Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia)

When this gringo told me about the Bolivian salt flats my initial reaction was about the same as receiving a pair of socks for my 8th christmas, a rolling of my eyes. But as I heard more about them and saw pictures, I realized this is no salt lake city salt flat, but a spectacular opportunity to see some badass places.

Ange overlooking fish island into the salt flats
OUr tour group consisiting of 4 germans
Looking out over the laguna colorado, colored by algae
I mean we even got to see flamengos!
Ange feeding the lamas

The Gringo Trail

So its official. Due to Ange´s upcoming departure, we are hitting the ¨Gringo Trail.¨

The trail is symbolic rather than physical and includes all the tourist destinations of South America.

Its the sites, cities, and every other places that tourists (gringos) of every nation are found in abundance like flies on shit.
Ange hanging out with old Saint Bartalamu
"Chicken Foot Soup" is a local favorite in bolivia

Celebrating Wine

With the generosity, and looks of old Santa Clause himself, Jesus has taken very good care of us during our work exchange.

While the meals and the beds were part of the package, Jesus went above and beyond and invited us on a wine tour of the valley last saturday.

Of course the tour started at Valle d'Vino, the winery of 'Jesus Romero' where we've been helping.

Jesus starts the tour off right, with his signature "Vino por Metro" or wine by the meter
Driving on the fun bus with Paula, an english student
We then hopped on the tour van passing wine around until our next destination, wine central, where we were served wine and delicatens from silver platters, nearly unbelievable for a couple of transients.
Drinking wine and not waiting for someone to kick us out: priceless.
Jamon, a latin delicacy similar to the italian cured ham, prosciuto
Angela, myself and Audrey, our french friend. Behind us is a wall of the valley's best wines for sale from $2-8 US dollars.
For lunch we would dine on fine platters of delightfully smoked ham, with the local harvest comprising the rest of our plates. We later learned that it was also local ham, and fresh too!
Lunch before it hit the kitchen

Working the Vinyards

After a long ride on the boats, we decided it high time to get our hands busy again. So we made a stop into Bolivia´s wine valley, Tarija.

We were fortunate to meet a fellow named ¨Jesus¨ willing to offer us a work exchange for room and board.

So we spent a week doing the menial tasks that would enable Jesus turn water to wine. Mostly weeding, lots of weeds in a vinyard. We were surprised to learn they are all cut by hand, acres and acres cut with a machete or sigh.

Ange and I cutting weedsOur hands soft from the boat, we blistered on the first day. But the reward was great, we haven´t eaten as well in months.
Cleaning the place is important for the tourists visiting
Jesus sharing some wine on a weekend tour

Days of the Amazon

After marking off a check box on my life´s ¨To do List¨ you might think I was feeling rather satisfied with myself. Instead, when I got off that boat after nearly 1500 miles my only thought was relief.

Not that it was that bad or anything, I mean we did see fresh water dolphins and got to glimpse into the lives of villagers on the river banks. But it wasn´t any carnival cruise either.

The bathrooms had piles of used TP on the floor saturated with shower water. The lack of space in the day made for slow passing of time. And of course the bodies crammed together like canned fish at night made for poor rest.
Look at those hammocks penned in together
The food lines were more than 20 minutes for food hardly worth eating. And of course all of us gringos and likely everyone on boat suffered from food poisoning lasting more than a week.

But on the bright side I got to watch the sun both rise and set on the Amazon, a most inspiring sight. And I learned some handycrafts from the gypsies on board. I even breezed through some great books including a historical novel about Ghengis Khan, ¨Genghis: Lords of the Bow¨ The book details the Khan´s first great conquests of the chinese empire, while sharing fascinating cultural insights about the period.
Sunrise on over the amazon

Pirating the Amazon

Ange and I are leaving the coast of Brazil to the most economical countries of Peru and Bolivia. The cheapest option and of course the most intersting is going by boat, i.e. floating the fucking Amazon.

Of course we lit up at the prospects, you know its like some kind of childhood dream of mine, along with flying to the moon and becoming a movie star.

But before we get too excited or get your hopes up, I´ll tell you every traveler we talk to tells us its no romantic childhood dream kind of thing, its bad news. In fact as Brooke tells us- ¨its utterly miserable.¨


So what could be so bad? To name a few-
1.Sicknesses abundant on board
2.Being packed like canned fish body to body, with wierd dudes groping the women at night.
3.Bad water.
4.Disgustingly unedible food
5.Sitting on your ass for 2 weeks
etc, etc...

Anyway you can see theres some reasons to whine, but isn´t there always. I mean shit, i could be stuck working a nine to five right now, but here we are boarding the amazon, hell yeah.

Chocolate Making

While the process of making a batch of chocalte is quite simple, it does take a lot of time. To get from the first stage of fruit picking to the magical night of sitting around around a pot of chocolate can take up to a week.

Note, on the left: these are cacau beans in the stage we are most familiar with- roasted. Let me walk you through the steps to get there.

We begin by picking the fruit and shelling the hulls (see last post), next they will ferment for 2-3 days to speed drying time.

Raking the beans helps to ensure even dryingNext we spread them out on the roof to dry in the sun for 3-5 days depending on the sun.

After drying, the beans are roasted over high heat for 15-20 minutes. At this point the skin feels brittle and is easily removed.

Domingos oversees the roasting of these beans
Ange and I shell the roasted beans
Next the beans are put ground into a paste. This is done any number of ways. But here it is most commonly done with a grain grinder as it is very economic.
Grinding the beans into a fine paste
Once you have this rich paste, a world of possibilities lies before you. But with a little milk and some sugar, you have a most delightful thing that tastes like no chocolate you´ve ever put into your mouth. Aaaghhhhh(This is me druelling- Yes, like Homer Simpson)

The Cacau Plantation

Meet Vovo, mine and Ange's favorite worker at the Fazenda. Today he~s teaching us the beginning stages of chocalte making- the cacau (chocolate) bean harvesting process.

We begin by following him through the trees as he removes all the ripe fruit with his machete. We pick them off the ground and empty our baskets into a large pile.

Once we have a pile big enough to work through, Vovo begins cracking open each fruit as we remove the beans and toss the shells
Working to remove the seeds for drying
Close-up of the cacau bean removal
The casualties after we finish- the pile is left to compost and is later used to add nourishment to new plants

Arriving in Brazil

After just over two days of layovers and and bus driving we made it to our destination. Sao Paulo. An Overwhelming place for a couple of kids from a small town.

For over a week its been raining non-stop and we are looking forward to better weather in the north- Bahia. A state known for great beaches, good weather, and capoera, some kind of karate-dance mix game.


We are on our way up to a cacau (chocolate) farm. And look forward to t]he opportunity to learn all we can.

Spring!

Plants blossoming to life. The first greens coming out of the garden and into the kitchen. And the warmth of the sun. I Love it!

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." -Thomas Jefferson

"Freedom is not something that can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be." - James Baldwin

I'll be offline until mid-summer check back then, thanks. -Mike