MUNGO EATS Latin America

We were going to leave the La Paz area today, but near the campsite, there are some cool rock formations, in the Valley of the Moon.  We drove by this area a few times, and I decided to hold up the migration south, for one more day, so that I could have a close up look at the place.  Glad we did, it turned out to be a very cool place. 

Yesterday we spent the day in La Paz, visiting the Witch Market.  This is a market where various “potions” and “remedies” are sold for ailments.  They also sell talismans to protect you and promote various things.  Sean bought a couple of talismans, one is a turtle, that brings long life, the other is a skull, that wards off evil spirits.  Sara bought an owl talisman, that is supposed to bring her intelligence…we’ll see!  I bought a talisman in the shape of a condor, that is supposed to bring us safe journeys.  We have a St. Christopher charm in the van, that has served us very well, but I think St. Christopher could use a bit of a vacation, never hurts to have a little help!!

Oh, and guess who we ran into, AGAIN?  Our motorcycle boys, Joel, Elliott and Andy.   Seriously, their obsession with us has got to END!!!  No really, it was fun seeing them again. 

We awoke this morning to a little noise, as the caravan of Germans, moved out.  We are now alone in the parking lot.  For a gang of 15 or so campers moving out, they were very quiet.  Must be a pretty strange way to travel, in a large caravan.  Not for us, that is for sure. 

Anyway, back to the moon.  The valley is only about 10 minutes from the campsite, so we walked there, with Mungo in tow.  We had to pay an admission charge to get in, but nobody bat an eye at the fact that the dog was entering as well.  This is what we entered.

There are hundreds and hundreds of sandstone spires, carved by wind and water erosion.  You follow a marked path, and every once in a while, there is a sign, pointing to a particular spire, that is named something specific.  Truthfully, I think the folks that put names to the spires, must have been chewing even more coca leaves than the archeologists in Machu Picchu.  Made the  condor and guinea pig of Machu Picchu seem blatantly obvious!!! 

Anyway, it was cool wandering around in this area for a while. 

In addition to the spires reaching upwards, the kids had fun looking down in  the gaps between spires.

Suddenly, we heard the sounds of a flute, or similar, echoing through the valley.  We saw an indigenous fellow, standing on a spire, playing his flute. 

He even posed for me.

When we got close enough to speak to him, he told us that he was Aymara, which is a civilization older than the Incas, and he was selling the instrument that he was playing, called a quena.  He had three different version, for sale for different prices.  We ended up buying the nicest type, which is carved out of wood, and has a mouthpiece made of llama bone.  He then showed Sean how to play it.

It’ll take some practice, there is no reed and the sound production is totally dependant on the position of the instrument.  Even if we never learn to play it, it is a beautiful instrument to look  at. 

Perfectly happy with our visit to the valley of the moon, we sat down in some shade just outside the gates, to have a snack to eat, just below Mt. Crumpet (of Grinch fame).

Shortly after we got there, two vans full of Bolivian musicians and dancers, pulled up and started posing for pictures on the rocks.  They asked us if we would take a picture.  I thought they meant that we were supposed to take a picture of them, but as soon as we said yes, both vans emptied out, some 15 or 20 people, all with different instruments, different flutes, horns, drums, etc.  They all posed around us, including Mungo, gave everyone except me an instrument to play (I was the animal trainer), and started playing.  One of their friends was videotaping the whole thing.  I’m not sure, but we may just have been extras in a Bolivian “rock” video!!!  When they were done playing their tune, they shook our hands, kissed us on the cheeks, loaded up into their van and drove away.  We really are famous!

One last note.  In case you are not sure what gift to buy your Ridgeback…we have a new suggestion.  Apparently, they really enjoy alpaca sweater pillows, to lay their weary heads on, after a hard day of walking on the moon!

Hello!!!!  Starting from Mexico, I’ve  been collecting turtles.  Not real ones of course, but little sculptures of them .

Here are my turtles in order from favourite to least favourite.

1. Amber turtle from Mexico

2.Silver turtle from Colombia

3.Seed mama turtle from Ecuador

4.Wooden turtle from Guatemala

5.Machu Picchu stone turtle from Peru

6.Paper turtle from Peru

7.Seed necklace from Panama

8.Jade turtle from Guatemala, Antigua

9.Ceramic turtle from Bolivia

Oops, sorry!  This is it

10.Wooden turtle from Costa Rica

And last but not least,

11.Stone (don’t ask what types, I don’t know) turtle from Costa Rica (same place as the wooden one on my b-day)

I was going to collect SKULLS, but today I found out that a turtle gives you a long life and that a skull scares evil spirits away!  I got a turtle AND a skull today at the Witches Market!  I get a good, long life!!!  Hooray!!

Oh, and for my favourite one can you see it’s cuteness??  Look again!

Ugh!  Wrong picture again.

Here…

Do you remember the tapir? Hello!

We continued on to La Paz today, well, just a tiny bit south.  Most of the drive was quite easy, although, we did have to go quite slow as we climbed a steady hill for the greater part of an hour.  By going to Copacabana, we were committed to cross the strait of Tiquina.  To do this we had to take a small ferry across the strait.  Only two vehicles at a time can fit on any one ferry, but there are at least 2 or 3 dozen ferries lined up to take you across. 

Once across the strait, it was a nice easy drive…until we got into La Paz.  Actually, I am not sure we even got into La Paz.  There are  a series of at least 3 or 4 interconnected cities/towns, so I am not sure if we ever got into La Paz proper.  All I know is that one minute we were on a HUGE 6 lane highway, and the next, the road just narrowed to a one lane road.  There were no signs telling us to turn this way or that, just the end of the road.  We tried to turn around, thinking we may see a sign of some sort from the other side, but got stopped by two traffic cops telling us that we could not proceed on this road.  One of them kept asking us why we turned the way we did…..umm, because we are lost!!  They pointed us in the right direction and told us if we tried to go down this road again, they would give us a ticket.  Okey-dokey!

Somehow, I really do not know how, we found the right way to the campsite we were heading for.  This is basically a parking lot, next to a hotel, where many overland travellers stop.  You can use the showers and bathrooms, fill up with water, plug in to electricity, if you need to.   Just as we were driving into the campsite, we ran into a family that we had briefly met in Cuzco.  They are a family from South Africa that have actually been travelling  for 3 years, and have been all over the world (see, some people are crazier than us!)  They have kids the same age as ours, but unfortunately, they are always on their way out of a campground when we are coming in.  So was the case again.  They are on their way south to the salt flats. 

In any case, we got to the campground and found it PACKED with large motor homes.  There are 15 motor homes from Germany, travelling as a caravan, from Ushuaia, Argentina to Alaska.  So we SQUEEZED in to the small place that the South African family kindly vacated for us.  I’m not really sure if we will stay here long.  We will likely check out La Paz at least one day.  Maybe it just depends on how long we feel like being one of the sardines in the tin.  Let you know!

Two days ago we went to Uros islands.  The Uros islands are floating on Lake Titikaka.  They make island with reeds and slowly pile more and more reeds on top when the old ones get  dry until your island touches the bottom of the lake.  On the island that we went to, the lake is 18 1/2 metres deep.  That’s a lot of reeds!  During the rainy season, the reed’s root-clumps detach from the bottom of the lake and you get reeds floating on clumps of dirt that are a metre thick!  They tie hundreds of these together and place reeds on top of them, side-to-side, front-to-back, then diagonal both directions.  Then they build houses out of reeds and install the radios, TV’s, lights, and solar panels.  Apparently the president of Peru couldn’t sleep knowing that the Uros didn’t have electricity. 

Once we got to the island, we sat down on a big reed bench.  Edwin, the “president” of the island, showed us how they made the islands and they pulled a big chunk of root-clump up and put his hand right into the water!  He said that there are six families on the island, 23 people.  The total Uro population is about 2000.  There is a “mayor” too, who is the boss of all 2000 Uros.  Later they split us up into groups of four, so I was with a German guy, a Brazilian girl, and a Peruvian girl.  The German guy didn’t understand very much Spanish, the Peruvian girl had to translate for him into English, so it was okay.  The woman who was showing us her house had no children, so she had a pretty small house.  Sean and Dad went to the president’s house!

After visiting the Uros, we rode for two hours and got to the island Taquile, where some descendents of the Incas live.  They have this big thing with hats, each hat having a meaning.   Boys under the age of five wear a frilled hat with red on the bottom, white on the top.  Girls of the same age wear a frilled hat with red of the bottom, brown on the top.  Once the boys turn five, they wear a hate that is red on the bottom, white on the top with no frill.  That means that they are single men.  When they marry, they make an unfrilled hat that is all red.  When girls reach the age of five,  they have to wear a black shawl.  Our guide told us that single women have a shawl with big pompoms, married women have small pompoms.  But we couldn’t see any pattern at all, most wore big pompoms, even the ones with children, and some children who were six or seven years old had small pompoms.  So I don’t think there is any pompom pattern at all.   

         

The road from Cusco, Peru to Copacabana, Bolivia:

View

Copa! Copacabana! in a larger map

Down from Cusco and then up to the Altiplano (nearly 4,000 m high) and Bolivia: