Well, faithful readers, I apologize for this delayed entry, and I promise to share pictures soon…
I last told you of our adventure traveling to the little town of Samaipata…that evening we stayed at an alojamiento (a little place with a bed and bathroom) and decided to cook our own food. (I’ll describe this in detail so as you give a glimpse of what we did many evenings on our adventure.) This meant carrying in our propane tank and hooking it up to the camp stove we got. Using the cheap vegetables which we had bought in the market earlier that day, we chopped them up using the large containers as our counter space, stir-fried them with some Cajun seasoning and garlic, then set them aside due to our one burner stove. Next, we prepared the quinoa by soaking it, draining it, and then adding water, bouillon, and charque (dried meat), and set it on the stove to boil. During this time of waiting, we hung around talking about our day, the plans for the next day, and enjoying some peaceful times of relaxation together. Once the quinoa was done, we added the stir-fried vegetables and served ourselves a hearty meal.
After our eve in Samaipata, we left in a drizzling rain for Sucre. We were hoping to make it to Sucre that night, but the road to Sucre was not paved and was very circuitous as we continued our ascent into the mountains, plus we underestimated the mileage to Sucre. In addition to this, we stalled at a construction site and could not get the beast started again due to a dead battery. Using some of the strength of the construction guys, we were able to push the beast back up a hill far enough to roll start the car. However, we knew that we needed to keep the car running or park on a hill if we wanted to continue our journey. Therefore, around 5pm with the sun beginning to set on a Saturday afternoon, we happened upon a small town about 200km from Sucre. Instead of pushing ourselves and the beast, we decided to stop in this little place. All of the mechanics were closing as Scott hurried around asking several places if they had the battery we needed. On the third try we found one and we were able to find an alojamiento, cook our own food, and stay the night.
The following day we made it to Sucre without any problems, driving along mountain sides that were speckled with incredibly lush valleys with clear rivers running through them. The weather was beautiful and we made it to the one-way streets of Sucre around lunch time. All of us were relieved to settle in a place to two nights in a row. We enjoyed a great restaurant called El Florin, which we went to both nights. The first night there we saw the light show fountain, which is an impressive little display of color, water, and music. Our time in Sucre included doing laundry which was much needed by this point, and just relaxing after pushing ourselves with lots of driving previously.
Our journey continued to ascend into one of the highest cities in the world: Potosi. Potosi is known for its mines where many different metals have been found for over 4oo years. We arrived in the blustering, cold winds of a city that has a very rich history and unique culture. Once we were settled in our hostal, we went to the mint museum, which was very well presented with old coins, machines for pressing coins, and a myriad of other historic relics. The following morning we participated in a mine tour, which is a necessary but difficult experience when in Potosi. After donning our coveralls, coats, hats, lights, belts, and boots, we stopped at the miner’s market to pick up some dynamite as well as drinks and coca leaves for the miners. We continued to ascend to around 4000 meters, where we crouched down, took deep breathes, covered our mouths with masks and entered a very old mine. We walked for many meters to deep parts of the mine, where we could see the miners filling carts and pushing them to shafts where they loaded the rocks into baskets which where pulleyed up these tunnels. The work is hard and dangerous and the conditions are difficult. Our guide was great as he told us a lot of the history of the mines, how they work, and what minerals we were passing as we walked the tunnels. We got to light our dynamite and feel it explode in the mine. The shock wave of the explosion took us all off guard and our guide hurried us away from that tunnel to save us from inhaling toxic gases. After about 2 hours, we left the mine, relieved to see the light of day once again. The rest of our day was spent showering, relaxing, eating, and we left the next day to begin our last leg to Tarija.
Realizing that the drive to Tarija would be long, we decided to split it into two days and camp one more night. Therefore, we found a great spot along the road past some vineyards and wineries, surrounded by mountains on both sides and with flat, red dirt for a comfortable place to set up our tent. We arrived there with enough daylight to find fire wood and prepare dinner a bit earlier. The summer sausage that Scott’s parents had brought us was delicious with our beans and rice dinner. As the sun set, the cold night air set in around us as well. We sat by the camp fire, trying to keep warm for hours before watching a movie and going to bed. Sleeping was difficult that night in the cold air, and in the morning we had to melt ice that had formed in some water bottles. Scott cooked us delicious blueberry pancakes before we packed up camp and headed to Tarija.
The drive did not seem like it would be very long in our estimation, and as the kilometers went down we saw that we had one more mountain pass to cross over before seeing the valley of Tarija. Somehow, in our adventurous spirit, we found a construction road to take over the pass, due to a sign pointing us in the opposite direction of the new road. There was no traffic on the road as we got closer and closer to the top and the road got narrower and narrower. As we drove over the peak, we were dizzied by the stunning view before us and the steep, one lane, hairpin curved, dirt road that we had to drive down. As someone who is acquiring a greater fear of heights, it took amazing concentration to get us down that steep mountain pass. Slowly but surely we made it down and then breezed our way over to Tarija. That evening we enjoyed a great peña, which is a traditional Bolivian restaurant with traditional music. It was a lot of fun and a good way to see this unique corner of Bolivia. The next day we went on a wine tour and saw several small towns in the countryside on our way. We found a place that would let us park the beast for two weeks, got bus tickets for Buenos Aires and changed our mode of travel for our continued adventure.
Sarah's Wanderings 