El Salar de Uyuni / The Uyuni Salt Flats After Rurrenabaque we headed to Uyuni, which you can get to after a 10 hour bus ride south of La Paz. The small town of Uyuni is rather unremarkable except for the number of stray dogs you can spot at dusk. It's one of those towns which would not exist were it not for the large number of tourists passing through. As my Lonely Planet guide puts it, it is a ¨climatically challenged town¨ referring, I think, to the very arid conditions in the area. But beyond being a place to sleep, it is the portal to the world's largest salt flats. These salt flats span an area of 10,582 square km. Just outside of Uyuni and before the flats there is a train cemetery which ... read more

Dec. 29-Jan. 5 Following Bingham We returned home from the beach on the 29th. Since we were leaving by bus to Cuzco the next day, we had to get a move on and buy Melissa some new eyeglasses. Melissa was happy to find out that in Arequipa some stores can cut and insert the proper lenses into your selected eyeglasses within one or two hours. So she bought eyeglasses and a hat and was set for the trip to Cuzco. The next day we left for Cuzco at 7:00am. The bus was a modest one but boasted great entertainment. At one point we watched Mel Gibson's Apocalypto in English which was quite entertaining for the three English-speaking passengers on board. As well, we had a man hop on the bus who played charango (look it up ... read more

The trip began Tuesday (Dec 22) morning at 6:30am after a long night of half-sleeping at YVR, waiting for our flight to LA. After three flights (one a surprisingly pleasant 8.5-hour flight on a LAN vessel) Becky, Melissa, Nathan (her brother) and I stepped out of our final airplane early Wednesday morning (Dec 23) to be greeted by a towering Misti, a snowless Chachani, a warm Arequipa, and the flailing arms of my dad who immediately ran to the appropriate spot in the viewing area of the airport to take pictures of us weary travelers. A long, hard day of snoozing ensued (two days for Nathan who had an 18 hour wait in the Lima airport). Impatient and daring drivers, heavy traffic, swarms of people, dirty streets, dwindling trees, blaring horns and combis - I wasn't ... read more