South America

Valparaiso Port

Typical Bolivian city bus. Looks like a school bus from the 60s or somthing.

In this post I decided to do something different and show some pictures that I took of the Bolivian people a few weeks ago.

Most of the pictures were taken in Sorata, Bolivia. Sorata is located about 3 hours northwest of La Paz. I think Sorata normally has about 2000 residents but the weekend I was there was their annual festival so there were many vistors from the surrounding communities.

The photo below was taken in La Paz, not Sorata and needs some explanation. When I first arrived in La Paz I was surprised to see a lot of people with ski masks on. It turns out that most of them are the shoe shiners and some are the trash collectors. As far as I can tell they are wearing these masks to hide themselves from the shame in their jobs. Very interesting to see.

Here is some info about my crossing from Peru to Bolivia that I didnt have a chance to post before. In a week or 2 Ill move it down to its appropriate place with the Bolivia stuff.

My last stop in Peru was Puno on the coast of Lake Titicaca. The thing to do here is take a trip out to the floating islands. It was pretty interesting because they acually were FLOATING ISLANDS with people living on them. When a large boat went past the whole island would move around. Its basically just a tourist attraction now because I dont think anyone would be living there anymore if it werent for the tourists coming and paying for tours. Either way it was an interesting way to kill a few hours.

Below are some pictures from when I first entered Bolivia. As soon as we crossed the border on the bus there was a festival going on.

A well dressed young lad with his mother twirling aorund behind him. Look how much fun he is having.

Just an example of one of the very simple streets in the town called Copacabana on the coast of Lake Titicaca

From Copacabana I took a 2 hour boat ride out to the Isla del Sol. To be honest it wasnt worth the 2 hour boat ride but at least I got to go out onto Lake Titicaca. Here is a picture....its nice, but not spectacular.

When I left Copacabana on a bus to La Paz I learned that there was one section that couldnt be crossed in the bus. The procedure here is to put the people on small boats and load the bus onto this barge. I think there was one tiny little outboard motor with about 40 or 50 horsepower that had to push this thing across. It took a long time...... Anywhere else there would be a bridge, but not in Bolivia.

Here are the pictures that we took on Scotts camera during out trip in the SW part of Bolivia.
Maybe Ill add some description later...Ive had enough internet for now.

Hi,

I havent posted in awhile so I just wanted to write a quick one until I have time to upload some pictures and the daily chain of events (maybe Tuesday or Wednesday).

Since the last post, Scott and I travelled around the southwestern part of Bolivia and northern Chile for about 5 days. The trip was pretty awesome and we have a lot of good pictures. If youve seen Scotts pictures then you know what I mean..... if not I will post them soon.

Ive been in Santiago for the last 5 days or so and Im living in Scotts appartment at the moment. We are taking 4 hours of Spanish classes every day and having a good time. After Spanish class is over at 1PM I have a lot of time to wander around, relax and read. Ive actually been reading quite a bit lately. I read Deception Point by Dan Brown and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. Right now Im reading The Broker by John Grisham. Its pretty easy to kill a 400 or 500 page book in a day or two when you have the time I spent a lot of time last week looking for 2 books that I really want to read. One is called Marching Powder and is about the life in San Pedro prison (see below), and the other is called Shantaram about a guy who escapes from prison in Australia, moves to India and becomes a doctor in the slums (i think). Anyone read either of those?

Holger sent me the below link....thanks Holger. Its about the San Pedro Prison that I talked about in my last post. There are some pictures and some information about how crazy life is in the prison. Check it out!!.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/
picture_gallery/06/americas_inside_a_bolivian_jail/html/1.stm