Bolivia - Bike, Hike, Mountain Climb, Silver Mine, Salt Flat. Chile - Hike

Well, I survived the New Year and am now enjoying myself in Chile.

On the 14th of December, I went on my bike ride. We left La Paz and drove up to a 4700 meter (about 15,000 feet) high pass. Then we headed down what the World Development Bank, in 1995, called "The World's Most Dangerous Road." It is an unpaved, very narrow, windy mountain road. Now, the road is one way, up in the evening, and down during the day. This has reduced the number of vehicles which fall off each month. I believe that the last time a bus full of people fell off was around the 3rd or so.

The first few minutes were paved and we raced by a few slow trucks. Eventually, the pavement ended and the fun began. It rained off and and on all day and there were plenty of puddles for me to splash in. It was cloudy, so we did not get to see the sheer cliffs or views. But, the road does pass under a number of waterfalls and I got good and wet. At one point, I had a bit too much speed and the inevitable happened - I fell. I slid down the road and ripped my pants and my jacket. I am bummed about the little hole in my expensive Gore-Tex jacket. I have decided to bike naked from now on. Gore-Tex is expensive, but skin grows back. I had a little scratch on my leg and my best scratch in years on my elbow, but by the time the ride ended and I had a look at my boo-boos, they had both stopped bleeding. Now I am healed, my pants are sown and my jacket has an appointment with some duct tape.

At the end of the tour, the group returned to La Paz by driving up the same road. I was too scared to drive on the road so I spent the night in Corioco. Corioco is only 1600 meters high and is down in the jungle. I think the man who worked in the hotel wanted to spend the night with me, but he eventually realized that I was not interested and left my room.

In the morning, I started my trek back to La Paz. There is an ancient Inca road that goes back over the mountains. Most people walk down the trail, but since I was already at the bottom and I prefer walking uphill, I walked up. First I had to go down to 900 meters (about 3000 feet). Then I walked up a river valley. The first day was very long and I did not get to the Japanese House until around 7 pm. Forty years ago, a Japanese man decided he liked the mountains of Bolivia. He still lives there and his lawn is the nicest camp ground I ever found in Bolivia. I think he might be a couple of ants short of a picnic, but he is nice.

The next day I continued up the valley. The trail was very overgrown and a machete would have been useful. I scraped through the jungle with the neon blue butterflies for another day. I even passed two other trekkers going down. By nine o'clock on the third day I finally reached the end of my valley, and it was time to turn west and start the serious uphill. I was now at 2200 meters (under 7,000 feet) and the top was at 4850 meters (around 15,000 feet). I quickly rose above the jungle and found the old Inca road. It was very wide, well paved and the llamas kept the grass on it very short. At times it was like walking up a huge lawn in the suburbs. I found the going up much more to my liking than the bush bashing. I made it about two thirds of the way to the top. I had only planned to go one third of the way, but I like going uphill so much, I could not stop.

When it was time to camp, I found a nice field and asked the little girl watching me if I could camp there. She said `yes` and I gave her some cookies. On the last day of my walk, I got an early start and was soon joined by a local woman and her two children. The daughter spoke some Spanish, but had a really bad cough and a hoarse voice, so I did not understand her. The little boy only spoke Amayra, so we did not converse. The mother spoke Spanish and asked for some medicine for her daughter.

They eventually stopped to do some farming and I kept going up. I actually finished the hike by lunch time, a day ahead of my very slow schedule. So, as a bit of a reward to myself, I put down my pack and went hiking for a few hours in the high mountains. Then I went to the road and quickly got a ride back to La Paz (3600 meters - around 11,000 feet).

I had planned to rest for two days and then head back to the mountains to climb the 6088 meter (almost 20,000 feet) Huayana Potosi (a mountain). My plans did not work out. The tour agency kept me waiting all week and then canceled due to lack of other people. I found another agency with enough people to do a shorter trip than I had planned.

On the morning of the 24th of December, we drove up to 4800 meters and hiked up to 5200 meters (nearly 16,000 feet). We went to bed at around 7 pm. As I expected, during my first night at a high altitude I got no sleep at all. Neither did the other three on the tour. At 12:30 on Christmas morning, we got up. It was a bit cloudy, but we could see the summit and it looked as if we might make it up there by sunrise.

We strapped on our crampons, grabbed our ice axes and started up the glacier. There was even enough moon light, that we did not need our flashlights. After an hour or two a little bit of snow started falling. After another few hours, a lot of snow started falling. Eventually we were at about 5800 meters (near 19,000 feet) and it was seriously snowing. By now the snow was about thigh deep and the going was very, very slow. We decided to turn around.

At this point, the wind was blowing little icy pieces of snow into our eyes. I could barely see the guy I was tied to, a few feet in front of me. I was fifth on the rope and definitely could not see the guide up front. I followed the frozen piece of rope coming at me from out of the blizzard. By now the snow had completely covered our tracks and I have no idea how our guide navigated. He finally did admit that we were lost. We sat down to rest and wait for a break in the fog. After the fog cleared for a minute, we got our bearings, corrected our course and returned to camp.
If we had failed to summit because of lack of fitness or trying I would have been upset. But, since we failed because we got stopped by several feet of new snow and got lost high on a glacier in the middle of the night, I felt I got my monies worth. With the proper clothing and equipment even this type of experience is survivable and can be enjoyable.

We were back in La Paz for dinner and I went to my favorite local Chinese place for dinner on the 25th.

I came to South America to trek in Patagonia. The good season does not start until January. Now it was time to start really moving and I felt a great urge to start hurrying and get down here.
On the 26th, I wanted to take a bus to Potosi the highest city in the world (just like Lhasa, Tibet). Buses only do the 10 hour journey at night, so I had to use my special strategy. I am often told that the next bus does not go where I want, when I want. But there is always a bus going half way there soon and once I am half way there, there is usually a bus leaving soon to go the rest of the way.

So, left Sunday morning for Oruru. Then I had lunch and took an afternoon bus to Potosi I am glad I went during the day. The scenery was beautiful, even if it was indistinguishable from Arizona. You know, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid even lived around there. They also died in the dry southwestern corner of Bolivia.

In Potosi I took a tour of the silver mines. The Spanish empire, and much of the European economy for several hundred years was supported by the silver that was mined there. When an area of the mountain is no longer profitable to mine, it is turned over to a cooperative. Then members are allowed to mine the silver for themselves. They are very poor and they use the same methods that the Indian slaves used in the 1500s. They bang holes in the rock with an iron bar and a hammer. Then they drop in some dynamite and run. Later they carry out the rubble and sell it to some one with a crushing machine.

The first stop on our mine tour was the shop. They encouraged us to bring some gifts to the miners. I bought some coca leaves for them to chew, some carbonate to light their lights, a detonator cap and some dynamite. All this set be back about two dollars. I have never purchased dynamite before. I wanted to take it out to the desert and blow it up. But, I figured I would probably hurt myself with it, so in the end, I gave it away in the mine.

On the 28th I went to Uyuni and walked out to the train graveyard. They had a bunch of old trains to dispose of, so they just drove them into the desert and left them. The next day I decided to go for a walk in the desert. This area is perfectly flat and completely dry. I saw a mountain off in the distance and decided to walk to it. I walked for about six miles and I think, in the end, it did actually look a little bit closer. I learned alot about mirages and distance judging in the desert that day. I turned around and went back to town.

On the 30th, it was time to start my tour of the Salar de Uyuni, which I had tried to walk across the previous day. Our first stop was the Salt Hotel. The Salar is a huge salt flat and we saw some people collecting salt and then saw a few buildings build completely out of salt. For lunch we stopped at a small hill in the middle of flatness. We spent the night in a small town. On the 31st, we drove though some beautiful high altitude areas and stopped at some cool rock formations.
For the final night of the year, we went to a red lake. I took a nice afternoon walk and then returned to the hotel for the big night. There were about twenty tourists and maybe as many locals in the town that night. Some of the tourists were like me and wanted to be someplace with no electricity or computers. If the world ended, we wanted to be the last to know it. There was a good little party in our room and a really, really cold party outside.

The next morning, we woke up at 5 and drove off to see some boiling mud and geysers. By 7 we were at the hot springs and I splashed around until breakfast. Around eleven, we made it to the border with Chile. The Bolivian border guard tried to charge us all two dollars to get an exit stamp. A really cheap Australian gave him a very hard time and was ably backed up by the Israelis. Eventually, the price of this bit of corruption came down to one dollar. In the end some people paid and the rest of us left the country without an exit stamp.

Chile is very different from Peru and Bolivia. In Peru and Bolivia, most of the population is descended from Indians. In Chile and Argentina, I think that most of the Indians were killed or put on reservations and then large numbers of European immigrants arrived. Chile is definitely not a poor country and in many ways feels just like travelling in Australia or New Zealand.
My first stop in Chile was San Pedro de Atacama. San Pedro is a very touristy town the northern desert. Prices were very high compared to one of the cheapest countries in South America, Bolivia. A set lunch costs at least three dollars. No more fifty cent meals for me. I quickly learned that if someone is young, carrying a big backpack and looks vaguely European, they are probably Chillean. Chilleans and Argentinians travel a lot and are the most common tourists around here.
On the 2nd I went to Antofogasta, on the coast. On the 3rd, I continued south to La Serena. I decided to try what seems to be the national fast food. The only cheap food I see for sale in the streets is the Completo. The Completo turned out to be a hot dog with avocado and ketchup. The only really bad thing, besides the price of buss es, that I have found so far in Chile, is the fast food. They are big on hot dogs, hamburgers and french fries.

On the 4th, I made it to the capital. I spent two nights in Santiago. It is a very clean and modern city and the subway is great. I saw an ice cream shop with line out the door, so I decided to try some. I turns out they make chocolate chip ice cream with chocolate ice cream. I wish more places in the U.S. did that.

On the 6th, I rode a bus all day to Temuco. The next morning I did some food shopping and then went to Pucon. Pucon turned out to be a very touristy town and since I had just spent nearly two weeks racing south to start trekking, I decided not to wait any longer. I made it out to the Villarica Volcano National Park around 5 pm and walked for about thirty minutes. I found a nice place to camp and spent the night.

The next day I started my walk around the volcano for real. I went over a bunch of lava and through some trees, camped by a nice river, crossed a bunch more lava, and camped by a river. Then I walked through some more lava and then went by some more nice trees. After three days, I was on the other side of the volcano and then walked over to the next one. I spent the fifth night of my walk next to a lake. The next day it poured. I sat in the tent and read my trekking guide book. Now I want to do every trek in the book, not just the eight I had planned. In the evening it stopped raining and I went for a little 3 hour walk. Around ten pm, I joined a couple of Israelis on the other side of the lake for some pineapple.

The seventh day of the walk turned out to be perfectly clear. I had very little food left, and my pack finally felt manageable. I had lunch near a white lake and then made my way down to one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen. It was surrounded by forest and on three sides there were steep mountains and then some snow. I camped on the edge of the lake and watched the ducks until I fell asleep. In the morning it took me three hours to leave because I kept sitting down and looking around.

I finally started walking at around 11 am. I made it almost to the end by 2:30, but then found an old abandoned cherry farm. I stayed for an hour and chowed down on the cherries, while a couple of parrots in the tree yelled at me. The trail ended near the Argentinian border and the Chilean guards helped me find a ride back to Pucon. Now I can better appreciate a touristy town with lots of food and a beach.

I want to hurry up and leave and start my next hike, but I am going to try to do some kayaking first. I just finished a great eight day hike, saw almost no other people, and can not wait to do it again and again and again.