What´s for dinner?? Some small facts of Bolivia

Because we can´t give any visualisation of all what´s happening over here, we change for this moment our strategy and are focussing to the ´food chapter´. This cause Bolivian people know how to cook something what surprises us daily in everyway you can imagine... We will give some example:
A dish served with a half a scull of a sheep with brains and eyes (do I need to continu) ready to be sucked... And the strangest thing was that the jaw (with teeth) was quit tastefull! Today we have eaten (soupy) dessert-rice with, we think, a melange of squashed patato and fat (mmmm ;)) and some meat. Berend couldn´t eat this as it was a lunch and too disgusting to eat it all... So the only thing we really enjoy over here is the streetfood! Perfect hamburgers for less than 1 USD is our basis for going all day long! No, that´s not really true, as the Pique a la Macho is really delicious (and cheap as everything over here, 1.25 USD), the meal is mostly too big for 1 person and constains lots of (pork)meat, patas fritas and some salad. Hmmmm, I think I´m getting hungry, what´s for dinner?

Stolen camera

Short update.. well it happened again. This time our only camera got stolen. Together with 2 memory sticks and about 700 pictures probably dating back to Torres del Paine. So to the people we have met so far. If you read this and you have nice pictures of Henk and me participating, will you be so kind to send a few nice ones to our email adresses.

Voor de mensen in Nederland, geen fotoos voorlopig helaas en dus ook niet van de Salar de Uyuni, zoals eerder belooft was.

Gegroet uit de carnaval capital of Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni

Hi there everybody greatings from 3670 meters of altitude. Report from Uyuni, where we visited the Salar the Uyuni for 3 days. This means travelling around in an old Toyota and stopping at some of the most beautifull and strangest things you will ever encounter. I myself (Berend) suffered the first 2 days from a terrible cold, but still enjoyed the landscape, in between the tears and the sneazing.

There is a lake which is used for the supply of salt and it is increadibly big with just a little bit of water on top of it. It contains hotels, which are completely build from salt. Pretty amazing.


The National Park contains green and red lakes, places that smell a lot like sulphur pits and geysers, complete with thermal baths. Rock formations that have been named the Salvador Dali rocks because... there very strange. Rocks that look like trees or like faces. It is all so strange and beautifull at the same time.



The animals are just funny, the first Llama you see is shot with the camera for 15 times and than the next day you find yourself surrounded by Llamas at a distance of just 3 meters. The same with the flamingos, which you might expect at warm places not at 4800 meters. Still the first 4 we saw were increadible and than at the next lake you see a few hunderds of them. Some white but most of them had the fluorescent pink color we all know them for. Another strange animal you can find here is the rabbit. Hmmm does not sound so strange, but when you see it has a long tail it does look strange. From upclose it really is a cute little missbreed between a rat and a rabbit, but still I guess it would do good on a BBQ.

Sleeping is a whole new experience on its own. Never slept on beds made from stone for instance or having blankets that are half my size and still find a way to sleep under them. Unfortunatly, no pictures about this anymore...

The next stop for us will be Oruro, where according to the people here, the second biggest carnaval in South America is celebrated. Hmm will be my first time ever to celebrate this Roman Catholic invention.... but it will be interesting non the less.

San Pedro de Atacama

Aha next the dryest place in the world as is told by people. First we had to make a pitt-stop in Calama. Nice place we found out. We had to wait here for about 5 hours and so we did, waited and waited. Than at 17:40 we should be leaving but we discovered that the bus had an hour delay. Too bad, so we went to the other side of the street where there was a beer sign, to stop there for a beer. Inside we discovered to our pleasant surprise that the waitresses were wearing all yellow tops and short very short skirts, later a few girls dressed up in black tops and short very short red skirts. All very pleasant, so we had a beer, and being foreign, the ladies liked us, like they liked us VERY much. But we left of course after a beer to get the bus and later a guy from Chile told us that they might have been prostitutes. Hmm that really puts things into perspective, hahaha.

So next stop, San Pedro de Atacama... here we really saw some beautifull things. So first a few pictures. This is the town in daylight and during a sunset. Not what you are used of of a normal town, the roads are not paved, but the atmosphere is great here.



Being for Chilian standards an expensive city, we decided not to stay here too long. So we managed to jam a few excursion into these days. So bicycling through the area resulted in pictures of very dry suroundings and vulcanos in the back ground. You just gotta love it.



Next stop would be the Moon valley and the Death valley combined with a visit to some caves. Sounds cool... thats what we thought, but it got cancelled because it was very cloudy and a bit rainy. Next day it was even worse, but we went anyway. Which was a big fiasco, with all the rain nobody was going to get out of the car. Not even the Dutch people, so no pictures and no visit, because the next day we went away. Oh a picture of the rain to prove it, the guy is working on dikes (we Dutch just love those).


What we did see was Los Geysers del Tatio and this is totally impressive. Is is located the highest and it is the most irregular field in the world. And we had the change to be there. The tour was very good, which means the guide could speak English, for us a benefit. The first picture is taken still at night, because thats the time they are most active. The water is about 87 degrees, so to bad we did not bring eggs.

The geyser field is surrounded by mountains, also known as vulcanos. And the area is quite big. It is not a national park, because six months ago this very special place is sold to the Italians to industrialize the place. STUPID


While we were there we had a bath in the very hot water and aaaaah, we liked it. Henk burned his hand a little bit, so it really is quite hot.

On the way back we toured the area by day light and saw some very nice looking sites and even animals. Yes, animals do exist in Chile, oh and the meat of the lama tastes delicious!!

Viva el vino tinto!

Hi everbody,
After all the sparclin´ nature, we thought is time for some culture! As mentioned we did a small tour from El Calafate to Mendoza via Rio Gallegos. (just for fun look at a map of South America and find out that this is completely irrational...). So after 47 hours and a bottle of Teachers we arrived in the hart of Vino Argentina! And for those who still think wine grows in a bottle...

Oh by the way, Mendoza is a perfect spot to chill out and enjoy the weather and people!! And there is a park that is truly amazingly nice.

So after 4 days we believed wine and girls are not everything, we went to Chili´s capital. The trip was amazing (especially the borderchecks, pffff!) right through the Andes what brought some beautiful views!


Now after spending some days in Santiago de Chili we can say this city is actually quite nice and cosy! It doesn´t feel that you´re living in a big city, but it has got all the facilities of one and that we like a lot! Even some big mountains right in the city that had to be explored... So if you look carefully to the middle building with the reflection, you might see Henk and me standing on top of the mountain!!! SO LOOK PEOPLE LOOK.

Furthermore, spending some time with Chilian students the city gave us a warm welcome! Although the prices are doubled comparing with the argentina ones we had to eat pollo all the time with the famous chillian beer, Escudo (1 litre costs everywhere 1000 peso, which is about US 2,-). And to make it save back home, the local dogs are the perfect boddyguards!