Heading South Towards Antarctica
(April 5, 2009) Tomorrow I shall leave La Paz, Bolivia on a bus bound for Ororu, Bolivia. From there, I shall catch the bi-weekly train to the Argentine border. I´ll be passing through the Salt Flats Region of South America and, according to the map, it´s a big and desolate countryside. I don´t really have a handle on how long it might take me to work my way through it, though I understand that Argentina and Chile both have very good bus systems, so perhaps I can jump on a fast express to Mendosa, Argentina, or Santiago, Chile.
La Paz has been much warmer and sunnier than the Lonely Planet made it out to be. Even so, my hotel room temperature is always around sixty degrees and that´s way too cold for me. Buildings are not heated in this part of the world, so extra clothes and blankets are the only solution. But, that got me to thinking about what I´ll find as I go further south towards Antarctica. Here I am, passing through countries that deal in alpaca-everything. I have bought a few alpaca things for other people and one sweater and one woven wool jacket for myself but that´s not completely warm enough.
So, the answer was going to be mountain trekking gear because there are lots of tour companies sending people on extreme climbs. I don´t know where they buy their gear though because I haven´t seen many shops with fleecy things and on this Palm Sunday, many shops are closed. That´s why I was thrilled to find a double fleece jacket for only $17 this morning. Now, my upper half might make it. Possibly, I can solve the pants/socks equation in the morning before bus time.
All this for a maximum of two week´s exposure to the cold fall weather that I´m likely to find in Ushuaia, the last town on the South American continent. But, it´s better than shivering for fourteen days.
(This distracted blog is written under very distracting conditions. A television set is to my immediate left, playing an episode of “Friends” in English (a rarity in itself). But, it may be the last chance I´ll have until somewhere way down in Argentina or maybe Chile.)
Tags: 1, Traveling through Bolivia, Tag Index
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