We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama today, after a 3 day tour. On the first day, we went to the train cemetary, where Bolivian trains come to die. Then we went to Colchani, a small village on the edge of the Salar de Uyuni, where they produce - salt (what a surprise). After that, we drove into the Salar, went to visit the salt hotel (a hotel built of salt), which is now just a museum of sorts, and to fish island, which has no fish, but lots of cactus. Of course, we took lots of funny pictures. Then we [View Full Entry]

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We are about 1 hour away from leaving for a 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni, ending in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Uyuni is an ugly little town, but we only spent one night here, so that´s not a problem. I don´t have much else to add, expect another entry in 3 days, with lots of Salar pictures. [View Full Entry]

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We got to Potosi this morning, after a long night bus, where I barely got any sleep. After some searching, we found a cheap hostel, put our stuff there, and went out to book a tour of the Potosi mines. The tour was really great, we went through the mines, saw how the miners work, and heard about how they die of lung disease at an early age. We also saw the refinery, which was nice. The coolest part, was when we bought dynamite at the miner´s market, and gave it as presents to the miners. But we also bought some [View Full Entry]

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I left Villa Tunari yesterday, after training one of the Bolivians there to take care of the small animals. I hope he does a good job, I like those animals. Anyway, I am now in Cochabamba, with a ncie couple from New Zeland that I met at the animal refuge. Tonight we´re going to Potosi, and then on to Uyuni to do a tour of the salt flats, and then on to Chile. And now, you can look at all the cool animal photos. [View Full Entry]

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Sorry for not writing in a while, we had quite a bit of rain here, and the internet ia little far, so I neglected to write. I hope none of you got too worried. I´m still at the animal refuge at Villa Tunari (I stayed a few more days extra), but I am leaving tomorrow, or the day after if I have someone to teach the job to. I´ve been working hard during the day, and hanging out with the nice people here during the nights, and enjoying myself in general. I hate to leave this place, but I need to [View Full Entry]

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Sorry I haven´t written in a while, I´ve been quite busy working with the animals, and having a good time in general. Today we finally had a sunny day, after 3-4 days of rain. The first night of rain, we had a really big thunderstorm, and the next day, we discovered that one of that cages for the cats (an oscillot actually) was flattened by a landslide, so I went up there to help clear the ruins. No worries though, the cat was found 2 days later, and is now in one of the rooms in one of the hostels here. [View Full Entry]

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Today was my training day. A nice English girl, whose last day of volunteering was today, taught me how to care for the small animals, which are going to be solely my responsibility starting tomorrow. The animals are: * 5 Tejones (a.k.a Coatis) * 2 Night Monkeys (a.k.a Owl Monkeys) * Some Kuchikuchis (I´m not sure exactly how many, they were all asleep inside their boxes, I didn´t even see them) * 15 Turtles The job is mostly preparing their food (cutting fruits and vegetables), feeding them, cleaning their cages, and being nice to them. The animals are really cute, [View Full Entry]

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I got to Villa Tunari, a small town where the Parque Machia animal shelter is, this morning. I had to wait until 17:00 for the guy who gives new volunteers assignments, so I spent the day in the cafe at the park, meeting the other volunteers. They are all nice people, and I was surprised to find that there are quite a few Israelis here (about 7 or 8 including me), two of them I´ve even met before. I was assigned to the small animals section, which has some animals I haven´t even heard of before. I didn´t work with the [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday I went mountain biking down the world´s most dangerous road, a.k.a death road, and survived. I didn´t want to let anyone know in advance, because there´s no need to worry for nothing. Anyway, I had a great time, and I got a nice t-shirt at the end. The road is 67 km long, 60 of which are downhill. The first 22 km are paved, and it becomes a dirt road after that. To be honest, since a new road opened about a year ago, there´s almost no traffic anymore on the unpaved part of the road, so it´s much safer [View Full Entry]

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We´re back in La Paz, after flying back from Rurrenabaque. We had to cancel our flight back with one airline, and buy a ticket with another airline (the military airline - they have such a thing here), but we made it. We´re going to stay here for a few days, then head to Cochabamba, and to the animal park at Villa Tunari, where I intend to volunteer. I uploaded photos from the pampas and the jungle to the previous entries, so check them out. Also, if it wasn´t clear before, I had a great time in the jungle, although it felt [View Full Entry]

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