Sucre

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October 12, 2018 – October 18, 2018

In order to enter Chile with a dog you need to have a recent vet certificate stating that the dog is healthy and all of its shots are up to date, then you need a form issued by the government of the country you are entering Chile from, stating that you are allowed to “export” the dog. A lot of annoying paperwork, and the first country to really care whether Piper was along or not. We could drive to Potosi in Bolivia for the paperwork, but decided that we would sooner spend the time required for all the appointments in Sucre.

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Salar de Uyuni

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October 9, 2018 – October 12, 2018

One of Bolivia’s most famous attractions is the expansive salt flats outside of Uyuni.   The Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat, at 10,582 square kilometres (4,086 square miles), and is at an elevation of 3,656 metres (11,995 feet).  It formed when a prehistoric lake went dry, leaving behind a few metres of hard packed, glaring white salt, and a few remnant islands.

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Carrots make me think of my Dad….

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I know, sounds strange.   Let me explain…

When I was in grade school, every year our school participated in a fall fair in a nearby village.  There were three legged races and other games.  You could enter art work or hand writing samples to be judged.  Or, you could enter garden produce.  Each spring, the school would provide us with our choice of a package of flower seeds and a package of vegetable seeds.  Over the summer we would plant and then care for these seeds, and then enter the results in the fall fair.  I always chose bachelor buttons for the flowers and carrots for the vegetables.

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Parque Nacional Sajama

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October 6, 2018 – October 8, 2018

Parque Nacional Sajama is a small park on the western border of Bolivia.  Volcan Sajama, at 6,542 metres (21, 463 feet) is the highest mountain in Bolivia, and is the centre piece of the park.  The small town of Sajama within the park has a few small hostels, but you are allowed to wild camp almost anywhere in the area….we loved it!

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La Paz, Bolivia

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September 25, 2018 – October 6, 2018

We decided that we would camp at the secure parking area at the La Paz International Airport, which is technically in the city of El Alto, adjacent to, but high above La Paz.  It was not a beautiful spot to camp, there was nowhere really to sit outside, but we had 24 hour security, 24 hour toilet access, and it was nice to be able to sit in the terminal with wifi access and drink a $5 coffee while listening to America’s greatest hits of the eighties….felt like a little piece of home.

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Tiwanaku

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September 24, 2018 – September 25, 2018

We headed away from Lake Titicaca, getting some last views of the huge sapphire lake as we climbed high into the surrounding countryside.  We were driving to Tiwanaku, an important set of ruins in Bolivia, and a place that some consider to be the cradle of Andean culture.

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Copacabana and Lago Titicaca

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September 20, 2018 – September 24, 2018

We drove through some beautiful, rugged, rural landscapes towards the border with Bolivia and Lago Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world.  Lago Titicaca was extremely sacred to the Inca, and today remains sacred waters for many of the indigenous people of South America, as well, it would seem, for foreigners seeking alternatives to Western spirituality.

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Colca Canyon

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September 18, 2018 – September 20, 2018

Although we really enjoyed the city of Arequipa, we were happy to be back out in the countryside again.  We were driving to the Colca Canyon, which is only a hundred or so metres shy of being the deepest canyon in the world, and more than twice the depth of the Grand Canyon in the United States.

We drove past this erupting volcano on our way to the Colca Canyon

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Arequipa

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September 11, 2018 – September 18, 2018

Derek made arrangements for new tires for the truck in the Peruvian city of Arequipa, and they didn’t come too soon…we were losing pea sized chunks of rubber and had started to lose air and although we hadn’t had a real flat tire since Colombia, we were anxious to get the new tires installed before we headed into the remote regions we were hoping to visit in Bolivia.  We decided it was also a good time for new brake fluid and to replace the brake pads.

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Rainbow Mountain, a.k.a. Winicunca

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September 9, 2018 – September 11, 2018

In the streets of Cusco we had seen advertisements for tours to Rainbow Mountain, or, Winicunca to use the local name,  but I couldn’t find anything in our slightly out-of-date guide book about the hike.  As it turns out, the multi-hued mountain was covered under a layer of ice until recently.  With the changing climate, the ice has now disappeared, revealing striped, rainbow like slopes, and the locals soon figured out that tourists would pay to hike to such a magical place. Interestingly, most of the tourists were Peruvian, possibly captivated by the natural representation of the age old Incan rainbow flag.

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