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Published: April 22nd 2008
Would you like salt with that?
Tim standing on the world´s largest salt flat. You could almost feel your heart giving up in protest.Hi everyone!
How are you all going? Sorry about the gap between blog entries....but the truth is Tim and I have been spending way too much time getting high to worry about anything as mundane as blogs.
Ok, that was a really bad attempt at a joke.....for all you people with sinful minds, I am referring to altitude rather than mind altering substances. We have spent the last few weeks in the highlands of Bolivia and Peru, gasping for breath and cursing all people who think it is a good idea to live about sea level.
First stop in Bolivia was a tour of the desert and the salt flats. We visited Salar de Uyuni, the biggest salt lake in the world, and it was incredible - salt salt salt as far as the eye could see! Need some salt on your dinner? Not a problem, just break some off your chair/table/bed in your salt hotel, where everything is made of salt! Other highlights included seeing flamingos, huge geysers and getting to the massive height of 4900m. Luckily we were sitting in a 4WD at the time which gave us plenty of spare breath to complain about our altitude
A whole lot of hot air
No, its not your boss, its a big geyser on our tour of the salt flats. headaches.
From there we took a break from the highlands to visit the Amazon Basin and the National Park Madidi in the north of Bolivia. This was an incredible experience, although unfortunately our camera broke down and we don´t have any photos to prove we were there. However, we did get to see heaps of monkeys, birds, tucans, piranhas and caymans (alligators). A big highlight was swimming with river dolphins which are extremely ugly but love to come and nibble on your feet. The other most common sight was Israeli tourists, but luckily you could mostly hear them coming so you could get out of the way of their rampaging hordes.
Back in La Paz we zoomed down the world´s most dangerous road on mountain bikes (surviving the experience in tact) before heading off to Lake Titicaca. This was another great experience with all the lake you could ever wish for right at your finger tips. We did a two day hike to Isla del Sol, the home of Incan mythology, and ate a lot of trout caught straight from the lake. We also visited the Peru side of the lake where the local people make floating islands
Thats a whole lot of lake
Lake Titicaca and Isla del Sol, the home of Incan mythology and the most torturous set of stairs I have ever climbed from dried reeds.
We then moved on to Cusco to prepare for our next big hike, the world famous Inca trails, which is a 4 day hike to the Inca city of Machu Picchu. The hike itself was really good - there were lots of big hills (including a pass of 4200m) and lots of big downhills, but luckily our tour group had an army of porters to carry everything you could ever wish for (it is embarrassing to admit, but we needed 21 porters to carry gear for 15 gringos....) Arriving at Machu Picchu on the 4th day was fantastic - it is an amazing place, built entirely of stone and located right in the heart of the mountains and the jungle. The scenery around the city is amazing and worth every minute of the hike.
Thats about it for now. We are spending the next few weeks in Cusco where Tim is doing spanish classes and I am doing some volunteer work. Hope everyone is going really well and enjoying life!
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