Every morning I awake and say to myself that tommorrow I will leave Salta and continue my journey Southward.. And each morning I awake to find that the day has something new and random to offer... I have visions of myself waking up one morning to find myself fifty years old and thinking, today I will continue my journey southward... Photos for Pip! I decided it was easier to post them here than to email you them - Have fun in Bolivia Pip!!! What a past couple of days.. Friday was the aniversary of the death of Martin Miguel Guemes - [View Full Entry]

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... The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - (Friedrich Nietzsche) As I begin to near the end of my time here, with more than two-thirds of my trip behind me, thoughts of what I shall do upon my return begin to haunt me... While in Canada I had spent years developing and using certain skills for contracting in trades that I had grown incredibly t [View Full Entry]

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Lago Cabra Corral At least we can appreciate that we appreciate! For her it was an uncommited aside - an afterthought that left as fast as it came, yet for me it was a sudden light that had clicked on... That´s it! Pip you are genius! That is why we do this! What brands a backpacker a backpacker! In wandering and discovering new awe-inspiring places; people, cities and landscapes, cultures; we learn to appreciate the mere act of appreciating - learn to appreciate those things around us while equally, retrospectively, internally, learning to [View Full Entry]

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Argentina I once read an article about how Argentina has the world´s most beautiful people - and at last I understand why... I think that the more cultures mix, the stranger and more beautiful people begin to look.. Everyone looks so different here; Dan reckons everyone looks european but in a distinctive latino way (often mixed with a myriad of indigenous ancestry). Old and young people alike carry themselves with pride and possess a natural youthful quality. Black hair, semi-dark skin and blue or green eyes.. That is very common here. Salta is proba [View Full Entry]

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Five companions and three days crossing the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia - The worlds largest Salt Desert... An amazing experience taking in some of the most spectacular landscape my eyes have yet beheld. After three days crossing the desert to the Chilean border and back, an overnight train and an all day bus - I am now at last in Argentina. A photographic journal: [View Full Entry]

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I slowly opened my weary eyes to find the day´s first crimson-gold splashed across the highest boughes of the hillside eucalyptus, outside my window to the left. Wrapped in a blanket from an overnight passage South, I rubbed my tired eyes briefly and watched the slow birth of the day, "..Beautiful." A tap on my shoulder revealed the Soldier in full camo gear standing over me to the right, requesting to examine my passport and expired Bolivian permit.. "..Beautiful." Technically I am in Bolivia illegally. My thirty day permit has expired and after days of being told to come [View Full Entry]

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"You see Joseph, I am very famous here," she offhandedly remarked with a private grin to herself. "And now you are very famous too," - I looked around to find that she was indeed right. Groups of people waved to her, as she led me by the arm through the crowd, while those very same people followed me with their eyes in a sort of strange fascination. "It is very rare to see a gringo in these parts - and you know, as long as I can remember I have never seen a foreigner at this festival. You are very lucky [View Full Entry]

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Yeeeeeeeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaawww... That´s about all I really have to say about that... "Hey Noel, race ya to the bottom?!" "Sure! Cause - ya know - racing to the bottom of the world´s most deadly road can´t possibly be unsafe... But okay!" Death Road (that actually is the official name). Rapid downhill decent from 4700meters to 1200meters, within a 65km distance. Nearly entirely dusty, one lane, dirt road with more blind corners than you´d care to imagine... The view would have been absolutely spectacular (and was upon occasion) during the plummet downward, wer [View Full Entry]

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One had to know the world... And do so not with the eyes of a tourist, who looks only for landscapes, comfort, and ephemeral pleasures, but with the eyes and the spirit of a son of the people, who needs to knows the beauty of the continent, the riches it contains, the men and women that inhabit it, as well as the internal and external enemies that exploit and impoversh it. (Alberto Granado) Three weeks in La Paz and at last I have had my fill and am ready to wander on.. The daily routine one becomes accustomed to soon dissolves [View Full Entry]

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What extreme circumstances may allow for the expropriation of corporate property at a national level? ... And when does it become a rightful place to forcefully take possession at the point of a gun? The first of May was an historic day for the people of Bolivia - for better or for worse. The firey speech delivered by Bolivia´s first Indian Presidente, Evo Morales, from the balcony of what would be the equivalent to the Bolivian Whitehouse was something to behold... Throngs of Bolivianas showed up for the news that on this day the Bolivian Government would force [View Full Entry]

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