MUNGO EATS Latin America

Today was trailer retrieval day.  We hired the owner of the company who took us for our tour of the salt flats, to drive us out to pick up our trailer.  He turned out to be a pretty nice guy.  He had to modify our trailer hitch a bit so it would fit his vehicle, but he took care of that on his own.  This morning, he picked Kevin up at 4am, and they were off. 

It all went off without a hitch (no pun intended) and this time Kevin was back in town by 1pm (not 8pm like when he picked up the van!).  So the van is clean, kind of packed, the trailer is hitched up and we leave this town tomorrow am!  Really, I am ecstatic about leaving.  It is a really small town, with a terribly small and unoriginal assortment of restaurants.  If I see anymore fries, I think I will scream.  I think Sean ended up eating pizza everyday this week (except tonight).  The town is terribly dusty and we are constantly coated with a layer of it! 

We have changed our plans a bit.  Initially, we were going to enter Chile from Bolivia, but we have decided to head into Argentina instead, because we think there will be less rough roads.  So we are headed towards Tupiza tomorrow.  I am not sure that we will get there in one day, depends on the state of the roads.  Since we are travelling with at least two blown shocks, we will be taking it easy.  Anyway, adios Uyuni… it has been interesting!

Still not a real post folks, but a little note to let you know our present situation.  We are still in Uyuni.  Yesterday, Kevin went to pick up the van in the desert.  We had left it out there, because we had some type of oil leak and we were not happy driving it back into town, on terribly rough roads, without knowing what was wrong.  Kevin actually thought it was a HUGE problem, rebuilt or get a new engine type of problem!  We got someone to tow the van in for us, but they could not tow the trailer as well, so the trailer is still 4 hours away from us. 

It turns out the engine is ok, the source of the oil leak was identified and easily repaired.  However, in towing the van over the rough roads, the shocks were wrecked, so now we don´t feel really good about driving over 4 hours of washboard, to pick up the trailer.  NOW we have to get the trailer towed in!!!  We are in the middle of carnaval, and the whole town is wandering round in a drunken state, so we have to wait until Thursday to get the trailer.  I cannot WAIT to get out of this town!!!  Hopefully Friday we will be on the road again!!!  I hope!

Anyway, most likely you will have to wait to read about the past week in detail until I can get some wifi, absolutely NOT available in this hick town!

BESOS

GIULLIANA, LUCHO Y OLIVIA

So we are stuck in Uyuni, and wouldn’t you know it, we are stuck during a four day weekend.  The Bolivians are celebrating carnaval.  What a crazy celebration this is!!!  Starting at about 4 or 5pm, marching bands start playing and groups of people dressed in a variety of different ways start dancing around.  Some groups are dressed in folk outfits, but we saw groups dressed as clowns, power rangers, knights, etc, etc, etc.  The bands all seem to play the same song, over and over and over.  The dancers seem to dance the same dance as well.

As the bands and dancers move down the roadway, the bystanders throw water balloons, and spray the paraders with shaving cream and water.  Now, this sounds kind of nasty, but to make things worse, a lot of the participants in the parade are older folks.  So teenagers and kids are beaning their parents and grandparents with water balloons!!!  NASTY!!  

After the parades are over, everyone goes to various halls to start dancing.  At night, the music is crazy loud, and it seems to go pretty much all night (I think it stops around 5 am).  In the morning, when we walk Mungo at about 7 or 8, we find drunks asleep on the sidewalks, often there are still gangs of young guys with beer in their hands.  There are broken bottles on the roads, vomit, poo, and urine.  Man, they take this party seriously. 

For the most part, they ignore the foreigners, but every once in a while, the kids seem to attract a water balloon or two.  Maybe because they have thrown a few water balloons of their own!  Yesterday, Sean knocked a bowler hat off an old lady with a water balloon.  I will be happy when I can sleep without hearing the booming drums all night!

Sorry folks,  I know it has been a long time between posts, but the world seems to be conspiring against us.  We were in Uyuni, and when I tried to write a little update post, the power went out, so not message got sent.  Then we were in the middle of the desert and there was no internet.  Now we are back in Uyuni, unplanned, because we are having van problems.  I have been writing posts, but so far haven´t found any wi fi to post them.  I will keep on it.  In any case, we will likely be here at leat a week.  It is Carnaval right now and not many people are working, so we have to wait for van work!  I will try to post as soon as possible!