Bom Bom,

Bloging frequently is tough when you only have an iphone as your only means of communication.  I also have no idea if I´m making spelling mistakes since spell check is in Spanish.  We´ve now spent a month and a half in beautiful, always sunny, Sucre.  I spent about half my time trekking, and half my time hanging out in Sucre.  The backpacking down here is fairly tough.  At 10,000 ft + every step carries a little more punch and wears you out more than normal.  Also, the sun is killer, especially for a white boy like myself. The countryside, however, is crazy.  Waterfalls pour off of huge cliffs while bulls and goats drink from the sky blue waters.  The mountains are literally every color imaginable.  I have walked on purple, blue, turqouise, orange, and every other color ground.  Speaking of the ground, the ground in the countryside is littered with fossils and dinosaur tracks.  Nothing like following along a trail carved by a t-rex.  I wish I could post pictures, but right now that may prove too technologically advanced for my current internet situation.

Bolivia is very different from US, or even western culture.  Their beliefs can be strange and they way they live their lives often makes little sense to me.  One guide told me that he was convinced that the Earth was flat.  Others are convinved that after 6pm at a certain waterfall, a demon whirlpool forms and sucks anyone there under to their death.  I´ve also been told that Bolivian children up to age 8 are bound to help bone growth.  Weird stuff.  There is a certain rural community in which one of their festivals essentially reinacts fightclub.  Community members join into a dance where they fight, and often die, for honor.  Also, it´s not uncommon for women in rural communities to have 15+ children, and in some communities men choose mates from the women who rotate through on a yearly basis.

And of course the great part about Bolivia is that practically nothing works, especially their government.  Bolivia´s national sport is protesting and going on strike.  The people are against the government, the police are corrupt, you can make bribes for your drivers license, rural people dont believe in medicine, and road blockades are common.  Speaking of which, the first part of our travels in the morning literally involve running a blockade to get out of Sucre.  The truckers are angry about paying taxes and have blockaded every single road out of and into the city.  I heard about one car getting out, they drove across the rail road tracks.  The truckers are slowly strangling the city.  Millions of dollars have been lost aready by crops rotting before they can get to the market.  Fortunately, they don´t seem to care if you cross on foot, so we´re waking up early to walk a couple of killometers until we reach the other side.  The US travel site warns against this, but it should be fun!

One of the best parts about being in the city had been living in our apartment: La Selenita.  We live in the garden of a French painter and an anthropologist from Brussels.  The French painter reminds me of Captain Jack Sparrow, he´s crazy and loves to switch between English, Spanish, and French as he rambles and makes French jokes. We have a fantastic cabaña surrounded by pear trees, tomato plants, walnuts, and vines full of pumpkins.  We also have a beautiful shaded terrace that looks out over the city and provides a great view of the sunset framed by the Andes.  There is also a friendly dog and simease cat, the later of which enjoys climbing into our bathroom sink.  I spend a lot of my time in Sucre doing absolutely nothing, a welcome change from my life in the US.  I´ve read the first Harry Potter book in Spanish and have now moved on to the second, we bought all 7 for 20 USD.  I also spend some of my time teaching English to some of the guides and helping out with other projects around the Condor office.  The guides are a lot of fun and I have enjoyed getting to know them over the last month and a half.  The other day we played walley ball (a raquet ball-volley ball hybrid) with some of them and made fools of ourselves.  It´s sad leaving this community that we´ve come to be part of over the last 1.5 months, but it will be a nice change to get out of Sucre and take in a little but more of this amazing and beautiful country.  Tomorrow we head to Potosi, the highest city in the world at 14,400+ ft, and then on to the Salar to Uyuni and La Paz. Thanks for all the prayers and support, I´m excited to travel, but I´m also excited to get back to the good ole US of A.  BOM BOM

Ling Ling

Bolivia... Cool!

Hey gang,

Made it safely to Bolivia bom bom.  This place is cheap!!  Lisa and I went out to a super nice restaurant and almost had to pay 7 dollars total.  Crazy since I've become used to spending 2 dollars for a 3 course meal.  But anyway Sucre is awesome.  It reminds us of a mix between San Francisco and Chapel Hill.  I think Sucre has the oldest university in the western hemisphere, but I could be wrong-o since it would be faster to fly to a US library to look that fact up rather than muddle through slow-as-evolution Bolivian internet speeds.  To balance the slow internet, however, they drive very fast and very reckless.  Roads don't have lanes, cars don't have seat-belts, and pedestrians get to practice their car-dodging skills at nausea.  Sucre is maybe also the chocolate capital of the world (again, not gonna look that one up, not trying to wait til the rapture).  But for real though, Sucre  is awesome.  It's like a mix of mountains and tropics, with crazy valleys that seem to change colors at every glance.

The getting here was tough, something like 30+ hours of transportation, but it is so worth it.  Sucre is known as one of the most laid back cities in South America and, coming from someone who tends to avoid cities, it is probably my favorite city that I've been to.  We've only been here for 5 days, but we've already done so much.  The highlight of our time has definitely been a 2.5 day backpacking trip with the organization with which we are going to volunteer, Condortrekkers.  Our group consisted of a Bolivian, two girls from Denmark, an Israeli, an Australian couple, a girl from Colombia and us two Americans.  The scenery was incredible and the days were long.  We crossed wicked mountain ranges filled with rivers, waterfalls (so so so many waterfalls), cliffs, dinosaur tracks, and rural Bolivian communities.  Backpacking in Bolivia is so much different than anything I've done before.  Along the trail, you are constantly passing by indigenous Bolivians herding their roosters/goats/sheep/chickens/bulls/dogs/children through the countryside.  We also slept in local buildings equipped with both comfy beds and showers.  Not hardcore, but hardcore isn't cool anymore.  The only aspect of the hike to rival the scenery were the conversations. Many complex subjects were brought up with as many as 3 or 4 languages flying between the group at one time.  We learned an Israeli card game in which lying was key.  Switching between Spanish and English was fluid and continuous as we attempted to trick and back-stab each other.  We could also stop at local shops along the way and buy candy and drinks for literally nothing.  Beer and wine was readily available at both campsites.  At one of our campsites we were even able to eat figs off of a tree  One highlight was rocking out to Bohemian Rhapsody with my Israeli friend in a Bolivian hut in the middle of nowhere.  Coming back form our hike we took a really rickety bus packed with Bolivians back to Sucre.  What else...  Oh, and the pizza restaurants in Bolivia have trampolines in them, for digestion.  We're eager to begin volunteering more with Condor and the  Australian who runs it.  I've tried to post pictures, but they may not load till November at this rate.


BOM BOM

South Again

Looking back over my Chile posts I've decided that blogs are kinda embarrassing because they capture how immature you were in your past.*  Anyways I'm scooting down to Bolivia in a few days to lead backpacking trips in a town called Sucre (I'm guessing the locals fondly call it su-cray-cray). After that I'll probably rofl over to Peru and perhaps peruse the sights there (LOL).  Ah yes...  I had forgotten how bad some of the jokes were on this blog.. .  I personally can't even bolivia that I just wrote that (LOL). I might keep up with this blog, but then again I also might be a robo-cat.  But really though, I like the idea of linking my new adventures to old.  It worked great for George Lucas and Star Wars <_<  so it'll probably hold true for me as well.

In all seriousness though, prayers for myself, my beautiful girlfriend Lisa with whom I'll be travelling, and the organization, Condortrekkers, with whom I'll be volunteering, are all greatly appreciated.  If anyone will be in the area during the next 3 months, shoot me a wazzup. I'm looking for a Peru travel buddy from mid May to mid June, so let me know if you would be interested in joining me.  Right now it's just me and an alpaca, and neither of us are great at Spanish :(.  Much love friends!

Bom bom,
Nathaniel


*Hindus suffer significantly greater embarrassment if they have blogged in past lives.