydon - aka Aussie
Twenty four year old park ranger on Christmas Island, an Australian possession in the Indian ocean, closer to Asia than Australia.
Jose - aka Guide, Dickhead
Big for a Quechuan owns the car we are using. Not capable of understanding the meaning of the song "Keep the Customer Satisfied." Only called us chicos (boys) although I am probably 15 years older than he.
Lior - aka Israeli, Uzbekistani, Borat
Twentyseven year old electrical engineer. Athletic and buff. The physique one would expect from a boxer and one who mixed cement by hand for years. Energetic and contagiously goofy. Spent months trekking alone in Chile's Patagonia, sleeping in a tent.
Yn????
The cook by title.
Day 1 - Jul 22
Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Headed down to TODO tours at 8:00, paid the balance due, had a cup of coffee and waited. At 9:30, an hour late, my car showed up. My backpack was lashed to the top and I got inside. We made introductions. I found myself very glad that our group had four people, a fifth would have made things very tight.
We headed out, during the first hour the scenery was very pleasant but soon turned drab. After three hours of driving we had lunch. Cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, ham of sorts, more like head cheese and cheese were provided for us to make our own sandwiches. Lior and Adam registered as Vegetarian although they are not, it just makes it easier to eat kosher food.
We saw a rhea but Jose did not concern himself with our desire to photograph it.
We passed town after town Jose gave a brief description of the town most were mining towns for Tin, Antimony and / or silver. Adam translated for us. As we ascended the rivers were icy, sometimes we drove over ice, sometimes through the river where the ice had been broken by previous traffic. At one point we approached a spot at which three 4x4s were sitting, unable or unwilling to cross. We all got out of our car. Jose drove as far as he could and then monkied out the door onto the roof, got a pick axe, scrambled to the front bumper and worked the ice ahead of the vehicle, got back inside and drove up the far bank.
I was unwilling to walk accross the ice. Although others in our party had crossed, I outweighed them by at least 80 pounds. I managed to secure a seat in a Lexus that had been waiting. This was a comfortable vehicle. Upon reaching the far side I got out and rejoined our party.
Llamas were everywhere, with colored tags on their ears to indicate ownership. We were told each family had 500 llamas, which were traded in town for staples. A truck comes out once a week with supplies. The area was desolate and freezing.
We arrived at the entrance to the park and paid the 150 bs entry fee. We were told to keep our tickets as we would have to show them on the way out. We were admitted for four days or less.
Dinner consisted of vegetable potato pancakes, ground meat and mashed potatoes. Shepards pie, the unimaginative English staple. We discussed the worst experiences of travels, thievery, medical emergencies, food poisoning and the like.
The crude accommodations had no heat. We played bullshit until just before ten. The lights were to be off at ten so we went to our room furnished only with four concrete beds with mattresses on them. We all put on as much clothing as possible. Those with thermal underwear put them on, extra sweaters, gloves, hats and got into our sleeping bags.
Huge balls of bloody mucous congealed in my nose as I slept fitfully. At two o'clock I laid in bed, my heart pounding rapidly as I panted, unable to get air. Braydon and Lior were experiencing altitude sickness which I ministered with large amounts of strong Coca tea. Fortunately I had a pound of leaves with me. Adam found the cold unendurable, strangely enough only the Canadian was profoundly affected by the cold.
At 3 o'clock Braydon inquired if anyone was cold. We were all awake. The door to the room was shut and the four guys in the room had consumed all the oxygen. I stepped out into the hall, my heart pounding and told Braydon to come. He shuffled out inside his sleeping bag and collapsed on the floor with his back to the wall. I went outside and panted, contemplating the fact that we were at least 16 hours from medical care and that I thought I was in arrhythmia primed for another cardiac arrest. After tweny minutes I felt better, I opened all the windows and saw Braydon still collapsed. I went into the room, got his mattress, threw it on the ground and told him to move, which resulted in a very rude response. When he saw that I had brought his mattress he clambeed onto it; I then fetched his blankets and my bedding and went to sleep in the the hall under an open window.
Day Two - July 23
We are the last group up. We were advised that the two small boxes of tea were to last us for four days. One meal into our trip and we had consumed half of our supply.
We had passed the night in Cotena and then drove through Cotena Grande, which ironically is smaller than Cotena. The only industry is llama raising and substandard lodging for tourists. These were formerly gold mining towns, gold was panned in the river but the supplies had been depleted. In the process of taking pictures of these grotty towns I managed to lose my lens cap.
11:00 Jose stopped the truck, turned around and backtracked 100 meters. He spotted a truck wheel with a tire on the side of the road and directed us, not asked, to lift the heavy wheel onto the top of the truck where it was lashed over our back packs. He figured his find was worth $100.
We arrived at the hot springs. Our group, exception Lior bathing in the warm water. Most of the other arriving groups did not care to expose themselves to the frigid dry strong wind in order to partake.
For lunch we had cold fried beef, more cold veggie patties, various vegetables that had been boiled and left overnight to get very cold. Although we had been there for an hour before eating and there was plenty of opportunity to cook or reheat the food we were to find that the cook liked to cook everything in the evening and then serve it cold the next day.
We headed out to the geysers, which continously burped mud, some watery, some the consistency one would use when making pottery. Most was grey, some reddish. Sulfurous fumes added to the ambience.
3:30 We arrive at Hospeje Las Rivas. We finally arrived at our hotel at around 3:30 and walked the last couple of miles across the cold barren plains, taking pictures of the vicuna, a smaller relative of the llama. The tables were crowded with Japanese and English tourists travelling south from Uyuni.
For dinner we had fried chicken and vegetable, three kinds of potatoes, soup and some fried eggs for the vegetarians.
9:30 I was advising adam on places I had been to in Bolivia one of the brits came over and asked me what I thought of the jungle. I am sure you can figure what my response was like, although I spoke highly of Rurre.
The house has only solar power and DC lighting running off deep cycle 12 volt batteries.
We played a russian card game that is impossible to win. There is no winner, one person is "fool" the loser. Interesting perspective on life.
Adam translated our request to Jose. We did not want to waste a bunch of time look at lakes that were all little shallow splashes of water and looked the same. Let's blast through to the salt flats and catch some sunset photos. For dinner we had something the cooked called lasagna.
We burned things in the little franklin stove to try to keep warm. Scraps of paper, books we had finished reading. Adam considered burning all the sections of his South American travel guide that he had already visited or did not plan on visiting. We went to bed at 11 I fell asleep around 3.
Day 3 - July 24
I was awakened to the smell of bacon and eggs at 4. A guide from another group knocks to wake up his party. We were served cold pancakes, cooked the previous night and delivered on a serving plate, no individual plates or utensils were provided. Around 5:00 we woke up and we headed out around 5:30
At 8:03 we arrived at Piedra Arboles, a tree shaped rock.
Just before 9 we encountered the strange vehicle we saw driving across the flats the previous night. The tent was up and people were milling all about inspecting the home made vehicle and chatting with the couple, Chris and Elaine, that owned it.
The man, a design engineer built the car in six months at his house in Australia. Theengine was bought on ebay for $210, a four cylinder diesel truck engine. This beast has awesome suspension, two wheel drive and no heating or air conditioning. The seats are very small, this is not luxury transport. Once the beast was completely submerged in water and Chris had it up and running again in an hour.
For lunch we were dished up macaroni, shredded lettus, tomato, potatoes and peas with chicken. We consumed our meals using the back of the truck as the buffet and rocks as our tables and seats.
We arrived at the salt flats at 3:30 at which time Jose decided that he was done with his day. Despite his promise the previous night to take us to the salt flats. If I haven't mentioned this before (this part is being written 10 days after the fact and I don't review anything I've written) , Jose is pretty worthless as a guide, very sparing with the information and refusing to stop at the requested locations for photo shots. By this time I was pissed and started a confrontation with the big Quechuan but stood down at the request of my travelling companions. They wondered if he understood what a "fucking worthless piece of shit, a waste of flesh utterly devoid of the concept of customer service" meant. They assumed that by my pitch, volume and physical demeanor that my extreme displeasure had been conveyed.
Our "hotel" was built of salt, the walls were blocks cut from salt, mortared with salt. The floor was crushed salt. The tables, chairs and beds were made of salt. We placed our stuff in the room, locked the door and headed out.
Despite having been told that it was too dangerous to cross to the salt flats without a guide we headed out anyway. It was impossible to judge the distance, the featureless terrain extending to the horizon. An hour later after a three mile walk (as indicated by my GPS) we arrived and dicked around, posed for silly pictures and launched a few flares.
When we returned we were told that the door lock was broken as the key wouldn't work. We were in room 1, they were trying the key to room 9. One of the hotel employees tried to shim the door, but it had a dead latch. I started to pop the latch on the window to the room but they told me it was better to shim the door, which was not going to happen. After 15 minutes our guide, Jose walked around the corner and popped open the window.
I paid 3 bs to charge my computer and then tried to swap pictures amongst the 4 of us, each of the three others continuously issuing instructions that contradicted at least one of the others, each desparate to get their own copy or subset before the lights went out or the computer lost all charge. Some interesting people from Argentina thought that our group was a whole lot more fun than the people in their group. I was given a couple emails and asked to contact them if I made it to Buenes Aires.
Finally we went to bed.
Day 4 - July 25
We left the hotel watching the moon setting over the mountains, an awesome display and wanted to take pictures. Half an hour later Jose consented to stop when the moon was but a sliver. We all agreed he was just being an asshole. We drove for another half hour and he asked if we wanted to watch the sunrise from the flats or from Isla Pescado. What the hell kind of question is that? Why would you offer us the choice? We went to the island, climbed to the top and took a bunch of pictures, came down, had breakfast and headed out.
After an hour at some random spot in the middle of the flats Jose stopped so we could pose for more pictures with eerie backgrounds. He told us he would give us half an hour. We agreed we really didn't give a flying shit what he wanted and that we would spend as much time as we wanted.
8/31 I guess I am never getting around to finishing this, I'll just post as is.
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