Whose your llama?

    When you are living in a van, driving through eleven different countries (as of today!), flexibility is one of the most important virtues one can have. Plans change and change again before you know it. And that is one of the reasons that makes this adventure so fun.

Driving alongside the southern shores of Lake Titicaca seemed as magical as the Incan legends say. They believe that the Lake was the birthplace of mankind… and it is pretty enough to maybe even be true. We were really lucky to witness multiple village's different ways of celebrating the four day Carnival…though most involved people spraying each other with shaving cream (even police officers would get it!) and parades with dancers and musicians. One teeny-tiny town in Bolivia even had about a hundred men dressed up in home-made costumes as Fred Flintstones, Ninja Turtles and blue Avatars. I am still kicking myself that I didn't have my camera. 

The border into Bolivia was uneventful and even pleasant (with the exception of the $135 USD visa per person, ouch!). Brian is getting really good at shaking off the casual bribe by police officers or government officials with a well timed thank you, smile, handshake and quick snap of our documents back into his hands. Though my personal favorite is when an officer asked for a refresca (meaning money tip) and with a knowing smile Brian gave him a still-cold bottle of Inca Cola. The officer even smiled back. 

That night we camped on the shores of the lake at Copacobana. The next day we were off to La Paz and a week of Bolivia's best; Potosi, the salt flats and even possibly "the worlds most dangerous road." But that was not to be. 

Bolivia, while being the poorest and most under-developed South American country also has the worst system for dispensing gasoline. With the exception in La Paz, the largest city in the country, every single gas station we stopped at refused to sell us gasoline. Now, you can understand this is a problem, a big problem. Claudette is a gas-guzzling 8-cylinder conversion van. I wish she ran off happy thoughts and good intentions, but alas, that is not so. We tried begging, pleading, promises of large propinas (tips!) and even got the police involved as a last resort to no avail. We are still slightly confused at the exact problem, but we were able to determine our "international" license plate caused the vendor to need additional paperwork that very few, if any, rural gas stations had. Nothing we would do or say would convince these vendors to sell us gasoline. So we did the only thing we thought that would prevent us getting totally stranded out in the middle of the Bolivian desert. We filled our 30 gallon tank to full in La Paz, and vamoosed right back out of Bolivia. I am still contemplating a well placed phone call to refund our $270 dollars worth of Bolivian visas that we purchased when we drove into the country. I just hope that money goes to providing the gas station vendors for a new record keeping system. 

Presently we have the sprawling (yet narrow) country of Chile before us, and a little more menacingly, the Atacama desert in all its glory. 

Yup, that is a picture of the edge of the highway taken from the window of the moving van.
Dont look down!

A curious vistor this morning. Everyone wonders what those loco gringos are doing.

Shepard girl showing her flock who is boss

Nazca lines! We paid about 60 cents to climb up the observation tower...
what do you think, ancient prankster or aliens?

Peruvian homestead

Pre-Incan Chullpas (burial tombs)

Our first coca-tea! So tasty and made the altitude-dizzys go away for a while!

Umm... is that regular or premium?
 Claudette deserves better then what we had to resort to in order to keep moving. 

The road

Meeting of the llamas

Brian wonders if you can keep llamas within Portland city limits

Lake Titicaca

Copacobana; the hottest spot north of Havana. 

Camping at 14,200 feet! Brrrr!

Carnival parade dancers in Copacobana

Nevado Sajama at Sunset

Ferry across the lake going towards La Paz

So long Bolivia... wish you would have sold two nice kids some dang gasoline.

Vicunas; the alpaca's endangered cousin in the Lauca Parque Nacional in Chile

Neither of these look appetizing. One goes in and one came out.
Pretty much the same color. 

Chicken feet and tall peaks

Kinda like the gum inside a blowpop, a chicken foot treat comes hidden in many Latin American meals. Linds and I first discovered this in Ecuador when we both got some soup and "broasted" chicken. I kinda jumped when after a few bites, my spoon brought up a big ol' foot, but Linds had one too and after looking around at the other soup eaters we realized that we had not been sabotaged and that everyone gets a chicken foot. Unless you're getting a nice chicken breast from a huge walmart-like store, most likely a foot will be connected. Must be for flavor??

mmmmm...

We had shot up Canon Del Pato just in time for me to get a hold of the worst cold/flu I can remember and found a little hotel in Caraz called Las Pinas to lay low for a while. For three days we went to bed early and woke up late, walking to various cafes and bistros for juice and food but otherwise keeping to the room. What a great place to be sick! We had good WiFi (a rarity in small towns at 9000ft) and the whole place to ourselves. We used the opportunity to watch the entire extended version of LOTR, almost 10 hours total. (Thanks Zach & Sachi!) Caraz is the jumping off point for numerous alpine summit attempts on the surrounding peaks and we drove up to Laguna Paron to check things out. We picked up a couple of kids hitchhiking to the lake and drove the 35km up a steep dirt road to the base of Huandoy @ 20854ft.

Laguna Paron! dont jump Linds!!

in 1970 the entire town of Yungay was wiped out by a huge land/ice slide that killed over 15,000 people. this is a monument to the deceased.

andean women are cute!

nothing keeps linds and i from a killer breakfast. 

the andean girls sweet talked me out of 35 soles for this jug of honey and a mini jug of pollen(?). Huascaran is in the background

Marco and his crew gave the van a killer cleanin'. thanks!!!

Suila Grande- Touching the Void.

Claudette got the first car wash in almost 15,000 miles in Huaraz, a city in the Cordillera Blanca about 50 miles south of Caraz. Big thanks go out to Marco and his car washing crew for not charging us extra for washing off the dirt of 9 countries!! And we drove past Suila Grande, the peak that almost claimed the life of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, who's trials were recounted in the book "Touching the Void" and the movie by the same name. We have pointed the van south and nailed the accelerator, driving through desert and dunes that remind us of Baja California without the delicious tacos. Next, Lake Titicaca!

back at the beach. life is good.

Upwards

Claudette needs a bath. Badly. We have been running her hard and she has been so good to us, and now, well, she is two toned. Brown and browner. 

But it was a good thing we didn't go to the Lavado (car wash) when we were near the big cities on the coast. We were headed upwards. The Cordillera Negra is a mountain range in the shadow of its sister range the Cordillera Blanca. But the little sister range isnt one to shake a stick at. We made sure to have extra water and a full gas tank before we left civilization. Driving over 60 kilometers of dirt roads barely clinging onto the sides of steep rock canyons took us a day and a half of driving at about 12 mph. Slow going. And very, very dusty. But oh-so-beautiful. 

A little rest, relaxation and acclimatization (were sitting at about 7500 ft) today in the super cute teeny tiny town of Caraz. Tomorrow brings hikes and hot springs. And more elevation!

Peruvian aduana. Dont believe everything you read! We crossed the border in under 20 minutes.

Get your taste buds primed! Peruvian ceviche is so, so good.

At the market

Sorry, fluffy critters. You are not going to be pets.

Dyed sheep's wool ready to be made into beautiful things!

The muy popular Inca Cola. Two out of three peruvian kids (see below) prefer it to Coca-Cola.
Kinda tastes like melted lifesavers sprinkled with sugar. Makes your teeth hurt. And the ultra-neon coloring doesn't make you feel very good either. 

Just out for a Sunday drive!

Drying corn cobs roadside.

Desierto

Sometimes it doesn't matter what language you speak. 

New friends! 

What are the Americanos making for dinner?

Over 60 km of dirt road that hugged the crumbling walls of the canyon through the Cordillera Negra.
We passed through over 50 tunnels!

Desolate. 

Cordillera Negro

Landslide! Yes, that is the road we are trying to pass. 

Bus passengers helping clear the way so they could get a move on.  Eek. Fortunately no one got hurt.   

This was my front porch when I woke up.