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ENTRIES FROM THIS CATEGORY
- Saved By A Twelve-Year-Old
- Jackie Chan to the Rescue - Making Peace With La Paz - Journey to the Moon and the Zoo and Brazil Three Times - Coca Puffs and Llama Fetuses - Gags - Dangerous Curves - Leaving La Paz - Stand By Me In Uyuni - Now Entering Dali World - Surreal People - Goodbye, Mary Poppins - Back to Reality - Hard to Get High - High and On-Line - Erik Trinidad and The Bolivian Temple of Doom - Loogeys in Potosi - Down to Warmth - Kids in the Park - Another Day in The Trinidad Show - Suckers in Sucre - Keeping Cool in Santa Cruz - Money Matters in the Mountains - Use The Force, Gringo - Random Thoughts While Waiting and Walking - Oi, Corumba! |
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January 07, 2004
Saved By A Twelve-Year-OldDAY 79: I was awake by 6 a.m. feeling a little bit better from my illness. I ate a mango for the extra vitamins and gathered all my belongings. As always, I was amazed when I looked around the room...Read this entry January 08, 2004
Jackie Chan to the RescueDAY 80: Still feeling sick, I just slept in my hostel dorm bed all morning to recuperate. Joel the Australian chemistry student probably thought I was lame because instead of staying a couple more days to hang out like we...Read this entry January 10, 2004
Making Peace With La PazDAY 81: From what I've gathered, my initial reaction to La Paz is similiar to many other travelers, that it's just a big crowded city with no vibe or coolness factor. However, things started looking up when I left my...Read this entry January 11, 2004
Journey to the Moon and the Zoo and Brazil Three TimesDAY 82: Before I left New York in October 2003, I didn't have any visas -- as an American, I can freely travel to most countries, in the tackiest clothes if I choose. Brazil is one of the few countries...Read this entry January 13, 2004
Coca Puffs and Llama FetusesDAY 83: Bolivia has been blamed for supplying the international drug trade with its coveted coca leaf -- which is processed with ether and a bunch of chemicals to produce cocaine. However, the coca leaf in its natural form has...Read this entry GagsDAY 84: One of the "Things to See and Do" mentioned in the Lonely Planet book was to visit San Pedro prison by ignoring all guards and police, nonchalantly walking into the prison and asking for someone to take you...Read this entry January 14, 2004
Dangerous CurvesDAY 85: It has been called the "World's Most Dangerous Road." This route through the Yungas mountain range between La Paz and the little village of Yolosi starts at the peak of one of the mountains at 15,322 ft ASL...Read this entry January 20, 2004
Leaving La PazDAY 86: It had been over a week since I arrived in La Paz, and with my Brazilian visa slated to be ready, it was about time to move on. Tim looked on his visa pick-up slip and saw that...Read this entry Stand By Me In UyuniDAY 87: In Stand By Me, the 1986 Rob Reiner movie about four boys who bond together during a two-day hike along train tracks in search of the corpse of a dead kid, the narrator (played by Richard Dreyfuss) says...Read this entry Now Entering Dali WorldDAY 88: Surrealist master Salvador Dali once visited the Bolivian deserts and salt flats, which inspired him in many of his paintings. Before my trip to South America, I had seen pictures of the surreal landscape that he and thousands...Read this entry Surreal PeopleDAY 89: After breakfast, we loaded up all the jeeps and went one by one into the surreal combination of the Bolivian desert landscape and 80s pop music. Each jeep was full of different characters which, over the course of...Read this entry Goodbye, Mary PoppinsDAY 90: Our wake-up knock on the door came about half an hour before dawn -- at an hour the girls appropriately called "stupid o'clock." The point of waking at such an hour was to catch the sunrise, and we...Read this entry Back to RealityDAY 91: "Hey, check out the flavor of shampoo," I instructed Sam in the bathroom of the hostel. I was referring to the packet of shampoo someone had previously left. Sam looked over and read it: "placenta." We figured it...Read this entry Hard to Get HighDAY 92: Potosi, the highest city in the world at 13,353 ft. ASL, was supposed to be a "five hour" ride according to the woman I bought my bus ticket from that morning in Uyuni. However I discovered by the...Read this entry January 21, 2004
High and On-LineDAY 93: I woke up on a cold, southern hemisphere summer day in my Potosi hostel. Being in the highest city in the world at 13,353 ft. ASL, mornings are cold year round. With no real agenda for the day...Read this entry January 22, 2004
Erik Trinidad and The Bolivian Temple of DoomDAY 94: Potosi isn't just the world's highest city; at one point in history it used to be the richest city in Latin America. Its wealth came from the abundance of silver discovered in the Cerro Rico, the big mountain...Read this entry January 23, 2004
Loogeys in PotosiDAY 95: In the late summer of 2003, Bolivians just about had it with their president. In protest of their leader, they went on strikes, set up road blocks in the countryside and protested, sometimes violently in the city streets...Read this entry January 25, 2004
Down to WarmthDAY 96: At 13,353 ft. ASL, Potosi not only has its cold nights, it has its cold days too. As I typed away in an internet cafe after my complimentary breakfast, it was so cold I had to wear my...Read this entry January 26, 2004
Kids in the ParkDAY 97: "¿Puedo tenir un Desayuno de Ch'aqui?" I ordered to the waitress in the Joyride cafe at a table with Sam and Zoe. The "Hangover breakfast" -- an open-faced egg and ham sandwich -- came after a few minutes...Read this entry January 27, 2004
Another Day in The Trinidad ShowDAY 98: The thing to do on a Sunday morning in Sucre is to leave the city for the day and go to Tarabuco, a smaller town with its lively Sunday markets. Zoe, Sam and I hopped on a bus...Read this entry Suckers in SucreDAY 99: After a late night in the "party dorm," Zoe, Sam and I just slept in until we had to get up for our check-out time at noon. We got our gear together, sorted out our laundry to bring...Read this entry January 28, 2004
Keeping Cool in Santa CruzDAY 100: My night bus from Sucre drove along a bumpy dirt road through the night, under the desert moonlight that made the shapes of cacti look like ghosts in the desert. As the darkness of morning turned into dawn,...Read this entry January 29, 2004
Money Matters in the MountainsDAY 101: After a quick breakfast of empanadas de pollo, Zolly and I split a taxi to the bus station for our day-trip to the nearby mountain town of Samaipata, a popular weekend getaway town for Santa Cruzians. It was...Read this entry February 01, 2004
Use The Force, GringoDAY 102: Lonely Planet's South America On A Shoestring, which covers all the countries in South America in an abridged form, is a brick, weighing maybe two pounds. Lugging it around had become a burden for me -- I already...Read this entry Random Thoughts While Waiting and WalkingDAY 103: It's funny the things from your childhood that resurge in your mind out of nowhere when you're alone on the backpacker trail. I woke up in my San Jose de Chiquitos hostel room singing the words to the...Read this entry Oi, Corumba!DAY 104: The sun rose and woke me up around six in the morning, only after a mere three-hour slumber. What the sun revealed was worth the rude awakening though; we were well into the Bolivian side of The Pantanal,...Read this entry |