Crewton

Lake Titicaca is the world’s largest lake at high altitude. It is vast. It shimmers in the sun for as far as the eye can see on the horizon. The waters are sapphire blue and so inviting for a swim, yet the temperature remains freezing cold. Isla De La Sol (Island of the Sun), is the island in the middle of Titicaca that the Incas believed was where their sun god was born…which makes it the believed birthplace of the Incas. There are still Incan temple ruins here today that you can trek to. To get to Isla De La Sol you must take a two-hour boat ride from the tiny little Bolivian port town of Copacabana. Once arriving, it is all hoofing it by foot straight up, as there are not any cars on the ... read more

While many think of the Amazon bush as being all thick and dense jungle, there are actually vast areas known as the pampas. These areas are most easily explained as swamplands. It still has areas with rivers running to the final Amazon River, but these take their own sweet time and go really, really slow to get there. In the winter, which is the dry season, these rivers shrink up to small areas where dense populations of wildlife live. The animals and fish like the slow moving waters. Unfortunately, in the case of Bolivia, to get to them does not mean taking a pretty, scenic boat ride. It means three and a half hours of the bumpiest, dustiest road I’ve ever been on in my life. When we passed a car going the opposite way, it ... read more

First, you have to get yourself to the Amazon. Which means, in the case of the Bolivian Amazon Jungle, either flying in from La Paz by bush plane, or taking a 15 hour bumpy bus down a path that includes the stretch of road dubbed “The World’s Most Dangerous Road” by an international banking community. I’m not sure why banks are in the business of finding the most dangerous roads. Anyhow, it was named this because of the percentage of deaths per year on it, including plunges of autos straight down cliffs. After reading this, I decided to take the plane. Even taking the plane is not ordinary. First of all, to fly into or out of La Paz, the capital city, takes extra precautions for the larger planes. La Paz has the world’s highest international ... read more

It was now time to head to Bolivia. Because of a a huge snowstorm over the Andes, the pass had been closed for over two weeks. My bus was one of the first to try again to cross. First, I should explain why you pass over the Andes this way. It is to take a 3 or 4 day tour of a place called Salar de Uyuni, which stands for the saltflats of Uyuni (a dippy little town in Bolivia). Most people take the tour starting in Uyuni, Bolivia and bounce around for 3 days in a 4x4 seeing the sights. However, as I earlier stated, I needed a new way to reach Bolivia, and so ended up crossing the border via the Andes Mountains. Once over the pass, the bus would then drop us off ... read more

It's the tired old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make Lemonaide." So cliche, yet so true. If I hadn't been forced to reroute my trip--which at the time before I left was a little worrisome considering the locals were burning down immigration offices--I would never have had the idea to route my way through Chile. What luck! It is another world here. I've seen such works of natural beauty as I never could have before imagined. Places with names like Valley of the Moon. Places where the sky is so incredibly clear, major power players of the world send their best telescopes to view the night skies. (The Atacama Desert is the driest desert on Earth, and has a very high altitude. I guess that combination makes astronomers giddy.) Best yet, I think was meeting ... read more