Group email from Bolivia

Hope everyone is well. The travelogs are falling behind.. We have been in India about 6 weeks now. Last week we met up with Kristel (Bain). Everyone here asks, "Where you from?" and we say, "Australia" and they say "Sydney" and we go, no "from a little village of 300 people " and then some quick thinking Indian replied, "So now there are only 297 people in your village!" Lets say Walpole is getting internationally known! And then Kristel pointed out there are 400 people in Walpole now. We have been away too long. It's awesome to be with another Walpolian in India.

Someone once said to me that India was an assault on all the senses - and I thought, "but many places are like that." But India really does seem to come in on one from all sides, with the brightest colours, the foulest smells, constant noise and music, hot food, and people touching you often.

Our most emotional moment in India so far has been seeing Michael Moore's movie Farenheit 9/11 - if you haven't seen this movie. DO IT, its very worthwhile!

So back to the travelog. Our final month in South America was emotional to say the least... Just out of La Paz, our egos were stronger than our bodies, and we thought we would try to summit a mountain, 6088 metre Huayna Potosi, considered to be "easy" as mountains go.

Leaving base camp at midnight, followed by a climb of 12 hours of freezing cold hell showed we definately aren't mountain climbers. Judy retired gracefully at 5350 metres - higher than she had ever gone before, leaving me clambering uphill for another 6 hours or so,gasping for breath every step of the way.

Somehow, none of the travel agents who were so keen to sell us the trip told us about the 200 metre climb up an almost vertical ice wall (about 80 degrees)! I am afraid of heights, but there is no time like the present for conquering these things, so up I went, only to find that I had to rappell down!!!!

For our last week in South America we decided to hire a car - something we had never done before in a third world country - and head to the hills. First stop the Sajama National Park, (The highest mountain in Bolivia, and also home to the World's highest forest), which is dominated by an impressive peak shaped like an ice cream scoop partially melted. No more mountain climbing for us, so we contented ourselves with soaking in natural hot pools of almost boiling water while the outside air was near freezing (OK, it was very cold!)

The main thing that characterises our final week with the car is COLD, cold and more cold. And really REALLY rough roads, covered by jagger like rocks made 30km hour seem like you were flying.
Inevitably, we got a flat.only to be told that there was no place in this far SW corner of Bolivia where it could be fixed. About 2 days from any large town, the helpful Bolivians said, "just go to Chile."

Problem was, we knew that we couldn't take the hire car out of Bolivia (we had already tried and been turned back at the border.) We were stuck between lots of hard rocks and being completely isolated... So we made a mad dash for the border - over a high pass with snow swirling against the windscreen, and arrived at the border post (a shack on a high windswept mountain) in the dark.

A small "exit" fee got us into Chile, where we and our car got searched extensively and after some playing dumb and sweet smiles, they gave the car a 90 day entry pass into Chile! All to get our flat fixed. Paying US $30 for a room (for the 3 of us) was a bit of a shock after paying $3 the previous night!!!! but San Pedro de Atacama is a gorgeous, modern village... and for just one night we were in a land of civilised people... who could fix our tyre.

The next day back up to 5000 metres, and past the isolated border post where the guard did want to confirm that we had taken our car through Bolivian customs... hadn't we?

In comparison to the civilisation of Atacama, our next night was spent in typical Bolivian accommodation - hovel like - where we slept in all our clothes, 2 sleeping bags each and 7 blankets or so. It was so cold that the taps were frozen. We knew we had about 14 hours of driving to do that day (to get over maybe 300kms) so we left before dawn. It was a little surreal to get to our first river crossing and find it completely, and utterly frozen over. For a few Aussies, it was a bit of a shock. So we sent Felix out to walk over it! He made it over and reported back that he thought we should drive through. The flash little Vitara created a haunting, terrible groaning and cracking as it ploughed through the river. We weren't sure if we were breaking ice, or damaging the car. Turns out it was quite a bit of the latter.

Having to ford the next three or four rivers in a similar way earned Arie the nickname "icebreaker" and also earned us a whole heap of excess on the car in terms of damage, breaking the front bumper bar,numberplate etc.

When arriving at the agreed drop off point we found there was no driver. We had planned to get to the Argentinian border that day, and in order to do so had to leave. pronto. So there we sat, with our little Suziki Vitara as the hours ticked by, and watched the last bus leave for the border. When. out of nowhere came the driver running up the street. He leapt into the drivers seat, ground the gears and headed off in fifth in a 60 zone. Maniacally driving in order to make up for his tardiness, he flew around the corners, grinding to a halt several kilometres out of town as police cars and trucks blocked the road. The last bus, which we had so wanted to take, had had a head on collison with a truck. Though no one was seriously injured, sometimes things like the driver being late happen for a reason.

Ariana and Felix dwarfed by a Salar Cactus

Llamitas

Our brave little hire car which became an ice breaker...

A week in Buenos Aires, with $2 all you can eat buffet bars was a fitting end to our year in South America....... Then all the way to London, which we had been dreading due to the cost. It was expensive but also SO like home - for two days we discovered again the joy of travel, the joy of trying new things, all in a "safe environment". And thanks to Monopoly games, everything seemed so familiar!

Well done if you reached the end of the story. There are more coming. Love to everyone!!!! We will be home in November! Can't wait!

Copyright Ariana Svenson, 2005 - Comments and enquiries, please email us.