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Dear all,

I see it really has been a while since I´ve updated my travelblog. I tried to do it a couple of times in Bolivia but unfortunately it didn´t work out... Since San Pedro de Atacama I have travelled to Bolovia, Peru, Equador and currently I´m in Colombia. I really saw amazing things. However, I don´t have pictures of everthing, because my camera got stolen a while ago. So I lost my pictures of Bolivia. Below you can read some stories about what I´ve seen so far.

Bolivia
From San Pedro de Atacama in Chili I went on a tour to Uyuni in Bolivia. That tour was really unbelievable pretty. Unfortunately I lost my pictures from that tour. But I got some pictures from a friend who was also on the tour. We saw amazing lakes, geysers, natural hot water springs where you could take a bath in the middle of nowhere and it was of a perfect temperature. You had a view of 100s of kilometres. Just amazing!! The last day we went to the biggest saltflat on earth: Salar the Uyuni. It is as big as the Netherlands and Belgium together. You can make some interesting pictures there! We slept one night in a hotel made of salt. It was very cold there and I was sick of the altitude and the food, but the pretty views made it definitly all worth it.

From Uyuni I went to Potosí where I visited the mines. That was a very big shock. There are children working there of 12 years old, sometimes for more than 20 hours without eating much... I felt horrible when I saw that. It is very traditional when you father is a miner, that you are going to be a miner as well. The children ´go to school in the evening´ but I don´t know how much I must believe that... From there I went to Sucre and La Paz (the capital of Bolivia), and from La Paz I went to Peru: Puno.

Peru
In Peru I went to see the lake Titicaca at Puno. That was very pretty. There are people living there on floating islands. They made the islands themselves, as well as their houses and boats. The people are wearing very colorful clothes, which I though was very pretty.
From Puno I went to Cuzco to check some Inca ruines. I wanted to go to Cuzco to check the Machu Piccu (the most famous inca ruin), but I didn´t go there because I was still sick and weak of the altitude and the water/ food, so I could barely walk for a few 100 meters. The Machu Piccu contains a lot of walking so I decided not to do that. On top of that I thought the tour was very expensive... So I went to check out the sacred valley, which was very interesting as you can see on some pictures.
From Cuzco I went to Haucachina, which is a very small town in the desert. I took it easy over there to get some more strength again and I went sandboarding on the big sanddunes. That was amazing!!! You could go sooo fast, that is was very exciting...

Equador
I only went very quickly to Equador to go to Colombia. In the beginning it was not really my plan to go to Colombia, but I heard such great stories of the country that I decided to go there. Instead of flying there (which would cost me around 400 euro), I went by bus from Peru (around 80 euro). But it were some very long busrides! So I travelled very quickly through Equador. Quito seemed to be very dangerous. I heard of a lot of people in our hostel over there that they got robbed. So I had not much interest in staying there for a long time.

Colombia
Right now I am in Colombia. I just loooove the country and it´s inhibitants. The people are very, very friendly and the nature you see during your travelling is just amazing. I feel safer here than I´ve ever felt in Peru and Bolivia. I arrived in Cali, which is the salsa capital of thr world. O my god, people can dance there! That is really amazing. I also tried a few times, which went OK. But you can just not compete with the locals over there. On top of that the weather in Colombia is a lot warmer. Because of the altitude in the places I went to in Peru and Bolivia it can be quite cold, and especially during the night. So right now I´m very happy that I can wear my flipflops and my dresses again. After Cali I went to Bogotá to take some Spanish lessons and right now I´m in Medellín. From here I will go to the north to do some diving and relax at the beach!

A long story already, so I think this was enough for now!
Looking forward to your comments :)

Lots of love,

Marjan

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