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Hey Everyone!
So I'm home in WI at this point but wanted to udate this about the last leg of my trip. I got home about a week and a half ago and it has been very nice to be here. Anyway I'll skip back a few weeks...
Before starting in on Bolivia, just want to make a note about leaving LIFE and my kids :( I'm still heartbroken over leaving them but I'm very grateful for the oportunity I had to work with them. The last few days I was there I was bringing them present but instructed them that they had to make me cards as going away gifts. They rose to the occasion marvelously and i now have cards, letters, posters and pictures that are all quite touching. My most touching story though happened on my very last day in the slums. As I stated earlier, we were working outside at thsi point due to Swine Flu. 2 new girls had just arrived to essentially take over my position so on my last day i kind of gave them a tour of the soup kitchens where we normally work so they knew at least a little bit before they were thrown into the mess. anyway i had gotten pictures printed of some of my favorite girls andthey accompanied us on the tour (as safety escorts) anyway we stopped by their houses to drop off the pictures. my 3 favorite girls are sisters and as we stopped at their place, their mom came outside (who i'd never met before) and ran up to give me a huge hug. she said "you must be kate- they love you so much and talk about you all the time" TEARS right?
haha but really no on can say or remember my name so that fact that she knew it was quite touching. anyway on my last day in argentina (after bolivia) i stopped into the LIFE office to make some clothing donations and dropped off a letter to the girls for the new coordinator to deliver and she said they had been asking about me daily :( also LIFE just started a volunteer guestbook kind of thing but they saved it for me to make the first entry. again very touching.
ok...on to Bolivia. First off I would like to that that in Bolivia i saw, hands-down, some of the most impressive scenery ive ever seen- it was simply gorgeous. so please keep this in mind while i may be complaining about other things :)
i met my friend sarah in la paz on july 31. i got in late at night and she had already been traveling for 2 weeks around northern argentina. she has a friend in la paz luckily who we were able to stay with. they sent a taxi to the airport to fetch me and 30 minutes later i arrived at a mansion in the embassy district of la paz. yikes ill try to speed this up...so we spent only about 2 days in la paz but the city is very intense. all of bolivia is very obviously a 3rd world country and la paz is at the cnter of it. also i think that every part of bolivia i was in was over 13,000 feet so it was very hard to breathe.
after la paz we took a 3 hour bus to copacobana, the main city on the bolivia side of lake titicaca. then we took a boat over to Isla del Sol (island of the sun) which is, according to the incas, where the sun was born. once the boat drops you off, there is a 40 minute climb straight up stairs to the "town". needless to say this just about killed us! at 14,000 feet and with our backpacking backpacks on it was pretty difficult. anyway we made it to our hostel and spent the night there- freezing and without electricity but it was well worth it. it is incredibly pristine, the lake is so calm, the snow capped andes in the background, amazing sunset and sunrise, etc.
after isla del sol we took a bus back to la paz to then transfer to a bus to Potosi- the highest city in the world. we took an 11 hour overnight bus which was the worst part of the entire trip. there was no heat and no bathroom on the bus so it made for a pretty terrible night. not to mention the smells of the people and the animals on the bus...
anyway we arrived in Potosi at 6 am, were allowed to nap in the hostel living room before going on a mine tour starting 8 am. potosi is famous for its silver mines. in the 18th century it had a larger poulation that paris or london and was an extremely wealthy city. almost all of the money spain used for exploration and settlements came from the potosi silver mines. the mines are still working mines, but there is no silver left, mostly zinc and tin. tours are now given, however you pay in donations of supplies for the miners. they work in coops so they have to buy their own supplies (dynamite, etc) so we came bearing dynamite, coca leaves and soft drinks.
the working conditions are horrible. kids start working in the mines as early as 11. once you start, you have an expected 15-20 yrs left to live. this is mostly due to the toxic gases and sediments the miners are breathing in. this means the miners dont eat during their 10 hour shifts because if they take food into the mines it will collect more poison which they will then ingest. this explains the need for constant coca leaf chewing- they provide energy and supress appetite. for these tours they give you a full get-up of pants, jacket, boots, helmet and light. i was very anxious about the tour because i knew i would be claustrophobic. turned out to be an understatement- i cried halfway through the tour because i was freaking out so much. every in the spaces where you could walk the ceilings were still very low so you were crouching and constantly hitting your head. but most of the time we were on hands and knees- if that. so all in all it was a very exhaustingexperience, the anxiety, the sadness from witnessing children working and the extreme conditions, the heat in the lower levels of the mines, the lack of oxygen and the climbing back out of the mines. wouldn't do it again but glad i did.
the last few days of our trip were spent doing a 3-day salt flat tour starting in Uyuni. this involves arriving in uyuni and walking up and down the main road being harrassed by a million tour companies and basically taking your chances and picking one. we were ultimately swayed by the promise of hot water bottles to sleep with (keep in mind its winter there, at 14000 ft and no heat or any insulation anywhere)
the next morning we set out in a 4x4 : there was our driver/guide, his wife who was our cook, then 2 couples and sarah and myself. quite crowded. the first day is mainly spent on the salt flats, which are the biggest in the world. like the picture posted, its comletely flat white salt as far as you can see. we took cool persective pictures and saw a few other things that day. we spent the night in a small building just built for the tours to stop at. all of the food provided was surprisingly good. the next day we saw more amazing landscapes, the sky and mountains looked painted the entire trip. we also visited several lagoons that are different colors (due to the minerals in them) and are inhabited by wild flamingoes. the second night was FREEZING- i have pictures of us all getting ready into bed fully dressed- hats, scarves, etc. we got up the next morning at 5 to continue- it was about -10 celcius at this point. in the morning we saw more lagoons, some geysers and natural hot springs, which would have been very nice if anyone could have faced changing to get into them.
anyway we ended up near the chilean border and had an option of getting dropped off there instead of driving back to our starting point which would have guaranteed us another overnight bolivian bus- obviously we chose chile. we arrived in the beautiful little border town of San Pedro de Atacama. upon arrival you immediately feel like youre back in civilisation, though chile was much more exensive than we had anticiated so we had to make immediate plans to leave and get back to argentina. we had a bus scheduled for the next morning to Salta in the north of argentina but it was delayed several hours due to a snow storm in the mountains. we eventually made it to salta where we spent a day and then boarded a 22 hour bus back to buenos aires. im sure ive mentioned it before but argentine buses are AMAZING. they include fully reclining beds, meals, drinks, movies, etc and ANY bus compared to all of the bolivian buses would have been luxurious.
all in all it was an amazing trip but very tiring because everything is just so difficult in bolivia. i have some spectacular pictures but unfortunately my computer had an accident and is at dell right now. so when i get it back next week i will load pictures.
:)
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