sola en bolivia: unabashed tourism + 198 años

first some final pictures from the farm: French chicos with the goat skin they plan to make into clothing, me with the goat I finally managed to milk, the "greenhouse" with trees in different stages of.. transplantation? (english whaaat..), baby chicks!




After leaving Salta last Tuesday, I had to stop somewhere for the night due to the unfortunate combination of bus/train/border schedules, so I stopped in Humahuaca, a fairly small, fairly touristy town at the north end of the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a gorgeous desert-y valley with some crazy rock formations and multi-colored hills. I walked around and explored a bit in the morning, watched the town wake up and checked out the view of the hills, and then caught a bus to La Quiaca at the border. It was a pretty crazy scene; aside from all the usual border traffic, there was a whole seperate bridge that was just used by people carrying goods across on their backs, most of them bent double from the weight. After all the stress about getting in to Bolivia, the actual border crossing couldn't have been easier; the guy who stamped my passport actually shook my hand and gave me a big smile and a "bienvenidos a Bolivia!" On the Bolivia side of the border was Villazon, where you could definitely see the mixing of Argentine and Bolivian cultures and faces.. also the strong tourist presence; the street pretty much all the way to the train station was lined with stores selling all kinds of woven goods, sunglasses, llama bags, etc.
I caught the train to Uyuni from Villazon (pretty scenery, challenging temperatures, multiple american movies), arrived in the middle of the night, and found a place to crash with another sola chica (from New Zealand). In the morning I headed out to booka trip into the Salar and ended up hooking up with some other people trying to get a big enough group together.. so that worked out well and we left around noon that day. Having accepted that the whole tour was just a blatantly touristy experience, I had still been sort of hoping that I might end up with non-English-speaking tourists.. not the case, but it turned out to be a great group anyway. Emily and Tristan from Australia, Charlotte from New Zealand and Justin from California, and Christian from France (by way of Buenos Aires). Everyone was 20-soemthing which made me the baby, but we all had a lot of fun together.. and Justin and Christian actually spoke some Spanish too, so we practiced a bit with our awesome driver/guide Franz (who spoke no English) and it worked out fine.
The tour (in a 4x4 with our bags strapped to the roof) started in the Salar de Uyuni, a giant lake covered in a crust of salt thick enough to support the weight of many cars, and then continued into a big national park that covers the southwest corner of Bolivia. Generally crazy surreal landscapes and lots of amazing sights, too much to write abotu all of it but I'll put some pictures and list the highlights: the whole salar, realllly old cacti, herds of llama and vacuña, weird colored lakes with flamingos, waking up before dawn and seeing the southern cross and the sky reflected in the lake, the craziest geysers/bubby volcanic pools, weird lava rock formations, hot springs... talking to Franz about Bolivian politics, listening to Jimi Hendrix while driving across the desert, needing all the warm clothes I bought in Villazon
Back in Uyuni I decided to take the overnight bus to Potosi; sprang for the slightly more expensive ticket (yeah parents) so there weren't any problems except for when we stopped at a.. rest stop? and needed to change a tire too.. but that was cool cause while we were waiting these guys came through leading a heard of HUGE bulls (at like 11 at night). weird. Yesterday morning in Potosi I had a bit of trouble finding residenciales with space, so when I finally got a room I asked if something special was going on.. and the lady laughed at me and said it was only THE day of Potosi, 10 de Noviembre is the anniversary of the city/department's indpendence and to celebrate Evo Morales was coming to Potosi that day. Whaaat! So my first couple days here haven't included any usual tourist activity, as everything is closed, but the anniversary celebrations have been awesome: little parade yesterday with crazy costumes and bad marching band, huge rally in the Campo Marte and Evo Morale's speech, music and dancing in the Campo last night, huge parade with all the police and military (much better marching bands) and then indigenous people from all different parts of the department w/music and dancing. The people watching has been amazing, I haven't eaten in a restaurant since I crossed the border (street/market food highlights: llama meat, cow heart grilled w/potatoes, delicious sweet hot syrupy api drink, frsh squeezed orange juice, fresh sliced pineapple, every kind of ice cream), and so far the biggest problem w/altitude (Potosi is the highest city in the world, and I think we were actually higher on the tour, at like 4700 meters) has been breathing/walking slower.
Tomorrow I'm doing the tourist stuff (tour of the mines, museum) and then on to Sucre!

Monton de fotos:
bienvenidos a bolivia!, train view, llama herd, people gathering salt on the edge of the salar





me on island w/cacti in the middle of salar, on top of crazy rocks by a volcano, by the laguna colorada (flamingos!), group picture w/Franza and car by laguna verde





parade dancing, cerro rico (where all the mines are) from the street, rally & EVO, in this picture there is a tame monkey, indigenous dancing, and bouncy castles