There, we went on a 2 day tour by boat that brought us by the Uros first, the islands that were built originally hundreds of years ago when the powerful Incas threatened to annihilate the preexisting cultures that lived around the lake titicaca. These very smart people built movable islands of sea-fern and grass (which grows in the lake), and started building up layers and layers until it would support their weight. This way they lived on the islands, mainly from fishing, and attacked the incas by boats at night, returning to their islands when the strong incas would retaliate. The incas could not swim nor did they figure out to build boats.... Pretty cool, huh!!??
Uros islands, day to day activities of locals..... making crafts for tousists (top), grinding wheat (bottom)
"Original" Uros boat, now just used to shuttle touris around...
There on the lake, we also visited the two largest islands of the lake titicaca and soon went on to the bolivian side of the lake, to the "real", original Copacabana. Very nice, but at 3800 meters above sea level not really crowded with women in string bikinis like the Brazilian counterpart... oh well, you cant have it all!
After a short trip to la paz, we took a hard-core overnight bus to Uyuni (e.g. cheap, slow, old), which managed to break down 4 times in only 14 hours (one exploded tire, another one just flat, two mechanical problems...), and all that on a road that felt like a whashed out riverbed, we could tell we were in bolivia, YEEEHAAW!! The rollercoaster of temperatures (the bus heat only worked when it was moving, obviously) was another story, as well as the crazy bolivian behind me, all in all just another day travelling :)
Anyhow, after arriving we met a really nice german couple and a crazy irish guy and decided to do the 3 day/2night trip togehther, travelling by overland fourwheel drive though the salt lakes, geysires, huge cactuses, and tons of flamingos...
A hotel completely made out of salt (bricks), you better hope it does not rain very often there...
The group, with some huge volcano behind....
Chruch in San Pedro...
Eventually we met up with katja, a swiss girl travelling by herself around the world, and not only did we have good female company but another jass-partner (a typical swiss cardgame we can play for hours!), which was great fun! The three of us ened up travelling to La Serena and Vicuna, where we did tastings of the local pisco factory (pisco is the national drink of chile, peru and bolivia, a hard alcohol made out of wine), and went horseback riding in the beautiful valleys vicuna had to offer....
Wine and pisco tasting!
The last weekend with dani was spent in company with good friends from chile
(guillermo and macarena, their daughter and other friends), at the wonderful
beach house they own in zappallar, not much to tell, lots of sleeping, relaxing and a ton of pisco cola and pisco sour :)
Yup, its true, other than fish, chile has nothing to offer in terms of culinary, though I LOVE the completo and the italiano... see that mayo right there!!
Finally dani had to leave for home, not like ABB woulnt be able to run down the company without him :), but oh well... and i continued to patagonia, to finish what i started in february, to finally see perito moreno, the amazing over 1 km wide glacier that ends up in a mountain lake (you HAVE to check out the pictures once they are up), and the beautiful Torres del Paine National Park... once i arrived there actually i met a girl from colorado and we hiked the 4 days together, again assuring me that travelling alone not really exists, because you always find very nice, interesting or crazy people, people that though with very different backgrounds or interst, travel very well together...
After that, I decided to head down to Patagonia once more and finish up what I started but got interrupted so badly by the riverrafting accident. I flew down to Puerto Natales, and stayed with the same family that took me in and took care of me when my leg was a mess.... Paola, the mother, spent hours with me at the hospital, buying food, even driving me to the internet when i could not walk, so i had my mom send them 2 kg of the best swiss chocolate. That did the trick and I was received like a king at their house. The time in Patagonia was very nice, I was lucky even though it was very borderline off-season that we caught one last nice week down there, and hiked the Torres del Paine in four beautifully sunny days. I spent the time trekking with Jen from Colorado, a girl used to trekking and a lot more suitable than the slow english couple that we encountered every evening, hours later. The four of us had a great time, usually being the only ones left in the hostels, a few days after they closed for the winter (or summer really).
Hiking the Torres del Paine Park...
After that I decided to go see the most impressive glacier there is really, the perito moreno in Argentina, it was a good day-trip from Puerto Natales, and heck it gave me four more entry/exit stamps going back and forth... but seriously, the sight was just so impressive I am so happy I went, sometimes its funny how we spend money at home, but when traveling everything is so cheap that when a trip costs 60$ one thinks of it as too expensive... well it was worth every cent. To add to that experience I met Javier, Veronica and their kids. Javier is a VP of human resources for Bimbo Bread (employ tens of thousands of people) and more importantly a very interesting person, and we connected right away through my travels in Nepal (he had trekked the same Annapurna Circuit). I promised to visit him in Mexico City since that will be the last stop, about 10 months from now... which should be fun.
Small part of the end of the glacier... seen by boat.
Impressive gigantic pieces fall off at the end of the glacier....
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