La Paz

We arrived in La Paz once again this morning, after taking an all-night bus ride from Uyuni. We found a hotel with a reliable hot shower (very rare here, but VERY appreciated since we hadn´t found one in over a week,) and settled in for a few days here.

The city is huge, over 2 million people crowded into a little valley. And the city is just on crack. There are people everywhere, and the roads are so crowded with taxis and trufis (these little vans that crowd 20 people into them) that we saw several cars crash into each other today. I´m not sure what the insurance situation is around here, but I don´t think it means anything to anyone. We saw several smashed headlights and taillights and didn´t see anyone stop to check it out.

We went to the "witch´s market" this afternoon, which is pretty creepy. It´s not something for tourists, but for the superstitious indigenous people. We saw shriveled old ladies grinding curious yellow rocks into powder on newspapers, and there are llama fetuses hanging all over the place. They use the llama fetuses as sacrifices, if they cannot afford to sacrifice a living llama. And there were just weird candles, shells, rocks, powders and just anything you could imagine for black magic.

We spent the past 4 days on the road, in a big 4x4 Toyota. We left out of Uyuni, and the first day were on salt flats. It is a very bizarre world, the salt flats. Just pure white: as far as you can see and as far as you can drive. And it is pure salt. They harvest it by piling it into big mounds (maybe up to my shoulders) and letting it dry out, then just raking it up and putting it into bags to send all over the country. They have the world´s biggest salt flats, but they do not export any of it. It all stays within the country.

We had one stop at an "island," which is truly an island. It´s a big piece of rock that is just covered in cactus. And then just salt again, at the base. We took optical illusion pictures on the flats, since it´s just so flat and identical for so long. You have one person walk a distance away, and the other person stay closer to the camera. And the closer one holds out their hand, like they´re holding a tiny little friend in their hand. We took pictures like that, and with other objects. So in one, Travis is jumping out of his handbag and in another, I´m leaning against my nalgene water bottle. They are very, very cool and I can´t wait for everyone to see them.

The next day, we saw tons of lagoons. Because the landscape is so volcanic and active, the lagoons are kept warm by the tubes of magma running underneath them (I´m guessing, from all my geology courses. Finally they came to good use!) since the water is warm enough above 13,000 feet to host flamingos and enough shrimp to feed them. But the lagoons have tons of flamingos in them! It was so crazy to see these bright pink flamingos picking their way around the blue-green water. They make muffled, honking noises and seem to just chat with each other. There are 6 kinds of flamingos in the world, and we saw 3 of them throughout the lagoons. Our guide said they usually migrate, and the ones we saw were either "lazy or brave." I´m glad they were there, so we could see them.

We stayed at a compound on the Colorado Lagoon National Park that night, and it was incredibly cold. I got hit with altitude sickness that day, as we were actually higher than the highest point of our Salcantay Trek.

We woke up very early the next day, and drove to active geysers a little above 16,000 feet in altitude. It is a very eerie thing to watch an active volcano bubble and burp right next to your feet. We took pictures and a few videos, so everyone else can hear them. They were some of the coolest things I´ve ever seen. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, as we just saw more lagoons and drove the rest of the way to Uyuni.

We saw (and herded with our car) tons of herds of llamas. Once a year, the owners of the llamas will tie hot pink and other fluorescent colors of yarn and string into the llamas fur and especially tassels on their ears to celebrate, essentially, their birthdays. And the babies get big bows around their necks. It is the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life, and I fully intend to try to put yarn on Gus when we get home. I find I just love everything about llamas. Their funny faces, fluffy bums, odd body shapes and all their colored strings... feliz cumplianos, llamas! And they are even tidy with their potties... they all poo in one communal mound, so that it´s not just all over the place. We also saw hundreds of wild llamas, called vicunas. They´re a much leaner, and less fluffy type. They kind of look like a antelope, with llama-proportions.

We also saw viscatchas, which are closest to a rabbit, but have long tails that curl up in a fluffy tuff at the end. Their whiskers are half as long as their bodies, and are pretty hard to find. We saw one at Machu Pichu, and then one on the drive.

Upon arriving to Uyuni that night, I got hit with altitude sickness so hard I was throwing up, and can honestly say it´s comparable to when my wisdom teeth were out. It´s probably one of the sickest times I´ve ever had, and am still incredibly woozy and queasy 24 hours later. We´re still about 13,000´though, so it´s understandable. Lots of nose bleeds, headaches, loss of appetite and just really queasy. I guess we´re going to a ski resort and the "valley of the moon" tomorrow, which will pull us incredibly high again. I only have one altitude pill left, I hope I make it. I slept more than 9 hours today, just trying to recover. All I can say, is I´m glad it didn´t happen on the trek. At least I can take naps here. Travis hasn´t been effected by it yet, although he said he felt a little light-headed when we were above 16,000 feet. (Just to give you a reference, a girl in our car´s lighter wouldn´t light at about 13,000 feet, because there isn´t enough oxygen in the air.)

The over-night bus ride back to La Paz was just horrific, and was as four-wheel as the days before. Washboard roads, and the big two-leveled buses, called floatas, just sway back and forth. It was miserable, to be sick and have to ride on the thing. And it was incredibly cold. INCREDIBLY cold.

Today is the 28th, and is when we should have been arriving back in the states. Luckily, we were reprieved and get to stay a few more days. However, as amazing as this trip has been, I will be very grateful to walk through my front door again. And be able to drink the water from my tap, and have consistent hot showers. And have more than 3 shirts to wear.