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Published: April 9th 2007
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Well, finally I have worked out how to get into the travel blog again. And on entering, I discovered that I hadn't published my last entry from before Christmas. So for those of you that thought we had forgotten, we haven't, I am just technologically challenged.
So, where were we the last time I wrote, I think it was just before Christmas and we were either in or heading to Bolivia on our 14 week overland tour. And, boy have we had some adventures since then. I think its fair to say that the trip was our most challenging yet and may we never have another like it. It almost caused a breakdown for at least one of us.
So first up, for those of you that know all about our troublesome cat, he has now been replaced with a troublesome truck. 'Jack' has caused us nearly as much stress and tears as the cat since we picked him up in September last year. The trouble is, its hard to be as forgiving to a big yellow truck as it is to a small grey cat (well, not so small anymore as apparently he weighs eight kilos now!).
Anyway, back to Jack, he has been mechanically demanding to Scott and continues to be on a regular basis. But Scott is getting him sorted and I think we are having a break from him for a month or so on our way back down from Quito.
So back to the story, It was just before Christmas when I last wrote and following our usual itinerary through Bolivia we were then continuing further south to Chile and Argentina. Neither of us had been down that far south before so were a little nervous about where we were going and what we would be doing, but hey, what is life if you can't have a challenge or too along the way.
We stopped in a small town in the middle of Bolivia called Uyuni for Christmas. We had been there before and thought it would be a better option for Christmas than some of the other not very nice towns of Bolivia. Uyuni is on the edge of the Salar de Uyuni, so the the group had a day trip out to the Salar on Christmas Eve and then the inevitable pre-Christmas drinks that happen all over the world
at that time of year. Anyway, needless to say there were a few fragile heads the next morning. Unfortunately, mine was one of them.
We wanted Christmas to be a bit different than the usual eating and drinking too much and giving of Secret Santa gifts that no-one really wants so we organised with Chris and Sussy of Minuteman Pizza (the best restaurant and hotel in all of Bolivia) to visit an orphanage. All the passengers put in some money and went on a shopping spree to buy gifts for the 36 children living at the orphanage. So Christmas morning we clambered into Jack, (we had another group with us who had bought gifts too), and drove round to the orphanage. We were a bit apprehensive about what we would find. We had been joking about how funny it would be to get there and find all the kids had iPods and MP3 players....but the reality couldn't have been any further from the truth.
We were invited into the front room of the orphanage, which looked a little like an old school room, it had bare floorboards, peeling paint and just wooden benches to sit on, but it
had been decorated in the Christmas Spirit and there was christmas music playing.
After a few formalities, we got on with the gift giving. We had individually labeled presents for all the kids, according to their age and sex. They were mostly boys and aged from 6 to 18 years. Well, you should have seen their faces, the biggest smiles I have ever seen. They would come up to get their presents all shy and then when they turned around to go back to their seats their faces were just all smiles. Once the individual presents had all be distributed, then there were also general presents and group presents, so plenty for everyone.
Once all the gift giving had been completed, Dora, the lady who runs the orphanage said a few words of thanks. Not many of us can understand Spanish that well, but it didn't take too much to work out what she was saying. It was a very emotional and heartfelt speech of gratitude. Chris, from Minuteman, then translated for us and there were not many dry eyes at the end of it all. Dora, wanted to thank us all for what we had done, and
wanted us to know that it was the first time anything like this had happened, and how very grateful she was.
We then went for a tour of the orphanage, and although adequate it was definitely not luxurious. Broken windows, broken and exposed floor boards, up to 8 children to one room, a dining hall without lighting and only two tables for 36 children. A small concrete area for playing in. I could go on and on....but you know, the best thing about it was that the kids were happy, no whinging and crying, just happiness and laughter, friendliness and affection.
After the visit to the orphanage Scott took some of the kids for a ride in Jack around Uyuni, what fun they had, sitting up so high, it must have felt like they were on top of the world. We have a great picture of Scott in the cab of Jack with about 8 little kids crammed in with him. It was hilarious!
And then we headed back to Minuteman, where we had a bit of rest time before our wonderful Christmas Lunch. Chris spent hours preparing a fabulous traditional lunch for us all, not to
mention the fantastic barbeque we had the evening before. We were treated to roast turkey with stuffing, roast vegetables, gravy and all the other trimmings. And to top it all off we had fabulous christmas pudding made by Chris. It was certainly a christmas to be remember by all. I want to say a big thank you to Chris and Sussy for their hospitality and all their wonderful food.
So the rest of the day we just had to lie around and do nothing, too much food!
From Uyuni we headed south some more into Argentina.
Stay tuned for the next instalment....
Kylie and Scott
NB: A quick note about the photos on our blog - they are not all necessarily our own as I have a bad habit of losing cameras. A big thank you to everyone who allowed me to copy their photos.
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