 What a crazy, crazy busy last few weeks I have had! (Starting to sound like a broken record, no?) After our March mission team headed back to the states, Bev, Scott, and I finally had our first chance for a little bit of vacationing and used the opportunity to do some exploring in Bolivia. I have so many photos of the incredible things I saw throughout my adventures, and thus I am going to TRY to let the pictures do a lot of the talking in this blog entry. We started off our trip along accompanied by their friend, Barb, and headed to Sucre, Bolivia.
The four of us went on a full day hike in the beautiful mountains outside of Sucre…
absolutely beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, and
…probably the best guide in town! (as our guide’s shirt clearly indicated!) 🙂
There were amazing plants and flowers along the way, including these adorable flowers that I named peppermint flowers.
Along our hike we were also able to see ancient cave drawings/paintings, dating between 20,000-30,000 years old! Incredible.
Even got crazy and enjoyed a refreshing drink of fresh mountain spring water (with the go-ahead from our guide that it was safe!)
After Sucre we headed on to Potosi, Bolivia…a mining town that is said to be one of, if not THE, highest “city” in the world, at around 13,400 ft above sea level.
In the 1500’s Potosi was the biggest city in the world, earning its wealth and fame from its mountain, Cerro Rico, which became one of the largest silver mines ever discovered. For over 500 years millions of people have spent/lost their lives mining Cerro Rico, today there is little to no silver left in the mountain, but it is still mined for zinc and copper.
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 I even spotted a rare Potosi big footed bird!
While in Sucre we watched a documentary called “The Devil’s Miner” (highly recommend watching it) about the life of a 14 year old boy, Basilio, who’d been mining in the Potosi mines since he was 10 in order to support his family after his father died. It is a moving documentary and afterwards we were left asking what ever became of this boy? Is he still in the mines? How old is he now?
So when I arrived in Potosi, I made plans to take a tour of the mine, and planned on asking our guide if they knew anything about the whereabouts of Basilio. Imagine my UTTER shock and joy when I showed up at 8am the next day only to find that MY GUIDE was Basilio himself!!!!!!!!
There are 100’s of mines on the mountain and probably at least 50 tour groups that lead tours of the mines each morning….and I just so happen to sign up for this group! The others in my group had never seen the documentary, so I was the only one who was amazed by this now 20 year old boy who was our guide. He has been working as a guide for just 2 months now, and was such a fun and amazing boy…just couldn’t believe I’d found him!
The tour of the mines were very interesting….
We saw how they drilled holes in the walls that they place the dynamite in.
Along with the dynamite they actually use.
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Their masks and gear are very mediocre and do a marginal job of protecting their lungs. Â
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One of the most interesting things was our visit to the mine’s “Tio” (literally translated as uncle), which is a statue that they daily give gifts of alcohol, cigarettes, and coca leaves to in order that the Tio will protect them from harm in the mines.
And at the end of our tour, Basilio…being a typical 20 year old boy….says, “If you want to buy some dynamite we could blow something up…if you want.” Ha ha….ya that’s right…buying dynamite is as simple as walking up to a stand and paying a whopping $3.00 for a stick! CRAZY. So we agreed to it and he showed us how they rig up the dynamite with the cord that you light, etc…and then blew up a big mound of dirt in a vacant area, just to show us an explosion.
Is that me holding a lit stick of dynamite you ask?……ummmm………..yes. 🙂 (This is probably the appropriate time for one of those…”Do not try this at home”….warnings.)
After Potosi I headed off on an AMAZING 3 day organized tour of the Uyuni salt flats, lagoons, mountains, etc.
They send off tourists in groups of 6 in 4×4 vehicles for a fast paced and incredible journey through some of Bolivia’s most beautiful landscapes. At first sight our group was an awfully odd bunch…we had a mid-40’s German couple, a late 40’s Irishman who has lived in Boston for the last 20 years, a vibrant 19 year old from the Czech Republic, a spunky 27 year old South African girl, and ME! 🙂 But over the course of 3 days our “odd bunch”  absolutely hit it off, and had an absolute blast together!
On our first day we visited the Uyuni salt flats, which are the largest salt flats in the world! 
Literally hundreds and hundreds of square miles of salt!
The flats are the perfect place for fun photos
 and great optical illusion shots!
Near the flats they have learned how to make EVERYTHING out of salt blocks! 
Our hostal on our first night was made entirely of salt…the walls, the beds, the tables, EVERYTHING!
 Taking a ride on my salt llama!
We visited the “Isla del Pescado”, which is a totally bizarre phenomenon of an island that sits right in the middle of the salt flats, is covered in these incredibly huge cacti, and just beautiful!
We visited a number of incredible lagoons…
the overwhelming majority of which were home to hundreds of STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL flamingos! SOOOOO cool!
Along the way we also saw incredible rock formations……….
Including my parrot rock!
deserts………….
wind tunnels…….
vicuñas (a beautiful cameloid that is native to the Andes)…..
more than a couple of flat tires…..
BREATHTAKING sunrises…..
and some beautiful mountains on the flight back to La Paz, Bolivia…..
But like always, years from now it is not the sights or landscapes that I will remember most…
it’s the incredible people I met along the way.
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For more pics from my incredible journey through Bolivia, click on the following link: http://whereintheworldiscammeo.shutterfly.com/1163.
Stay tuned for my next update about our incredible work with the April Mission team!
The Adventures of Cammeo 
