I licked the wall and it was really made of salt!! Adventures in Bolivia.

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Como estan chicos? That means “how are you” in Spanish! It’s been really fun getting to know a different language, even though we’ve messed up LOTS of times. One time Nate called the color blue “rice”, and Jessie even asked if a ring she was looking at was made of a banana! Good thing we’re getting better than that huh? Well, we would need all of our Spanish skills as we were headed to Bolivia, country further south than Peru and most likely colder this time of year. You have to remember, when it’s summer in the northern hemisphere (like the US, Canada, Europe and other places), it’s actually winter in the southern hemisphere (where we are now). We made our first stop at a place called Copacabana, a tiny little town we had to stay at before spending a night on Isla del Sol, or island of the sun, on Lake Titicaca. Boy I’ll tell ya, I thought it was hard to walk with the altitude in PERU! I just about had a monkey attack when we were hiking up the mountain on the island to get a better view! Nate and Jessie were huffin’ and puffin’ like they were 50 years older before we even got to the top, but when we did, the view was amazing! However, I think my favorite part of the island was getting to see a cute little girl in traditional clothes walking her baby alpacca down to the water for a drink. I begged and pleaded with Nate and Jessie to let me get one, but they said we couldn’t do it. Shucks!

After our stop on Isla del Sol, we made our way to La Paz, the capitol of the country. I seriously couldn’t believe how big it was! I guarantee I could beat anybody in a game of hide and seek here, no problem. During the day the weather wasn’t too bad and we took advantage of being in the sun, but at night, we were bundled up with sweatshirts and jackets. Since I don’t have one, I just hopped into Jessie’s hood and wrapped myself up with one of her scarves. I was nice and cozy. We had heard of different protests that go on in La Paz, but we actually saw TWO of them while we were there. The first one was with a bunch of locals who had walked from far, far away straight to the government doors, protesting against a road they want to put in that would take away some of the people’s land. I can’t say I blame them. If someone tried to take MY trees I’d be swinging from the branches like a crazy monkey! The other one we saw was a big group of miner’s who were pushing for better working conditions. This one was pretty scary though since they were literally throwing dynamite in the streets! I’m not kidding! We could actually FEEL it when it went off while we were standing at the windows in our hostel watching them go by. Well, that ONE was to get some attention.

I think the funniest thing we did in La Paz was go see Cholita wrestling. It’s kind of like watching wrestling on TV, like WWE or WWF, but there are even women in traditional clothes who wrestle the men! I couldn’t even believe my eyes! After all, some of those guys are huge! Well, especially to a monkey who’s only the size of Nate’s hand. You wouldn’t believe how high some of these ladies jumped off of the top ropes! I couldn’t even stop laughing when they took the match into the crowd. All of us had to get up and move our chairs because they were throwing jello and soda at each other. Before we knew it, the people in the crowd were throwing everything from ice cream cones to toilet paper! I can definitely tell you I’ve never seen anything like THAT before, but it sure was interesting. I don’t think there are many countries where you could go to a wrestling match like that. Plus, we even got a free coke, popcorn, and a little souvenir just for coming. Cool huh?

Our next stop was a city called Sucre, which was a really nice city to walk around and a lot warmer than La Paz during the day. Of course that made Nate and Jessie especially happy. Other than having some really good ice cream in the city, my favorite part was when Nate and Jessie surprised me by taking me to a dinosaur park. I got the chance to dinosaur footprints!! I actually thought they would be flat on the ground, but it looked like they were walking straight up huge hill. That was because when the plates were still shifting it pushed the land up in the air, making it look that way. Otherwise you’d think they had sticky glue under their feet! We got to see some dinosaur bones and lots of dinosaur figures around the museum. I gotta tell ya, I sure am glad I wasn’t alive back then. I wouldn’t stand a chance against some of these guys! My only hope would be that maybe there was a King Kong monkey back in the day to protect me, just like in the movies. We had a great time taking pictures with the different figures. Nate pretended to be getting eaten by a dinosaur, and Jessie pretended to be riding one like a bull! I almost fell off of Nate’s shoulder trying to take the picture!

I think the scariest thing we did in Bolivia was visit a town called Potosi, where we could go on a tour of the mines. The town wasn’t the scary part, but I had a feeling the mines were going to be a little crazy. We got to learn all about how the workers separate the different metals in the rocks and how some of these guys have to carry almost 100 pounds on their backs all day long! Can you imagine that? Inside the mine made me kind of nervous. It was really hard to breath because of the altitude and lack of oxygen in the tunnels, especially for the people who were a little bigger and could barely even fit through the little spaces as they crawled on their stomachs to get through. I don’t think Nate and Jessie will become miners any time soon! The cool part of our tour was that we actually got to blow up dynamite inside of the mine before we left. We plugged our ears so it wouldn’t be too loud, but you sure could feel the air and dirt come rushing through the tunnel at us when it went off! I still can’t believe that they work in mines with arsenic in it (what they put in rat poison). Sometimes kids even start as young as 12 years old, which also means they probably won’t even live past 38 years old because it’s so bad for your health to be breathing down there. I felt really bad when I heard that part.

Our last stop in Bolivia was a town called Uyuni, where we were going to be doing a 3 day trip through the desert and salt flats of Bolivia. There were 6 of us total in our group, and the first day we stopped at a train cemetery that was full of old, broken down trains. It was really cool to climb on them and take pictures with everyone. Of course you KNOW who the best climber in OUR group was…you got it, me! I could make it up faster than anyone every time! The actual salt flats were really neat. Because of the way they look, you can take what’s called “perspective” pictures, making it look like people are bigger or smaller than they are in real life. We got some good ones there! We also got to see an island filled with the same cactus you would see in Arizona or another state with the desert in that part of the US.

Although, I think one of the coolest things was seeing the flamingos in big groups in some of the lagoons. One of them was even red, which I had never seen before. None of us could believe they could live there since it was so cold! Imagine being outside when it’s -10 degrees. I wanted to run out and ask them how they did it, but the water was way too chilly for that. As soon as I put the tip of my tail in I told myself, “No way Amelia!” It was even hard for us because we didn’t have heat in the truck or even in the places we slept it. One night we slept in a hotel that was made of salt! I didn’t think it was true but everything was made of salt…the tables, walls, rooms…everything but the mattress and blankets! Jessie was hoping there were heaters made of salt but she wasn’t that lucky, she actually took the left over hot water from making coffee with our meals and put it in an empty 2 liter Coke bottle so she could hold onto it just to try staying a little warmer. Even though we had some great adventures in Bolivia, I sure am looking forward to Asia where it’s nice and hot! I hope you’re all enjoying your summer!

Your favorite monkey friend,

Amelia

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