Ah, back in Argentina, home of the...ham

Hola again campers! Can´t believe time is winding down on this trip. Seems like for so long I was waiting to go, and now I have less than 2 months left before back to NY and reality. But we are not quite there yet and so will continue to enjoy life here--in Buenos Aires! Where else can you find a museum devoted to ham? Yes this was really the name of it ¨Museo del Jamon¨ and I must say I was rather relieved to see upon closer investigation that it was actually a restaurant. Not that I would have doubted they would have such a thing!

I decided I am quite exhuasted from all the travelling and really needed to take a time out and chill out somewhere I like and maybe study some more español before moving on to enjoy Patagonia. So here I am back in Buenos and oh how delightful!

So far since my return about 3 days ago, I have been out to eat a few times, and no matter what I ordered, I ended up getting either a ham and cheese sandwich or a ham and cheese omlet. Really it is unclear why they even bother to have menus when they are always going to bring you whatever they want so long as it has ham and cheese in it! And of course, once they deliver the food, you never see them again. Not even serving other tables. Weird. Oh well, at least it has been tasty and I haven´t had olives and eggs served on my steak yet (mostly because I haven´t had a steak yet) but I am sure that now that I have said so I will get some olive action today.

Anyway, back to our story. When we last left off, I was heading out on a tour of the Salar de Uyuni, which is the largest salt flat in the world. It is currently the largest salt lake in the world because it is the rainy season, and so was totally covered in a couple of inches of water, as you will see from the photos. I went with 3 lovely Argentine boys :) and a couple from Hong Kong. I got to play interpreter again as the Argentinians didn´t speak English and neither did the tour guide.

I must say this is one of the most amazing things I have seen this year. We saw the salt flats, laguna Colorado and laguna Verde, geysers at 5,000 meters, and mice beating the heat of the desert. The company was great and we had our own cook who travelled with us. The snoring by the Hong Kong couple will not be discussed, although I must say the second night we all had to sleep in the same room (only I was with them the first night) and the Argentinians were freaked and talked shit about it all the next day. Mostly because the guys had started suffering from some altitude sickness and didn´t get to sleep all night long. Hong Kong of course had no idea what they were saying, but I did! haha! It was all in good fun though and we had a great time.

As the others returned to Uyuni, I headed with Hong Kong into Chile at San Pedro de Atacama, which is the driest desert in the world. And after Bolivia, unbelievably expensive and so full of Chilean tourists that it took a good few hours to find a room for the night!

So back to the here and now and my contemplation again of the ham and why it plays such an important roles in the lives of these peole. Hmm, reading over what I have written here, it is clear that perhaps I too am becoming a bit obsessed with the ham.....

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Uyuni%20tour%20y%20Chile%20y%20Salta/?albumview=slideshow

Looks like I forgot to add these photos earlier of La Paz and Sucre and such..pics coming soon of carnaval and a few action shots of the WMDR!

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Bolivia/?albumview=slideshow

Casualties of the World´s Most Dangerous Road

Upon reviewing my very long day mountain biking the WMDR, I have to admit that I think there may be casualities, perhaps even a death. That´s right friends, it is possible that my trusty hiking boots may not survive the encounter. They have been with me through thick and thin and haven´t let me down, but I think forcing them to spend the day in the freezing rain, snow and crossing through rivers may have been just too much for them. They are taking on water now at an alarming rate....although it is possible that it has taken all of a week for them to actually dry out, considering I put them through one of the rainiest weeks ever in Sucre right after that!

Since you don´t often get the chance to ride a mountain bike down the Andes, descending 12,000 feet in 64 kilometers, I really felt I had to do it, even though it is the rainy season and not recommended to do it. It poured so hard all day long, I didn´t even take my camera. The day started out at over 4,700 meters--that´s over 15,000 feet--in the freezing rain. Actually the day started out with the bikes on the roof of the bus pulling down power lines as we made our way through La Paz, but that is not important here.

The goggles were covered after about 2 minutes of riding, and taking them off made it worse as then it just went right in your eyes. The reason people enjoy this ride so much is the scenery--sheer drops offs as you wind your way down the road in which so many vehicles have been known to go over the edge. Unfortunately, we had mostly white out conditions all day as so couldn´t see much, which is really disappointing. Oh well. It was a good, difficult ride, and of course we got to enjoye a flat tire and a snowstorm on our way back up the mountain into La Paz. Not sure if there will be pictures here as I have been waiting a long time for this lady to put the photos on CD, and don´t think they are going to show up any time soon. If not, you´ll see them here later!

After that I hung out in Sucre for about a week just waiting for Carnaval in Oruro to begin. All I have to say about that is it was total and complete chaos, people got robbed and attacked and everyone was drunk for many days on end...not that this is a bad thing, but the parade went from 7 AM to the following 4 AM. In fact it is not quite over, and even though I spent 7 hours on the worst train ride ever to Uyuni at 2 AM this morning, there is still a band playing here! I guess it will all end on Wednesday, by which time I will touring the salt flat with not a marching band in sight. AS for the train ride, I guess if I had gotten in line 2 hours earliers, we would have gotten the good seats, that go for around $12. But no, we got shafted with the $4 3 people to a bench seats in the back. With all the people, admittedly including us, who had not bothered to shower since sometime around the beginning of carnaval. I guess at least the train made it there, as the Bolivian bus requirement for each trip seems to be a mechanical breakdown of some kind, a flat tire or 3, or a landslide. Or more often a combination of those factors.

OK, so the photos are not happening and so will put up some kind of Bolivian fiesta of photos when I am done touring the salt flats later this week.

As for the photos up top, for those not in the know, this is what passes for a traditional Bolivian musical instrament. I kid you not. Disfruta!