blogger in action

katie ari and I are in La Paz, Bolivia. I really like this city. It's not as huge and intimidating as Lima, and is rich in Andean culture. It is also smack dab in the high mountains, when you drive in, you can see these awesome snowy peaks, I think one of them is 19,000feet.
We just spent a week in Sucre, Bolivia's capital. We were there for their election, which was kind of cool. As Sucre is a wealthier city, it was less supportive of Evo Morales than, for example La Paz. Here, where there are pro/evo signs and posters and grafitti eveyrwhere. He was re/elected, ps. I think he got 63 percent of the vote.

We also went to Potosi, which is the highest city in the world and has this mountain with the biggest silver mine on the world or something. I guess 8 million miners have died in it over the past 500 years or so. Whoah. So you can take tours in the mines, which Katie and Ari did but I got claustrophobic and didn't go. They said it was intense but cool. The miners who work in it basically live on coca leaves, tobacco, and 96 percent alcohol, and they die before 40 because of all the dust in their lungs. Sometimes they have to work 24hours at a time.

Before that, we were in the far southwestern corner of Bolivia, near the Atacama desert. We went on this 4 day jeep tour, and it was awesome. We saw the huge salt flat of Uyuni, a red lake, a green lake, tons of flamingos, geysers, vicunas, it was way cool. A super surreal, stark, Daliesque landscape. Oh and our car broke down like ten times but it was still fun.

Tomorrow we're hopping on a 30 hour bus to Lima to catch our flights back north. The fact that our trip is ending hasn't quite hit me yet.
over and out
natz