Uyuni Take 1

Hello friends,

Sorry about the lag in blogs...typical Murray for those who know us.  Kara has put me in charge of blogging the first half of our trip to Uyuni, so I will do my best to do our trip justice.  Big shout out to Meg Welsh our faithful travel companion and we are excited that she will be a future CMHP coordinator in the year to come.  Tough act to follow though Meg.  \

So now that I have the Uyuni Wiki page to reference, I can jog my memory a bit.  Uyuni is located in Southwest Bolivia and is the tourist base-camp for expeditions into the Salar de Uyuni--the largest salf flats in the world.  So we flew into our favorite Bolivian city, Sucre; then we bused to Potosi (the famous city with Silver Mines) and finally bused to Uyuni.

 Plane touched down in Sucre, now off to Uyuni!

 Beautiful bus ride from Potosi to Uyuni

 Guardian of the Bags: Despite her low FVC, we didn't lose a thing during our voyage

 From Kingshighway to Uyuni: World Travelers

The first thing that we noticed upon arriving was how short of breath we were--this town sits at an elevation of 3,700m above sea level (thanks Wiki).  As soon as we arrived, Meg (our dear friend who also happens to have moderate-severe asma) shorted out her nebulizer with the increased voltage in the electrical outlets in Bolivia.  So here we were feeling a little bit silly that we brought our friend with the most pulmonary problems to one of the most difficult places to breathe in all of Bolivia.  Everything would turn out OK, and our expedition would prove to be an incredibly picturesque trip. 

 Alright Tonito tours, lets see what you got....

 First stop: An abandoned train yard, significance? still not sure, but looks like a great place to shoot a Western Movie

 All Aboard?

 Not gonna happen...

Look what Meg found!

 Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world.  Over 10,000 Square Kilometers of Salt about 7-9 meters deep.  Each rain brings up fresh salt so that the miners never run out of this resource. 

 Although the Salar is mostly a tourist attraction, there are many who make their living mining the salt here. 

 Don't be mistaken, no snow here.  All salt. 

Isla Incahuasi: The largest "island" in the Salar. It was full of cactus and rock formations. 

 Climbing up the Isla...

Looking back down on the Tourist Center

 Tiny Jeeps traversing a sea of salt...

So one thing about endless salt is that there is quite a bit of reflection of the sun.  We found this out about 1/2 way into our first day when we all started to turn red.  

 Protect the back of your neck young lady. 

 A hoody in 90 degree heat? 

Pretty nice view.   

 ?

 Watch out for the Cacti!

 2012-2013 Glamor Shot of the Year?

Or...?

On our way down to have some fun with the "fotos locos" as our guide would say...

Stay tuned. 

Meg's Visit....Classico

Since October we've done a horrible job of keeping up with this....so I'm going to try to post a flurry of shorter blogs about some of our experiences in November and December. Meg came to visit for two weeks and it was awesome. We had a ton of fun in Santa Cruz, Palacios, and on a trip to Uyuni to visit the salt flats. So now for some of the fun.

 The same day we picked Meg up from the airport we went to The Classico! This is a soccer game in Bolivia between the two Santa Cruz teams, Blooming and Oriente. We're all Oriente fans because Don Oswaldo and Don Louis are Oriente fans :) Sorry Douglas....

 On our way to the game wearing our green to support Oriente!

 Outside the stadium before the game begins. Everyone is selling foam squares covered in plastic bags to sit on in the stadium. They actually work really well and after the game all the kids run around to collect them and sell them again, quite a competition.

If you're wondering about all of the empty seats , Don Oswaldo had us get to the game about three hours early to make sure we had seats together. There is general admission, where we sat, which is supposed to be family friendly and have a nice mix of fans from both teams. On either end of the stadium there is designated seating for Oriente and Blooming fanaticos...supposedly at times these areas get a little dangerous and Don Oswaldo wouldn't take us there. However, continue reading....

 Blooming Fanaticos

Oriente Fanaticos

 Riot control...

Fireworks before the game and after every goal

 Not only fireworks, but sparklers set off in the fanatico sections throughout the game!

Ready to begin

 

Game time

 Our own fanatico....for the winning team!

 Now back to the advice from Don Oswaldo...we were told our section was much safer than the fanatico sections. However, suddenly during half time all of the people to our left start running at us and down off of the bleachers. We had no idea what was going on but starting coughing and having our eyes and throats burn. Apparently someone was getting rowdy and the police tear gassed the crowd. Luckily we were just far enough away that we were able to cover our mouths and noses with our shirts and wait it out without too much difficulty. However, the ambulance had to take a young kid out who had apparently been right in the midst of the gas. So, on Meg's first day here she went to the biggest soccer game in Santa Cruz and had her first experience of tear gas.....Quite a start to her trip!

  Even with the tear gas the game was awesome and our team won! Oriente team acknowledging their fans after the game.

I've made a huge mistake...

So, when Kara left with the car to pick up Marvin (lab jefe) from the highway, and they returned walking to the clinic we were appropriately concerned.  On our drive out to clinic, it had been pouring and we knew that the roads in Palacios would be bad.  We had been warned by previous coordinators who had themselves gotten the car stuck...  Kara did have the bad luck of encountering a tractor on her way back and in her efforts to pull to the side and out of the way, she did not realize how deep the water was there.  Well one thing led to another and her expedition returned to the clinic on foot...

 

 I have to be careful with this blog, since with 6 and a half months remaining in our Bolivian adventure, there is more than enough time for me to create a similar blog-worthy debacle.  What complicated this situation was that there was a visiting endocrinologist, Dr. Terry Unterman, who needed to return to Santa Cruz that afternoon! 

 

Put your back into it...

Dr. Unterman was a good sport--more than happy to help with our collective efforts to pull the car out.  But, as you can see in the above picture, it was really stuck.  We had 4-5 people pulling from the front, we tried pushing it back in reverse, but nothing would work.  Our spirits were beginning to drag...

I wasn't quite ready to joke about our situation...

Fortunately (especially for Dr. Unterman) another tractor happened to come by while we were attempting to free our vehicle.  They were muy amable and offered to help us--they even had a metal chain pull our car out.  The wheels of the tractor give some idea of the force it was able to generate, and we had our coche back in a matter of seconds. 

Gracias para su ayuda!

So Kara was able to take home the title of first coordinator to get the car stuck (this year).  Although I hope we will be able to avoid this scenario, since the rainy season hasn't even started yet--I have some sincere doubts.  Dr. Unterman may have gotten a bit more than he expected with his one day trip to Palacios, but at least he got to go home with a story. 

Empanada Making

Since we have been here we have found out that there are "days" for everything here. Day of the Dogs, Day of the Mujer (lady), Day of the Social Workers, Day of the Students, etc.  Several weeks ago we celebrated "Day of the Doctor" and got up early to make and eat empanadas before clinic.....in reality Mumi had already made the dough and the filling, we just helped to put them together! They were delicious.

You can see the dough Mumi prepared ahead of time...and her adorable granddaughter Ariana

The process begins. Mumi is actually using a pasta maker to roll out the dough.

 My hands, putting the filling of potatoes and chicken into the dough. Interesting fact, notice that the filling is red. However, there is no spice that makes it red, they literally use red food coloring in powder form because it looks boring if its not red. In order for it to be a true empanada here, it has to have the food coloring; if not you will definitely be criticized.

 The process at work, me folding the filled empanada.

 

Probably my best folding job.....looks pretty good. Twong, this reminded me of the day we made dumplings!

 

 Pepe, doing the frying.

 Finished product, golden brown and very tasty

Ready for our pre-clinic feast!