Category: Bolivia

South America Trip Day 19: Green Lagoon Bolivia and Entering Chile, San Pedro de Atacama

Day 19: Green lagoon and entering Chile

6:30 am early breakfast to leave for a short morning program before we were getting dropped at the border with Chile to enter San Pedro de Atacama.

First stop at 8 AM, dale desert. Here there are fresh water lagoons in the mountains, with lot of minerals in the mountains. The volcanic rocks piled up looks like it is a few hundred meters away, but in reality it is over two kilometers.

South America Trip Day 17-18: Uyuni and the Salt Flats

Day 17: Uyuni salt flats

Early in the morning we headed to the office of our tour operator. After a short walk we met our tour guide for the the trip, Bismath. Bismath took us to the first stop; a train cemetery, with lot of former gold mine trains from the 1930s. Bismath explained about the rich minerals Bolivia had in its grounds and how the rail was created for the rich to go to Sucre, the capital if Bolivia. The tracks go through the desert but in June/July it is -35 degrees the track froze with a lot of accidents with trains. The graveyard was great for some shoots.

After that we stopped at a small refinery, since the area has more enough salt for 5,000 years. He explained how salt is refined step by step. After that it was a tourist stop for souvenirs in the little town.

South America Trip Day 16: La Paz, Bolivia

Woke up early to do the free walking tour of La Paz. The tour started at San Pedro square, located near it is a prison. It is a very unique prison, used to be a monastery for nuns, then a torture chamber, then a prison with a capacity of 400 people and now even over 2,000! Wifes and kids are also allowed to go in whenever they want. Kids walk in and out as well, with a school next to it. It is a very open prison, with just 10 guards the prison is running itself, a la prison break season 3! It has its own ecosystem, renting your own cell block, divided in poor and even richer areas which you pay 1,000 USD per month with hot tub and cable tv! The poor ones 5 USD per month with urinated mattresses and shared with 4 others. The prison also produces cocaine, with labs in the walls to deal it. They can easily smuggle cocoa leaves, gasoline etc in. And corrupt cops make it possible to distribute it in the outside world. They also used to put it in dirty diapers etc to get it outside. The book marching powder is written about the prison. Prison tours are not allowed anymore, so if someone offers you a tour it is a scam.

South America Trip Day 15: Puno, Lake Titikaka, Copacobana and La Paz

Around 5:00 AM we arrived in Puno, our last short stop in Peru before entering Bolivia with the Bolivia hop. Next country of our trip!

5:20 AM the lights of the bus went on to wake us up for a 9 soles breakfast with over salty scrambled eggs, some kind of juice and breads with jam playing hallelujah and titanic in pan flute on the background. Luckily Alfonso was also in the bus with his Slovenian friends to make it fun!

Right after breakfast we went for a two hour boat tour to Lake Titikaka. This lake is the highest navigated lake in the world, namely 3,806 meters high. Puno is the 8th city of the country, with 200,000 inhabitants. The lake has a lot of minerals and boarders between Peru and Bolivia, which causes some political friction between the two nations.

Back online!

After our long honey moon and a site malfunction, we finally got the site back online! Fear not, new content will follow soon, focused on our South America adventure in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil!

Just a picture of us getting married in the Aachener Dom, a Unesco world heritage sight 😉

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