Monday, November 28
Angosto del Parani to Jujuy, Argentina
The Long and Bumpy Road Back

Woke up in the dark at 5 am to get ready and pack up to leave.  One of the women insisted on making us breakfast, which had up until that point consisted of bread and tea.  On this particular occasion, however, she went the extra mile to roast us some sheep's meat as well!  We were on the road at 6:30, with 10 people in the car: Dave, Nancy, us and the two girls in the cab, and Tiburcio with three locals who were hitching to Oran riding in the truck bed.  On the drive home we stopped at an Indian reservation on the outskirts of a small town to visit a friend of Dave's dad (who had been a missionary in the area before retiring).  The friend had passed away about 9 months before, though.  We also passed through a town to ask an older woman if she would cook at the camp again that season.

When we got back to Jujuy it was so great to be able to eat not-fatty-beef food and take a shower and put on clean clothes!  We went back into town later to buy some bus tickets, use the Internet, and enjoy some food and drink at Zorba's Greek Bar.

Sunday, November 27
Angosto del Parani
Church, Church, and More Church

We slept through the 7 o'clock devotionals, and were just starting to get up when some of the village kids burst into the room to tell us to come to breakfast.  The adults had another service, and when they were done we had another lesson with the kids.  We had another movie about Paul, only this one was really poor quality.  Lunch was not memorable, another dish of fatty beef and potatoes and soup of fatty beef and broth.  After "siesta"--almost everyone stuck around the church--the adults had service #3 of the day.  The Argentine girls had told the kids to come back for another lesson at 4 o'clock, but apparently weren't too concerned with actually doing it.  To get them up from their mattresses, it took the kids starting to congregate in our doorway and Nancy coming to inquire politely whether they had anything planned.  The adults were still using the chapel for their service, so we just did a quick lesson behind one of the buildings and then goofed around.  It surprised us to see how much time the kids spent rolling around on the ground, regardless of mud puddles and ubiquitous piles of sheep dung.  The girls were a bit less rough than the boys, many of them standing around talking.  Some of them asked if Jennifer and Shelly were "portenas" from Buenos Aires, since they noticed that we spoke differently.  They had never heard English before, so we sang them a few children's songs, much to their open-mouthed fascination.  Several of us went for an afternoon walk to either end of the road that the church was on, then the two of us had to continue entertaining the kids while Claudia and Elena retreated to the room, and the adults carried on with their marathon service.  At one point, a 9-year-old girl asked Jennifer, "Are you Catholic or Evangelical?" and then immediately, "Are you a fan of River or Boca?" (the biggest football rivals of the country).  Not sure what that says more about--the importance of football or the lack of importance of religion here.  During the afternoon, an older woman stopped Shelly to greet and talk with her.  Upon learning that she was from the US, she became rather excited and told Shelly that she "must greet the Christians there!"  We had to smile at the idea.

We ate dinner in the dark--fatty beef and rice--and then had yet another service.  Tiburcio was speaking about family or something, we really couldn't understand him, but only went to get away from the omnipresent kids.  There was another movie that they started at 10, but we left about half-way through to go to bed before our early morning.

Saturday, November 26
Angosto del Parani, Argentina
Angosto del Parani

Breakfast was tea and bread again.  The 4 girls walked around the town to invite the children to see a movie at the church.  The proper way to call at a house here, and throughout much of non-urban Argentina, is to stand outside the gate and clap your hands a few times.  It took us about an hour to cover all the houses in the village in this way.  The movie, shown on equipment that had been brought with us from Jujuy, was a Hana-Barbera version of Noah's Ark, dubbed in Spanish.  The two Argentine girls did a little Bible lesson afterwards for the 45 kids, while we helped out.  After a lunch of lots of empanadas and soup, and siesta, we worked on preparing crafts for the afternoon lesson.  We made 50, but only 25 children showed up.  When the lesson was over, we took turns showering in the small bathhouse behind the church.  It was the only shower we got the whole time we were there.

We visitors ate our dinner of dry stew and soup in the kitchen, which although it was outdoors under just a roof, was very cozy and warm due to the open fireplace at one end, the mud oven at the other, and the assortment of kitchen things, food, and family members and pets within.  There was a family service at the church after dinner, with a sermon and a movie about Paul.  They cut the generator immediately after the service at about 11, so that was bedtime.

Friday, November 25
Jujuy to Angosto del Parani, Argentina
Wisiting the Willage

Dave had a doctor's appointment in the morning, which pushed back our start time a bit.  We finally got on the road around 12:15, making our first stop in nearby Palpala to pick up three people who would be coming with us: Claudia and Elena were about 25 years old and both studying to be teachers.  They came along to help lead the children's Bible school.  Also Tiburcio, a 74-year-old man whose role on the trip was unclear except to speak mumbled Spanish and give awkward hugs at random moments.  So we four girls rode in the covered bed in the back of the truck.  After about three and a half hours, we got to Oran, a city in the province of Salta, where we picked up a person from the city we were going to.  We stopped at the market and then got back on the road.  From Oran we had to leave the paved road and follow an unpaved route that got progressively worse as we went.  It took us through (not over; no bridges) at least half a dozen streams and rivers of varying depth, and through even more dry river beds.  We finally arrived to Angosto del Parani around 9 pm, very tired and, for those who had been sitting in the back with the windows open for air, very dusty.  Someone turned on the generator for a few minutes so we could see our way around and get settled.  We four girls set up our mattresses on the floor in a room near the church and then were invited to have some tea and bread before going to sleep.  Our sleep was slightly troubled that night due to an extremely large moth, bigger than our hands, that flew around our heads and periodically landed on our beds throughout the night.  As there was no way of getting it in the pitch dark, we just had to spend the night completely under the covers.

Thursday, November 24
S.S. de Jujuy, Argentina
A Blast from Jennifer's Past

It was a warm night but we both slept really well in our separate bedrooms.  We ate our cereal and were going to go to the grocery store with Nancy, but she wound up taking an hour-long phone call from some slightly neruotic friend of hers.  So we got ready for the day and chatted with Dave for a bit before Nancy was ready to go run errands.  We helped prepare a meal that was almost as good as a Thanksgiving one, and at the end of the meal, their phone rang with a call from our parents!  The connection was very poor, so we called them back from the computer - Dave hads a program that allows him to call the US for 1.1 cents/minute.  We talked to Mom, Dad, and Grandma for a while and also got to call the boys later.

Next, the 4 of us along with Clyde, their German Shepherd, hopped in Dave's truck and drove up the road to their camp.  A lot of changes had been made since Jennifer was there almost 5 years before: they had installed a washing station in the eating area, a stove in the kitchen, and a bread/pizza oven--all to work when the gas lines arrive next year.  They'd re-roofed and plastered the outside walls of a few buildings, re-done the bathrooms, and put a fancy new refrigerator in the camp store.  Nancy was especially proud of some of the new trees and plants they had added to the landscape.  They will begin re-building the chapel sometime in the near future, since they have outgrown the old one.

Later in the afternoon, the two of us went back into town to look for a birthday present for Nancy and a thank-you gift for letting us stay with them.  We were successful on both counts.  Ate some dinner and ice cream (again), and returned to the house to relax and sleep.

Wednesday, November 23
Tupiza, Bolivia, to S.S. de Jujuy, Argentina
Familiar Faces and Home-cooked Meals

Another early morning, our alarm going off at 3:00.  We walked to the bus station past snarling dogs and got on the bus for Villazon at 4.  We arrived at the border town a chilly two hours later, and walked across the border to La Quiaca, Argentina.  At the bus station, we were swarmed with people trying to sell us passages to various destinations.  We got our tickets and went to get breakfast.  At the cafeteria, no one was in the kitchen yet at 7:45, so we got drinks and the girl at the counter let us eat our own food - crackers and peanut butter.  We called Dave and Nancy, missionaries in Jujuy, to let them know our bus info, and took our bus to San Salvador de Jujuy at 8:45.  The 5-hour ride on the paved road (!) included 3 stops at police checkpoints, at 2 of which we had to get off the bus and show our passports.

Our bus got into Jujuy half an hour late.  Dave and Nancy were waiting for us there.  We made a stop at an ATM because we only had 5 pesos left from our changed bolivianos, then went back to their house.  Nancy prepared a yummy homemade lunch for us.  We got cleaned up and settled in, and headed into town.  While we were waiting for a remis, two girls asked if we wanted to share a cab to downtown, so we did.  We had to find change for our small bills in order to split the fare evenly, so we went to a few different kiosks to get it once we arrived.  It was a pleasant trip into town, since they were very friendly.  We had several errands to take care of in town, like buying snacks and meds for Shelly's indigestion, using Internet, and making reservations for Christmas in Rio.  We ate dinner at a fantastic Greek-American style cafe called Zorba's Greekbar.  It was a very pleasant change to have waitstaff who could intelligibly answer questions and for whom setting a table was not overly challenging.  We encountered the opposite far too often in Bolivia...  We wandered the main drag briefly before getting some ice cream and heading back to the house.  Business for the evening was reading within the comfort of a real house, and going to bed at a reasonable hour.

Tuesday, November 22
Tupiza, Bolivia
So Much Better Than Working

After breakfast at the hotel we took care of buying bus tickets for the following morning, and buying water and snacks for the day's adventure.  We had heard about the great landscapes around Tupiza and figured that riding horses for a day would be an adventurous/fun way to check it out.  So we decided to go with the 5 hour option, vs. 3 or 7.  At 10:00 we met Jose who would be our horseback riding guide for the day (along with his little friend whose name we never caught, but who probably should have been in school).  Our horses were, as promised, "tranquilos."   They did not respond particularly well to commands given by the rider though, preferring to follow the horses in front, even if that meant ignoring kicks in the side or pulls on the reins.  The sights were mostly canyons and interesting rock formations with beautiful mountain backdrops.  Shelly's mean thought of the day while riding was, "this is so much better than working!"  It was just the 2 of us with the guides, so we got to stop whenever we wanted and (mostly) go our own pace.  We experimented a bit in the beginning with an occasional canter, which later progressed into lots of cantering with spurts of running.  Made for some bruised bums and sore muscles the next day(s).

After the ride we relaxed and got cleaned up before a woman came to our hotel room to give us both massages.  It was really nice, but not nearly as long as we had been told.  Still, it worked out to be about 40 minutes for less than US$4!  We went out to dinner and finally found an Internet place with a free computer, then packed up and went to bed.

Monday, November 21
Tupiza, Bolivia
In the Land of the Sundance Kid

Woke up at 1:50am to go and catch our 2:50 train for Tupiza.  It was a really good thing that we'd bought our tickets the night before, because when we got to the station that night, they were sold out.  The "1st class" car on our train was mostly tourists.  At 6:30 in the morning, they turned on the TV and started showing a movie, some B-class affair about the G-8 Summit.  Second worst movie I've ever seen after "Cabin Boy."  The train arrived in Tupiza right on time at 8:30.  A guy from our hotel was there to meet us, and walked the few blocks to the hotel to show us the way.  It was quite a warm day, our first after weeks in the altiplano.  We chose a quiet room back from the noise of the street and settled in after eating breakfast downstairs.

We went to lunch at an almuerzo place with atypically slow and incompetent service.  In the afternoon we hiked up a pilgrimage trail to the city's mirador.  There was a statue of the Chirst and a large amount of graffitti, as well as a nice view of the area.  On the way up we saw a political rally for one of the presidential candidates, Tuto.  A sharp-looking woman waas getting a lot of attention as she was leaving the festive gathering, and someone told us that she was the former vice-president of Bolivia.  Later we took a combi (along with, among others, an indigenous woman and her huge blanketful of weeds) to the next town up, Palala Baja.  We weren't really sure why anyone had recommended that we go there, but it at least made for a nice walk back.

We tried to use the Internet in the evening, but every cafe we looked into was completely full of pre-pubescent boys playing shoot-em-up computer games.  Faintly disturbing and depressing.  Ate dinner at a restaurant that had a lot of potential but that unfortunately used false advertising to lure us in.  They had only about half the items listed on the menu, and a rather unimaginative waitress.  Not unusual, though.  Went back to our hotel (which was the best place we'd stayed in yet--clean, cute, AND friendly!) and watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on the TV in the lobby/dining room.  The famous outlaws met their abrupt end in the relatively nearby town of San Vicente, and the area seems to be proud to have been part of that story.  Many hotels own a copy of the film, and several local tours explore the places they lived and worked.  After the movie, we went to bed.  Sadly, without Monday Night Football, in spite of having ESPN+.

Writing from home!  It's nice to be back among family and friends, though I'm already missing the sun...  Hope I don't have to wait until April for it to come out again. 

Sunday, November 20
Uyuni, Bolivia
Goodbye Pizza

Slept in as late as we could without missing breakfast, Meal #4 at Minuteman Pizza.  Mmm... pancakes with peanut butter and maple syrup!  (The PB was self-provided.)  We killed time wandering through the market, eating ice cream, etc.  Ate lunch at a nondescript restaurant where we overheard some tourists wondering about some alleged amazing pizza place they'd been told of by previous visitors.  We felt it our duty to point them in the direction of said locale.  Used Internet and then went to mass.  We got to the church about 1/2 an hour before the service actually started and were afraid for a bit that we would be the only people at the service, but plenty more people finally trickled in.  The service was okay--the music was definitely better than the off-key group at Nazca's mass.  Then we partook in our 5th and final meal at our favorite restaurant.  Packed up our gear and went to sleep early.

Random Salar Ramblings

Carlos, our guide/driver, was much better at driving than at guiding.  He would usually stop the jeep at a given site, say 1-2 sentences about it, and then hang out with the other jeep drivers.  In the evenings, he'd disappear completely for several hours.  We have no idea where he possibly could have gone in the tiny little villages where we stayed.
Olivia, our cook, had done only 1 other trip before, and seemed a little uncomfortable and awkward around us.  We think she was probably instructed to speak slowly and clearly to us, because every time she put a plate of food in front of us, she would say "SIR-VAN-SE"--sounding more like a command than an offer.  It made us giggle.

Saturday, November 19
SW Bolivia
Goodbye Germans

After 10 hours of sleep (for Shelly) and sniffling (for Jennifer) we were greeted with "fahnkuchen," a.k.a. pancakes, for breakfast.  We hit the road around 9 for Uyuni.  The only real site we saw was a large collection of huge rocks that had been eroded into strange-looking shapes such as a man's head or a dog/bear about to eat something.  On the way we traveled along the first paved road in days!  Turns out that some US company was getting into mining in the area and so had paved some of the connecting roads.  They had also relocated the town that was in the way of the mine while they were at it.  Back in Uyuni we rested for a bit, put some pictures on a CD for Philip and Coreen since both of their camera batteries had died, and had juice in the plaza.  Very briefly called our boys since it was 60 cents a minute.  Then, after 4 days of anticipation, we returned to Minuteman Pizza to introduce our German friends to the glorious creations made there.  We happily feasted and then parted ways.  Used the Internet until the train station opened at 11pm (1 hour before that night's train departure), and there bought our tickets for the next night's train to Tupiza.  We went to sleep in (what was to us, after 3 nights in sub-par accomodations) a warm, comfy bed!

Friday, November 18
SW Bolivia
Geysers and the Green Lake

Wake-up temp: 43ºF.  We got up at 4:45 in the dark and drove to the geysers.  The site looked very prehistoric, with holes of bubbling, sputtering mud, and the air filled with thick, stinky vapor.  From the geysers we drove to an area that had hot springs, where we soaked our feet to try and warm up.  Olivia served us breakfast there.  After breakfast we went to the Laguna Verde, It looked more blue than green, but was very picturesque with the mountain behind it reflected on the surface.  Our guide explained to us that the lake was blue while the morning air was still, but that it changed to green when the wind stirred up the minerals in it: copper, sulfur, arsenic, etc.  As we watched, the late morning wind began to blow across the lake, and we could see the color changing from blue to a vivid turquoise green.  It started in the far corner and spread toward us, covering the whole surface in a bout 15 minutes.  Once it had changed completely, we dropped off Klaus and Bianca for their connection to Chile.  We then went back to the red Laguna Colorada for lunch.  At the border of the park there we picked up a strange man from French Guyana.  He had been walking on his way to Argentina from Boliva for about 2 days, but found that a stream he was looking for had dried up.  So he quit and hitched a ride back to Uyuni with us.

We had a leisurely afternoon and drove to the last town on our schedule, Villa Mar (which would have been more aptly named Villa Piedra or Villa Polvo).  Again had to pay 5 bolivianos to take a shower.  Fortunately it was the nicest place of the 3 nights we spent out.  We climbed up some rocks for a vies of the area and wandered into the tiny village, where we felt like a spectacle for the 20 or so townspeople whom we saw.  We shared tea, dinner, and a bottle of red with Phillip and Coreen, and turned in early for a relatively good night's sleep.

Thursday, November 17
SW Bolivia
Car Trouble and Bulls**t

Had a rude awakening around midnight from some guys who were very drunk and barged into the dorm hall, shouting and singing.  They eventually took the party out of the hallway to 2 doors down where they continued to talk loudly and play music.  Shelly finally got so annoyed that she knocked on their door and sternly told them how loud and rude they were being, and to shut up and go to sleep.

Our real day began at 7 with breakfast, where our group was the envy because in addition to the usual bread, we also had yogurt with fruit.  We had way too much, so we shared with some of the other groups, but not with the drunkards.  Our first stop on the road was another, much smaller salar, where we stopped to take pictures.  But we had problems with one of the back tires and it took almost an hour for Carlos and the driver of another car to fix it.  We finally got back on the road, only to stop about 1 km further down the road because of a problem with the front tires--this time both of them.  They lacked grease/oil to fix whatever the problem was, so they dug out our butter to use instead!  Finally back on our way, we saw the active Volcano Ollegue that borders Chile.  There was visible smoke coming from it.  Next we went to a laguna where we saw lots of pink flamingoes.  Apparently they have their pink color from eating red microorganisms in the lake.  It was a very serene lake and we had our lunch there.  Just up the path was the Laguna Hedionda, which also had flamingoes, but reeked of sulphur.  Then we climbed up some rocks to see some viscacha, which is an animal that looks like a rabbit with a long tail, but by the time we climbed up, we were so winded that we just sat.  (We were between 4,000 and 5,000 meters for most of the 4-day tour.  Phew!)  In a very windy and exposed spot up the road, we quickly took pictures of the "Arbol de Piedra," a giant rock that had been eroded by the wind to look like a tree.  Last stop of the day was to the Laguna Colorada that had a dark red hue to it.

Our accommodations for the night were rustic at best.  4 groups shared the place for the night (apx. 24 people plus guides and cooks).  There were shared rooms with mattresses 1-2" thick.  Just thick enough to be able to feel every bar in the bed frame.  There were 2 toilets and no shower or running water at all.  Just a few large barrels of standing water, there for the purpose of dipping in a plastic carton to draw water to flush the toilet, etc.  The six of us in our group had a great pre-dinner game of "Bullshit."  Probably the best, most entertaining part about playing was trying to explain to the Germans the contexts in which one would use the phrase "bullshit," vs. plain old "shit," etc.  We all turned in early, around 9pm, in our shared room because it was getting cold and the electricity only ran until 9:30 anyway.  Tuck-in temperature: 49ºF.

Wednesday, November 16
Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
Lots of Salt, and Some Germans Too

Our tour wasn't going to leave until 10:30 am, so we went back to the Pizza place for an breakfast that was equally delicious as the previous night's dinner, stopped by the market to pick up snacks, and checked out of the hotel.  Our Jeep-mates for the trip were 2 German couples: Phillip and Coreen (both about 20 years) and Klaus and Bianca (both about 30).  We all hit it off right away and headed out for the Salar de Uyuni with our guide Carlos and our cook Olivia in our red Toyota Land Cruiser.  The salar is a giant, dried-up salt lake that is now a salt flat.  In some places it is 10m deep.  It is a vast expanse of barren, white, nothingness.  We first stopped in the town of Colchani, right on the edge of the salar, where they extract and process the salt.  They sold artesania made out of salt, and cactus as well.  It was a good thing we had sunglasses because once we got to the salar and were driving across it, the whiteness of the salt was almost blinding.

A little way into the salar is a tourist hotel made entirely of salt: the walls are salt, the beds are just mattresses resting on blocks of salt, the tables and chairs are salt--very interesting, but not exactly luxurious.  In the middle of the salar is a volcanic island covered in cactus, called Isla del Pescado, where there were great 360º views from the top.  We ate lunch there also.  After lunch we went directly to San Juan where we would stay the night.  We had some free time to visit a pre-Inca cemetery (creepy! lots of skeletons!) and a museum.  The "guard" of the cemetery was very friendly and excited to tell us about the area and its history and culture.  The museum was mainly exhibits of objects that had been removed from the cemetery.  The girl working there gave us a tract after we had asked her a question about the town.

W were served tea in the dining room of our "alojamiento" that we shared with 4 other groups.  But our dinner wound up being served last--we got angry about this because we had been sitting at the table where our tea had been set, when a woman came and set out dinner dishes and soup before she finally realized that we were not the right group.  So we had to move and still wait 15-20 minutes more for our food.  Such a tease!  We all went to sleep when the lights went off at 9:30.

Tuesday, November 15
Uyuni, Bolivia
Pizza with an Altitude

The overnight bus was the nicest we'd taken yet on the trip.  We both managed to sleep much of the 10-hour journey.  Got in to Uyuni just before 8, went to our hotel and checked in.  Showered, dropped off our laundry, and went to breakfast.  We ate outside in the main plaza, where we ended up spending a lot of the day.  Went to two tour agencies to see about trips to the Salar de Uyuni, a giant salt flat.  Discovered that going on a trip that left us in Tupiza, our next destination town, would cost us each nearly US$50 extra, so decided against going with that route.  There were some problems with the trains, so it looked like we might end up having to use a less-than-comfortable other mode of transport if they didn't clear up by the time we needed to head south.

Ate lunch, did some number crunching, and went back to wait for our chosen tour agency to re-open after the lunch break.  It ended up being 3:20 by the time their "2:30" return rolled around.  We booked our tour of the Salar de Uyuni for 4 days, $75 each including renting sleeping bags.  Spent most of the rest of the sunny afternoon sipping drinks and playing cards in the square.  We were pleased to observe the lack of street children, obnoxious hawkers, beggars, etc.  Plenty of adorable school children, though!  We went back to our room to wait for laundry to be ready and played a rousing game of War.  Dinner was at a fabulous place called Minuteman Pizza, run by a guy from MA.  Had fabulous nachos and pizza, and the pizza even had sauce!  A first for us on this continent.  God bless the USA.  Used Internet "profuciously," repacked our stuff for our tour into one bag, and went to bed.

Monday, November 14
La Paz, Bolivia
Bus Strike

Had a very busy morning preparing to leave La Paz, including: prepping/eating breakfast, showering, buying lunch, trying to call a health clinic (wrong number), using an ATM, finishing packing, getting Jennifer a yellow fever shot in case she needed it to get back into Brazil, and getting to the bus terminal before 10:00.  Our goal was to take a 10:30 bus, but we got really confused by the directions given to us at the ticket window as to how we would accomplish this goal.  We finally deciphered that we were to go out to where the bus would leave and buy our tickets there, leaving us to wonder about the purpose of having a ticket window in the first place.  In our attempt to find where the bus was stationed, we learned from a municipal police officer that NO buses would be leaving the station that day, or at least until after 4pm.  (We needed to be in Oruro by 5 at the latest.)  Seeking further information/clarification, we asked the helpful woman at the info desk.  She advised us either to wait or come back the next day.  We asked about going up to El Alto, the suburb just above La Paz, but she told us that that option was by no means safe for tourists.  Instead she directed us across the street to a company called Todo Turismo that had an overnight bus to Uyuni.  Since we would miss our chance to buy our train tickets to there from Oruro, we figured that would be fine.  We found the office with a very helpful and professional staff, and purchased the last 2 seats on the bus leaving at 9pm that night.

We were able to leave our packs at that office, so we set off with 9+ hours to kill.  First we walked to the market area and bought some handmade scarves and a hat for Shelly.  Then we ate our lunch, which we had bought to-go that morning for our bus ride, on a bench in the Plaza del Estudiante.  Used the Internet for a bit while it rained and went for tea at Cafe Alexander.  We were going to watch another movie, Corpse Bride, but decided against doing so when we realized it would be dubbed in Spanish.  Instead we went to a modern art museum, sent a fax to a hostel in Rio, and bought and mailed a card to Aunt Marilyn.  We planned to eat our dinner at the same bar we'd visited 2 nights previous, but it was still closed when we got there.  So we waited on a doorstep down the street for 15 minutes until it opened.  Had a good dinner, used an ATM, and caught our bus.

Sunday, November 13
La Paz, Bolivia
The Zoo, the Moon, and the NFL

Rudely awoken again, this time by our flat-footed neighbors upstairs stomping around.  Had a fabulous breakfast at our new favorite cafe, Alexander.  Caught a bus all the way down to the zoo south of the city.  It seemed that most of the indigenous families from the city had done the same, making a day of it with picnics and all, many of them in their best dress.  We took our bland lunch in a small restaurant on the road back up.  Went to Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon), an area that has been eroded by the wind into strange towering formations.  Spent an hour in the relative peace and quiet.  As we were leaving the park, a local Aymara guide offered to take our picture and started talking to us.  He told us that the place had been given its name by astronaut Neil Armstrong, who had visited there in 1977(?) and commented on its similarity to the lunar landscape.  We're not sure of the veracity of this story, but it's still interesting.

Caught a crowded bus back up into town.  It took ages because of road closures and detours.  We got fed up with standing in traffic and finally hopped off, by chance just half a block from our street!  Chilled out and sipped tea in our hostel briefly before heading back out.  Took a combi to Mongo's, where we spent 3 hours sipping drinks, eating good food, making friends with the nice wait staff, staying warm by the wood fire, and waiting in vain for Sunday NFL to come on.  After about 2 hours, one of the guys explained that NFL was usually only on their channels on Mondays.  We stayed a little longer anyway just because they'd been so nice and because the fire was so warm.  Took a taxi back to our hostel and packed up our bags most of the way before going to bed.

Saturday, November 12
La Paz, Bolivia
La Paz on Foot

Awoken early by air in the water lines sounding remarkably like a drill.  In the morning, we went to several museums: urban art consisting mostly of tires and old cars, one lamenting Bolivia's loss of its coastline to Chile's aggression in the 19th century, one of pre-Hispanic gold and silver artifacts, and one of mostly religious art and colonial artifacts.  Then an interesting one on Bolivian musical instruments--indigenous, imported/adapted, and recently invented.  Went to the bus terminal to see about tickets to Oruro.  The trip proved to be unnecessary, as you must buy them the day of departure.  Tried to eat lunch at a place the LP described as "a winner," but it was completely full.  Apparently they were right on that one.  Went next door for the run-of-the-mill almuerzo that set us back a total of 11 bolivianos--US$1.50.

After lunch, we went to Cafe Alexander to warm up.  Strolled down to the cheap phone place, where we talked to our boys for 1/2 hour and made hotel reservations in Uyuni before the phone lines went wrong.  Continued downhill to the sports restaurant/bar we'd read about and asked if they'd be open and showing ESPN the next night.  Ate dinner at a food court because everything else appeared to be closed.  We took a combi back uphill rather than walk, and paid a hefty 4.20/minute to talk with Mom and Dad briefly.  Went to a cafe/bar near our hotel for a drink and hot chocolate.  The atmosphere was very relaxed and the other patrons were almost exclusively foreigners.  We stayed out past 10 for the second night in a row.  Watch out!