maybe a FLAMINGO ate ´yo baby!

This is the gang at the valley of the moon.




Sorry about the abrupt ending to our last blog post. We are officially out of Bolivia and in Argentina now. Things got...weird in Bolivia and we are glad to be further south.

After Sorata we went to Coroico with Emma and Danny. We went jungle camping near the rio and it was awesome. We had another BBQ and went night swimming! Coroico was filled with hippies, it is a hub for open-hearted travelers. The only jungle animal we encountered was a giant jungle rat. gross.

After this adventure we went back to La Paz to return the car...finally. Don´t mind that beer can under the driver´s seat mister car rental man. ooops, BOOZE CRUUISE! We went to MEGACENTER a.k.a the mall and saw AVATAR in 3-D because Lindsey had never seen it. And get this...in Bolivia...you can smoke in the mall. Whoa, that´s weird and crazy. On our way out the movie it was super late, dark and scary out there. We waited for a taxi but then this crazy chica ran out into the street and stole the taxi that we had just flagged down! what a bitch!!!

The next day we said goodbye to Danny and Emma and caught a bus to Copacabana, the Bolivian side of Lago Titicaca. We booked ferry ride to go to Isla del Sol for the next day. The boat ride was soley transportation so we paid a local guide on the island to show us the sites. It was very beautiful, but it was raining the entire morning. BUT! we bought awesome cheap ponchos the last minute. Pink, blue and yellow. We looked like easter eggs. It was awesome. When we were boarding the boat to see the south side of the island, the boat got stuck...in the mud...we had to get off and our boat left an hour late so we basically had a half hour on the south side of the island. Just enough time to pee. Our boat "captain" didn´t know how to park the boat!!!! some other dude had to jump ship and help him park the damn thing. Now we can see why Titi- is for peru and Caca- is for bolivia. The saying doesn´t lie.

After our lago tour we headed back to La Paz and then headed to Cochabamba. This is when things started to get verrrry interesting...

Cochabamba has the following-
-giant jesus statue
-numerous museums that are overrated, except for the archeological museum that exhibited mummies and sweet alien skulls.
-bowling alley...haha bolivians can´t bowl
-scary, very, unbelievably scary market area and happens to be the location to buy a bus ticket to TOROTORO where you can see dino footprints. The taxi driver was a major asshole who basically kicked us to the curb. Luckily, we headed in the right direction which led us to stalls of mediocre to cute second-hand clothes. Morale boost!
-We also went to a swanky, italian restaurant where the waiter puts the napkin on your lap for you. We were underdressed-lil too smelly for the joint. However, we did enjoy going balls-to-the-wall and having a fancy meal. The waiter also looked very confused when we were sharing our entrees.
-Cable TV in the bedrooms where we caught some American Idol try outs.

Enough of Cochabamba...we will never go back there...except we were forced to after going to ToroToro to check out the footprints. It was one of the high-lights of our bolivian trip! We were actually excavating footprints as we went on our hike. The town was as small as some of the jungle towns we went to in Peru. We would say under 1,000 people. Most people go there to check out the canyon mirador and waterfalls and caves. But we had a different agenda. We just wanted to see some DINO FOOTPRINTS! No one else seemed excited about them and most people in town couldn´t believe that was why we came to ToroToro. But seriously, there are over 4,000 footprints scattered over the ground we were walking on. You know that in the USA it would never be this way, you would never be able to touch them. We actually dug them out and blew the dust away to be amazed at the site of Carivore footprints, like raptors, Sauropods, like brontosaurus (long necks) and Anklyosaurus footprints. It´s kind of sad because the national park doesn´t have enough funding to protect them from the elements or robbers who steal fossils and prints. However, our guide told us that there are soooo many that when it rains some disappear and new ones always emerge. WHOA CRAZY AWESOME! Also, the bus that we took there was kinda ghetto BUT it had a Jurassic Park logo on the side and back of the bus.

We thought that we could get to Sucre from ToroToro, but that was impossible. Sad, so we had to go all the way back to Cochabamaba. We went to Sucre for a day, Potosi for a day and then we went to Uyuni.

So in Uyuni we got in to town late at night and had to wander a little to find the hostel we had a reservation at. The taxi driver refused to take us and used his wacky arm motions to tell us how to get to our hostel. The hostel was a labrinyth building. At 2 a.m. the receptionist offered us a tour for the next day that left at 10.30 a.m. and we had to confirm by 8. So we did!!! After our small nap we hopped in a jeep with 3 aussies and roadtripped for 3 days. Our driver was a major asshole. We don´t know what was up his butt, he clearly hated his job and had no interest in us whatsoever...but anyways...

The aussies made it worthwhile. Their names were Alex, Josephine and Patrick. They were real fun, our age and taught us new rules for Uno, Bullshit, etc.


The tour included-
-visiting the salt ocean.
-cactus island
-salt hotels with sweet sculptures
-crazy desert rocks that were GIGANTE!
-variety of lagunas
-wild FLAMINGOS
-awesome mountain ranges, beautiful landscapes all around
-geysers
-sunrise dip in a thermal bath
-good food, but horrible stomach reactions
-rockin´80s mix in the car
-endless games of UNO and bullshit...lots of drinking and story telling
-speaking in accents

By the end of the tour we were all pretty beat. It was one of the best parts of Bolivia. We were happy to meet friendly people who were nice to us, even though they were aussies. We were happy to meet blokes and sheilas from down unda´!
However, when we got back to Uyuni the train was cancelled due to rain. So we booked a shady bus to Villazon. We had to spend the day playing cards, Jimmy 500, and avoiding this bitchy lady who was just horrible all around. She hated that people were relaxing in the shade, that she claimed to own, outside her restaurant that said it was open but she yelled that it was CLOSED! to any hungry person who walked in. We also were worrying about all of our buttstorm situation...we had to dip into hannah´s immodium stash. We made it to Argentina though!!! We also had to wait, just WAIT for the river outside of Uyuni, to dry up for 4 hours...seriously just build a bridge already!!!

We made it to Salta and it´s refreshing to be somewhere where the sun shines and you can paddleboat. People are friendly here and that is refreshing. We´ve been having fun in Salta. We have been eating lots of meat. We cooked mexican food last night, quesadillas y guac y arroz. It was tasty! Today we went paddleboating, bought some shoes and shades. Lindsey just left to go back to BsAs. Sad face! We will reunite with her before we know it.

Tomorrow, we are heading to Iguazu to see some awesome WATERFALLS! We are taking a baller-swank-whiskey included-bus. Hannah has a fear of being stranded in the middle of nowhere again, like last time. Also it is a 23 hour ride...of SWANK TIME!