for Rabia. I don't know what kind of setting you decided on, but maybe some of this will inspire you.

Too tired for commentary; just some sights from the great salt flat and surrounding mountains/desert.

I did promise you something beautiful, no?


( Read more... )

This a journey through photos post so I shall put it behind a cut.  Come in and walk a while with me.

( If there are road signs, they are few )

I took some panoramas while on the world trip but didn't have a program to assemble them. I thought I would (slowly) start doing that and share a few with you. I did this one today because the place--Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia--speaks to me of the Witherwilds in Paoqei, which I am currently trying to get out of my head and onto paper computer ( Read more... )

Still trying to catch up on South America.

Our trip into the Salar (or Salt Flat) began true to our South American RottenLuck(TM). The first "site" on our tour is a visit to a train cemetery.  "You have 8 minutes," the driver tells us as we pile out of the 4WD in front of a line of decrepit, rusting train engines and gutted train cars. Liar (the ( Read more... )

It isn’t only the numerous car and cyclist fatalities that give El Camino de la Meurte (officially known as the North Yungas Road) its sinister reputation. From the road’s inception, it has had ties to morbidity and death. It was built by Paraguayan war prisoners, many of whom died during the construction.

War criminal Klaus Barbie, The Butcher of ( Read more... )

That’s the subtitle they use for El Camino de la Meurte, the dirt road that leads down to Coroico. It is dangerous; one year alone, when the road was still heavily used by regular traffic, over 320 people died on it. Since the first company started the downhill mountain biking, 20 cyclists have passed on to the Great Beyond. That doesn’t mean, ( Read more... )

(This post is out of chronological order, but I already have it written because I just had to record the misadventures right after they happened...)

And I don’t mean the bus going to Sajama. You can miss that one with no problem and probably be a lot better off.

( If you haven’t guessed yet that Sajama (pronounced “Sahama”) did not enchant me, read on, and you’ll soon see why )

Whatever you do, if you are planning to visit the Salt Flats of Uyuni in Bolivia, do NOT go with Blue Line Services. They will lie to you; they will not write the terms of agreement on their vouchers, no matter how insistent you are; when you call them on their mistakes, they will make promises and then not come through, leaving you stranded on ( Read more... )

If I survive The Death Road here in Bolivia, I'll tell you all about Machu Picchu.

If I don't survive, farewell to you all. It's been a blast...