MUNGO EATS Latin America

We have been on the altiplano for quite a long time.  Finally, we are starting to descend.  The altiplano is a flat plain that sits between 3500m and4500m in Bolivia.  Yesterday we completed our drive to Tupiza, a supposedly ¨pleasant town¨, at about 3000m.  We went from very dry desert to an almost lush valley.  There are actually trees and a little bit of water in the river bed! The town is surrounded by red rocky cliffs, which are carved by wind and rain into hoodoo-like formations.  Most people visit the town to horseback ride or take a jeep through these formations.  We are not doing either of these things.  Kevin is spending the day working on the brakes of the van, which started making nasty noises yesterday.  I am in hunt of laundry and groceries, the never ending quests.

We are staying at a hotel, which seems okay.  They do not have a garage, so we have to park the van in a private parking lot a block or so away.  When we first tried to park the vehicle there, the garage was closed, but a hour or so later, when we were taking Mungo out for a pee, we saw the gates open.  Kevin went back to get the van and I walked up to the garage owner, with Mungo, to ask him if we could park there.  He said it was fine, and so we just waited for Kevin to return.  As we were waiting, we were approached by a VERY drunk guy.  He stood in front of me for quite a while, watching me, and then out of the blue, he hauled off and kicked Mungo in the gut!  Mungo, the big brave hound, did nothing but give a little yelp, but I shoved the guy back and told him to get lost (I am pretty sure I didn´t even swear!).  The garage guy intervened and tried to get the drunk to go home, but he just stood there and stared at us some more.  Finally, he decided to push his luck just a little further and kicked Mungo again.  This time I didn´t shove the guy, I punched him in the face 4 times!!!  I gave him a bloody nose.  I know my Mom is reading this and thinking, ¨ What kind of a young lady have I raised?¨  Sorry Mom, no one messes with my dog!!!  In any case, that was the end of the altercation.  Oh sure, the drunk had a few choice names for me, but a guy on the street, thought it best to get the drunk away from me and my precious dog.  I knew that kick-boxing aerobic class would come in handy one day!

We aren´t terribly impressed with the ¨pleasant town¨.  The choice of restaurant is as bleak as the last town.  EVERY restaurant is a pizza place and EVERY place has the exact same, extensive menu.  I mean exactly the same menu, same cover, same printing, EXACTLY!!  The thing is though, that the menu is only a suggestion of what MIGHT be available.  For lunch yesterday, we all thought we would order a simple sandwich, but the waitress told us that they didn´t have sandwiches, because they had no bread.  After trying unsuccessfully to order something else, we went to another restaurant.  They seemed to have everything we ordered, but then we saw them dash out at least 3 or 4 times and buy  an ingredient that they were missing to fill our order, including bread!!!  One more day…one more day…  we hope to be out of Bolivia tomorrow.  I hold high hopes that Argentina will be different, more civilized.  Hopefully my boxing career ends here!

Finally, finally, finally, we have left Uyuni!!!  Good riddance, I say!  Really, if we hadn’t had to sit there for a week, watching people get stinking drunk, not sleeping, while we listened to crazy loud music flow from the local athletic club, we may not have thought it was so bad.  We definitely overstayed our visit though. 

This morning, we were on our way again.  We have very few provisions, but I would have left with no provisions!  We are still in the desert.  Today, we passed some sand dunes, which are the first we have seen in Bolivia.  Shortly after the sand dunes, we entered an area with sculpted rocks.  I would call it a canyon, but really it was far to wide to call a canyon.  There were some pretty interesting rocks, and  some cool colours.

Also, the clouds were incredible today!!

Tonight we are in another amazing campsite.  We pulled off the road, over a rise and are snuggled up against some very cool rocks.  There are large outcrops of rocks, that are all wind  carved. 

Tomorrow, we continue on to Tupiza, which is labelled on our map as a “pleasant town”.  Let us hope it is just that!

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