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.