We spent mabye 4 days in the entire country of Chile.  It's crazy expensive, and the entire top half is one massive desert... which is cool, and all, for a bit.  But damn, the desert is beautiful like depression.  You´ve got to experience it, just so you know, but you really want to get the hell out fast.  And we did.

There's so much we missed to tell you, though... taking almost two whole journal entries to tell you about San Pedro now seems like a fat overemphasis.  Sorry about that, it was cool at the time, but now it's hard to remember why.

Anyway, after La Paz we did the Salt flat tour.  And we somehow managed to do it with the shittiest company out there.  Heh- you win some, you lose some.  There's really no way to be sure you're not going to get screwed when signing up for these things.  Don't get me wrong- it was fun, and gorgeous, and well worth the money... but when you see the other companies that have speaking guides, food that doesn't seem like a 12 year old prepared it, and trucks that aren't as old as me, you begin to feel a bit shafted.  Thankfully, we had a truck full of positive, and hilarious, foreigners to share the experience with. 

The tour ended on the border of Chile, where we hitched a ride with a van and heading to San Pedro (the town).  Then we went sand boarding, which was... interesting.  Too bad I suck a whole lot more at that than at snow boarding.  Maybe it was the burden of having to walk back up the sand hill you just tumbled down that made it seem like more of a pain in the ass than a genuine thrill...  but an worthwhile experience, nonetheless.  At least we had sand-peppered tuna and crackers to fill our bellies and the added pleasure of watching other, just as uncoordinated, goobers throw t ...

It's wasn't by intention to leave you all hanging on the San Pedro story.  My phsycadelic companion had to catch his bus, so I left to say goodbye as brothers bonded by soul searing of the sacred cactus...

We thought we knew enough about the plant to attempt to prepare it on our own.  What we didn't know, however, and we soon to discover, was how to determine the strength of the concoction before consuming it.  Anyhow, the lack of a proper kitchen, stove, blender, and privacy presented some challenges which we enjoyed striving to overcome.  It brought back memories of the days in highschool where we mischeviously applied all our mental capacities to the task of getting high on new and deliciously illegal drugs.  But this time we were older, perhaps wiser, and had the security of knowing that San Pedro is far from illegal around here.  Still, though, we didn't feel that the hostal establishment would condone our processing the plant and consuming large quantities of it openly infront of their other guests. So we opted to keep it quiet as best we could.

Fortunately, not many guests were hanging around on the top floor terrace around 2:00 in the afternoon.  Jake grabed is camping stove, asked to borrow a kitchen pot, and proceeded to try and fit the stove to a new kerosene tank we bought just an hour earlier while Lada and I diligently cut the skin off the cactus as we were trained.  The stove and tank had incompatible fittings... which Jake managed to work into a seemingly snug marriage.  But like most marriages, there were leaks... and about 30 minutes into the cooking process, we had flames coming out of the tank, melting the stove top rather severly before we managed to quelsh them.  Scratching our heads, not wanting to endanger the mission by asking the establishment if we could cook San Pedro on their kitchen stove, w ...

We are alive an well. Thank God. I don't mean to stress anyone out with that (don't worry mom) but some events of the last few weeks had me wondering if I'd pull through to another day. Well... one event, really. Do you remember my tale of the phsycadellic cactus, San Pedro?? We ran aross him again in La Paz, Bolivia for 15 Bolivianos (approx. $2) in a witches market. But, I'm getting ahead of myself...

After leaving the tourist town of Cusco, Peru, we hopped on a morning bus to Puno, a strange little town on the coast of Lake Titicaca. We did some of the gringo trail must-sees like the floating islands of Uros, and Isla Taquile... all well and interesting. We bought necklaces and ate the Tortora plant. But I also spent a considerable portion of the boat journey talking with one of the natives of Isla Taquile, who told me about the strange hat and dress customs of the people, the economy and social structure of the island, and about his adventures with an american journalist who wrote a story about him. That was by far the highlight of the trip. I gave him the rest of my coca leaves and told him that if he checks out my site and drops me a message I'll send him a Spanish-English textbook, which are hard to find around there. I hope he does.

Then we said adios to Peru and hola to Bolivia. Copacabana was the first destination... which was one of the strangest experiences we've had so far. Bolivia is by far poorer than it's neighbors, which would have been great for us, since things are cheaper, if only we could access our money. Oddly enough, the town turns off it's electricity until 6pm on Mondays. And no electricity means no $$. So after arriving on Sunday night, we drop 90% of our money on a room... then stumble around the town as the realization slowly crystalizes that we don't have enough money to eat dinner. Frustrated, we buy a couple bananas and some crackers and go home to sleep off the hunger. ...