Getting High

Shortness of Breath. Dizziness. Tingling in the extremities. Confusion. Cerebral Edema. Death. These are all the lovely symptoms of altitude sickness.
Bolivia is a place known for its altitude, the highest of everything seems to be here. I was a little apprehensive of gaining 2000 meters upon our entrance to Bolivia to out first destination, Tupiza, after what happened on Mt Blanc in France 2 years ago (what happened- my head felt like a deflated balloon and I couldn't stand up until we descended, it was embarrassing). Mom and I spent our day in Salta (among other things, like seeing a 500 year old incan mummy) considering the problems we might have, and how we would deal with them. I was satisfied with our plan to take altitude meds, drink coca tea and turn around if stuff got really hairy. Mom seemed more concerned, and when she, as a nurse, is concerned about health matters, I find it hard not to worry.
The bus from Salta dropped us unceremoniously 1 km from the border. Uhhh, take a taxi? Well, we had no more small bills, as our plan was to change our hundreds of Argentine pesos into Bolivianos once we crossed the border. A couple who was on the bus with us, Cole and Vesa, originally from Macedonia, but living in Australia for the past 20 years, helped us out with a taxi to the border. After an what seemed like an hour (I had been waiting to pee for 5 hours, having no small bills to pay for a toilet in Argentina) filling out Bolivian Visa and Customs forms. Finally, we got across, toted our mass of luggage to the currency exchange place and bought bus tickets. We had to wait about an hour, but with bladder relieved, we stood around our luggage exchanging travel stories. Despite the fact we were cleary guarding our bags, a "blind" woman tried to pick moms pocket and grab the handle of her bag. we shooed her off, but jeez. Border towns are sinister places, after all.
We get on a dusty local bus, packed with locals and dotted with westerners, headed to Tupiza. The coutryside is something out of a western movie, which makes me heady with excitment (maybe the alitude?) for the horseback riding we planned to do. We get into town, and Cole and Vesa help us to sort out a hotel, we end up next door to them... and going out to dinner with them... and booking a two tours with them. They had traveled a lot, and had a lot of stories about that and about Macedionia, which apparently is a country that has everything good imaginable, but the Greeks or whoever steals it from them. Lets just say they had a lot of hometown pride.
The next day we leave on a jeep-horseriding combo tour that takes us to some of the stunning geological formations around Tupiza. The area around Tupiza was the famous final showdown for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the setting couldnt be more perfect for a cowboy adventure. Red, white, yellow, green rocks- in towering spires, deep canyons, and arch windows made every turn a postcard perfect photo. I was snapping away all day- which was fine while we were in the jeep, but my horse had a habit of breaking into a full gallop at the slightest whim, often times when I was just framing a shot, and I had to give up the picture in exchange for holding on for my life. I am truly amazed my camera survived the beating, ending up often times bewteen me and the saddle.
The next day, after being conned out of 3 Bolivianos by a spiteful hotel mistress, who I suspect stole my jewelry (all of which was cheap paste jewelry, basically valueless, except for sentimental reasons as I collected most of it on my trip), we left for a four day 4x4 tour of the Southwestern Curcuit and Salar de Uyuini. The trip took us up even further, maxing out at 4850 meters (thats nearly 16,000 ft folks!), taking us past scores of llamas (careful! they spit!), brilliant colored lagoons filled with flamingoes, volcanoes, crazy Dali-esque rock formations, and the blinding whiteness of the largest salt flat in the world. The scenery was spectacular, and the weather ranged from damn cold to colder than Antartica. And Vesa and Cole would know, they just came back from a tour to Antartica, as they told us several times (turns out they wanted to get thorough use out of their interesting stories by telling them to us over and over). We slept in unheated concrete buildings on concrete beds decked out in all of our clothes. Well, thats being unfair, the last hotel was made out of salt bricks that they had mined from the salar, so that was cool. Sunrise on the saltflats was one of those beautiful moments that you just want to freeze in your mind- the raised cracks in the flat whiteness catching the pink light of the new day creating an endless web of delicate color and white, against a saturated blue sky, one of the most specatular sights on earth. Definatley a highlight. Definatley worth getting up at four am, and enduring 4 days of rough dirt roads with Grandma and Grandpa Macedonia, and sleeping on freezing cold concrete. After the sun rises, the salar becomes an endless stretch of white in all directions, like a huge ice lake. We raced through it to the original salt hotel (a hotel made completely out of salt, with salt chairs and tables and clocks and beds) and the salt mine. After some ado, we said goodbye to our tour group, and booked our bus into La Paz, our next destination. Fingers crossed that 1. we make it there in one peice 2. our luggage decides to grace us with its presense 3. that the shopping in La Paz is really as good as all this hearsay. Until then!