As to understand exactly what IM talking about here you may want to read the Argentina chapter first as I was offered a job that meant I had to leave Patagonia behind and head north back into Bolivia.

So with great regret I must say that my trip has changed indeed. This is not to say that I am not happy with my situation. Perhaps I am not but right now I am still not sure how this is going to go. Whats for sure is that the level of adventure is going to slow down drastically unless of course I am sent to a truly exotic place to travel. I have (almost, not yet positively)been hired by a consulting firm based in England that supplies information to various travelling guide books such as Lonely Planet and Footprint. I am not exactly sure of what I am doing but basically I will be travelling around(not necesarrily in South America perhaps anywhere, I just dont know yet) and collecting information on Hostels and restaraunts, making a report and then moving on. The pay is pretty good considering that most of my travelling expenses are taken care of.

Upon arrival in Tarija after 3 days of travelling I basically decided that I was not going to take the job. The thought of leaving my glorious backpacker lifestyle behind of sitting on plazas drinking beer, sleeping when I want, and constant oppurtunity and free will to do as I like. Also my backpack is geared up to do what I passionatley love, to trek in the wild and climb mountains. Before leaving Patagonia I was considering making a solo bid for Los Ojos del Salado, the second highest peak in South America, the highest in Chile and the highest volcano in the world still slighlty acttive. The thought of this seemed dreamy aswell as other peaks in the Andes. Also I still have enough cash stashed away that I could continue travelling for sometime.

Ive now decided to take the job, atleast to give it a chance. It is after all the job that every traveller dreams of, and the one that I have dreamt of. So Im looking at it professionally as a job rather than as travelling. This way I hope Im atleast not disappointed by how things turn out. I still get to travel and meet people but now with constrictions and rules while trying not to ignore the adventures and oppurtunities that taunt me. I know for many people that are envious of such a job are saying I should be damn happy to be so lucky. It may sound silly of me but this is just who I am and what I thrive off. I can´t look at a map and not get excited from studying a mountain range wondering what the highest peak is like. I hate the thought of going to Eastern Africa and not being able to climb Kilimanjaro!

January 2nd- I still dont know if I have the job or not, I´ve been here in Tarija, Bolivia for nearly 2 weeks longer than anywhere else so far on my trip, actually longer than anywhere including Vancouver for over 7 months. Tarija is a lovely city set in a bowl of arid mountains with a desserty atmosphere but still with plenty of trees within the city. Its a quite town of about 140,000 people but right now with a great influx of Bolivian tourists. This city is hardly in any guide books and does not attract many foreign tourists but Bolivians know it as one of the funnest places in Bolivia. Especially during these holiday weeks the city is perptually drinking. There are two main plazas in the center both relaxing and rather beautiful with a tiled floor and tall palm trees that hide the powerful sun at midday. One of the plazas is for families and quite relaxing while the other is for the young people. All night and well into the morning people are drinking and partying. Bands are playing, people have guitars, bottels of whatever you want. This is no problem with the police or anyone living around its simply the way it is.

The best part of tarija is definetly the people and Ive been getting to know a lot of them. With basically no foreign tourists around Im left to finnally hang out with locals, forced to speak spanish forced to adopt their traditions and customs. For me this has so far been one of the best travelling experiences that Ive ever had. To stay in a city with no other gringos but now to actually have the spanish that I can meet and make friends with the locals has truly been an outstanding experience. But still my travelling boots are starting to itch and I want to get moving to continue the journey. Wether that is again solo or with my job I dont care so long as it starts soon. Hopefully atleast by tomorow I will know if I have the job or not. If not so then oh boy Im back into the mountains to climb some crazy ones.

To keep me sane I went and visited a city 8 hours from Tarija in the mountains called Tupiza. Tupiza is in a very arid climate surrounded by cactus covered dessert mountains. In my two days I made an awesome hike one morning climbing several barren peaks picking my way through a mesmerizing array of different cactuses managing to catch only a few cuts from there spines. On the other day I hired a horse and guide and went off riding up into dry Canyons and exploring the countryside. Unfortunatley that morning I ate a large breakfast of eggs that were salmonalicious or something so I ended up taking a lot of breaks to vomit. Riding horses is not a great idea when your nauseous especiallly for 6 hours. That night I took the 8 hour trip back to Tarija and so thankfully I some how managed not to puke during the ride.

Like I said the people here like to party. For Christmas Eve we went out dancing to a disco. We met some other people and went to someones house when the disco closed at 6. I ended up getting home a t 10:30 christmas morning, a christmas eve like no other. For New Years I bought a 300 Boliviano ticket(50CDN) for an exclusive all alcohol party. It was at a fancy restaraunt club so I had to rent some really nice clothes for 3 dollars. There was about 2000 people at the party and it was quite a blast. the way it worked was if you asked for a rum and coke you got a 2 litre botel of coke and a bottel of rum, and the same with whisky vodka and fernet. We collected a lot of bottels and did our best to finish them all but IM afraid I dont remember to well if we finished them or not.

January 15th -Most of my days in Tarija were spent relaxing in the plazas and of course drinking. I made one excelent excursion leaving the center bound for some mountains outside town. Picking my way through suburbs and farming outskirts recieving very strange looks from people who had never seen a gringo certainly not in there neighborhood. Although not having a camera has really been hard for me it has meant that I have nothing to lose by hiking solo through isolated areas where Im not sure of the level of safety. I made my way up to a pointy peak and then connected along a ridge to a higher peak. Aside from the pretty view of the valley of Tarija I found a taratuala looking spider and the strangest worm-catapillar ever. Also I made a daytrip to the beautiful valley called Valle de Concepcion where I tasted the local wines and toured gorgeous vineyards with a glass of wine in hand.

I had still not heard anything about the job except for a quick spanish email saying that I may not know until the 20th. My camera that my parents had sent, an exact replica of the one that I had stolen, finally arrived through DHL Courier a week late. With my camera and time to kill waiting about the job I decided to leave town while keeping in contact via email with my friend in Tarija to know about the job. My destination was the famous Salar de Uyuni, the highest salt flats in the world located in Southwest Bolivia. I caught a bus 11 bumpy hours north to Potosi where me and Sam had been 6 weeks before to explore the horrid mines of Cerro Rico the hill that was the source of a massive portion of Spains silver and was extremely influetial in the history of South America. Withsome hours to kill before my 6 hour bus to Uyuni I went up to the mines to show some other travellers a little of what I knew and then we went to La Casa de Moneda the house where all the silver from Cerro Rico was processed and stamped into silver coins for Spain before being shipped out on mules and slaves backs to the Pacific Ocean.

The 6 hour bus ride to Uyuni was through barren dessert barely passing any small settelments except that of some llama shepers and the odd mining camp. The town of Uyuni, located in a dessert plain, was unexciting but it was not for the town that I had come for. After getting settled in to Hostal Sajama I went out to meet a tour operator recomended to me by my friend in Tarija for the Salt flat 4x4 tour. I paid up a relatively large sum (for Bolivia) of 80 US for the 4 day 900 km tour. I was some what dissapointed to learn that the salt flat was flooded so we couldnt go see some of the main attraction in the salt flat but being flooded meant it would be a surreal world of hallucinagenic reflections in the calm shallow water.

On route to the salt flat the road was already flooded up to nearly 2 feet inplaces but our Toyota Landcruiser ripped on through it and continued on until all of a sudden a great lake was before us. Shining blue and reflecting the patterns in the sky with great brilliance it was like no lake I had seen before. It was infact not a lake but the flooded version of the worlds highest salt flat. To my amazement our driver did not slow or stop but continued on right into the water. Most of it was actaully only about 3 or 4 inches deep and so we plowed on through it towards an abyss where the water could not be distinguished from the sky. It was quite unusual. Other Jeeps could be seen ahead of us but to judge how far was impossible , all bearings disapeared and it seemed we were almost in another dimension. We continued on until a house appeared ahead of us with a perfect upside down reflection. This was the hotel of Salt and it was where we were going to spend the night. Built almost entirely of salt with salt walls, tables, chairs, and beds.

The hotel was built upon a raised stage of salt and appeared to be an island in the sky. So unique and so impressive I spent the day walking around taking picture and then I walked about 5 km out into the abyss where there was nothing and here it truly felt like a strange environment.

Because the salt flat was flooded we couldnt explore it very much other than visiting the salt hotel so instead we headed south from the salt flats and into the 3000m to 5000m desert high plain. So odd to see a desert in rainy season littered with giant puddles and verdant green growth that would normally be brown and dry. The tops of all the volcanoes were covered in fresh snow adding a beautiful backdrop to the strange landscape. As we were passing over a high pass a herd of wild Vicuña, a strange half cousin of the llama that is an endangered species and teh siz of a north American deer. They ran across the road infront of us, not the first time that we had seen them but the best. We arrived at the first of many lakes on our route where we saw our first bright pink flamingoes. Passing by many lakes we arrived at an old adobe hotel where we spent that night. We woke up very early the next morning to arrive at the geysers while they were fully active and we watched the geysers girgle and spew gases and steam while the world slowly came to light. It was a very eerie and mystyerious morning. After that we continued on to a thermal pool for a morning bath while watching flamingoes walk around us. Then on to the last lake Laguna Verde with symmetrical Volcan Lucanbram 5910 m standing across from us. After that it was basically a 7 hour bumpy but extremely fun 4x4 road back to Uyuni.

From Uyuni the 6 hour bus trip to Potosi took 11 hours because the roads were terrible due to the heavy rains. My third time in Potosi I already had been in the haunted mines and toured La Casa de Moneda and I only wanted to do one thing, to climb to the top of Cerro Rico (4816m). Me and a German girl who I met in the tour hiked up to the top of the famous hill gouged out and misformed after 400 hundred years of intensive mining. A very interesting hike passing by countless abandoned mines. After an afernoon in Potosi we contiued on to wonderful Sucre where I would study some spanish.

My time in Sucre was mostly spent in the wonderful Hostelling International hostel where me and Sam had been nearly two months before. I signed up for spanish lessons but my teacher was very unqualified and after 4 hours I was turned off from the idea. After that I spent my days walking in the absolutely wonderful colonial streets and the central market. At first haggling over the price of figs and then after a few days only buying from one lady named Gabriela short and rather over weight with excellent produce, fair prices, and she knew my name and would screem at me as soon as she saw me. Actually though she usually called me Papita( roughly translates to little dady, but its more of a Bolivian thing). All the produce no matter how badly you got ripped off was stupendously cheap and usually for 3 or 4 dollars I would happily leave the market with an enormous bag of gorgeous produce. I cooked up wonderful food that would normally cost about 45 cents a person if I was cooking for many. The nights were almost always spent at Barrio Frances a club/bar owned by a guy from Luxembourg who insisted he was from France.

I also spent many hours on the internet looking at mountains, I was starting to feel rather sure that I had no job and in that case after such a relatively borring time spent in cities I was due in for a serious adventure. An area that I read about many years back jumped out at me. An area with as high mountains as anywhere in The Andes but yet still relativley unexplored, most of them hardly ever climbed, many of them never climbed before. The reason is difficult access, and a terribly harsh climate. La Puna de Atacama is the name of this chain of mountains located at the edge of the driest dessert in the entire world right on the border of Argentina and Chile in the province of Catamarca. Roughly Mid way between Mendoza and teh Bolivian border. Another backtrack it would be but I was sure that it would be worth it.

These were serious mountains though and to attempt to summit them solo was a serious task. I was already nicely acclimatized, even here in Sucre we were standing at 2700m but to make a safe trip in this area I wanted to be ultra acclimatized so logically I went back to Potosi at 4050 m, the highest city in the world. Beside Potosi lies teh Kari Kari range full of 5000m peaks and other just under, easy climbs done in a day but with glorious climbing routes as well. Before I would enter the Puna de Atacama I wanted to be totally comfortable with 5000m climbing routes. But although this is still part of Bolivia I think that it is more logical to put it as an introduction to my Puna de Atacama chapter and so If you wish to continue hit teh link for La Puna de Atacama, and IM terribly sorry if there is not yet anything because as I write this I am preparing to return to the mountains there for atleast a week.

La Hotel de Sal

A herd of Wild Vicuña

More dessert and volcano landscape as part of the same tour

Sucre, Bolivia