onward journeys

From Bolivia, May 7, 2002
(The post below is from a group email I sent to my friends and family while traveling years ago. I include it in this blog as an archive to my travels. It remains in the the raw state that I originally sent it, foolishness of younger years intact, typos and sics untouched.)

it`s been quite a while since while since i`ve written
such a group email, but i`m back!!! i`ve been keeping
in touch with a few people, but not nearly everyone i
would like to, so i`ve resurrected the group email.
please do not feel obliged to recipricate (as i
usually don`t when i recieve such emails), but i would
love to hear from you all and will try my best to
reply. sometimes i can go weeks without checking(or
being able to) my email, a concept which is foreign to
me when at home.

but anyway...

as you may know i`ve been in south america for the
past four months. i flew into buenos aires to visit my
friend pato. she showed me the town, some great
nightlife and introducedme to lots of great `porteños`
i now call friends. then there was the tango, cafes,
museums, and a bit of indepedent enthographic study on
the unfortunate social/economical unrest going on
there.

the city was too much though and after six weeks i ran
away to ushuaia, the southernmost town in the
americas. went scuba diving in the beagle channel
(drysuits- 4C, 40F!) and then travelled north through
patagonia stopping in many places in chile and
argentina to trek, for days or weeks at a time.

and how good the meat and he wine is here, its amazing
that i haven`t gained weight(never fear, i`m still the
lanky yankee i`ve always been).

then it was north to santiago, chile where i met up
with some friends, elena and pedro, i met trekking.
saw the town and met up with a couple of crazy
israelis, gilad and saar, whim i also met in
patagonia.

once again the city was great, but i knew my time was
up. headed north with gilad and saar to san pedro in
the atacama desert, the driest in the world. spent a
day sandboarding (imagine snowboarding on sand dunes)
and touring the desert from a town made completely in
adobe, with no banks but a supermarket selling only
bottled water.

then last thursday we hired a guide to cross into
bolivia on a three day tour of the altiplano. we rose
to altitudes consistently over 4000meters (whats that
15,000 feet or so?) the air is so thin up here and you
became short of breath just trying to tie your shoes
(yes, i´m wearing boots these days!).

we past multi-colored mountains, active volcanoes,
lagoons green, white and red in color, and the
largest, highest salt flat in the world(it looks like
you're driving across a huge frozen over lake). we saw
three types of flamingos, a strange creature that
looks like a rabbit but has a long tail, and cactii
12m, 38´ tall.