FOOOOOOOOOS!

OMG OMG OMG OMG I found FOOS! A whole plaza filled with Foosball tables! So it is true!!! That South Americans love their Foos! There were so many tables I thought I´m in paradise! Me and my mate Laird went to this vanue last night, and challenged all the locals kids to a game.

And guess what He-Man, J-Man, Shanmus, Smelly Al, RC, Wilson and the rest of the Frucor posses? We KICK ASS!!!!! Oh yeah mofos we won all the matches!

How it work in Bolivia is this, you pay 1 Bolivianos for 5 chips, each chips inserted into the chip slot gives you 5 balls. Which gives you 5 rounds of game play. The loosing side at the end pays for the game.

The tables are also slightly different to ours at Frucor. The side are all rounded to keep the ball moving, so tring to do trick shots off the side is way harder. Also, the goalie cannot move sideways beyond the goal post so no fancy trick shots from the goalie either. Finally, when a ball goes dead (corner dead zones), they pick the ball up and do a reverse goal kick from the second line defenders. If kicked well it could send the ball straight into the goal post!

We played many games, and tonight we plan to head back to the plaza to play more games before I take off to Cochabamba. PRO 1 is BACK! :)

My Spanish classmate

Shelagh is my Spanish classmate. She rocks! Looking at this photo you wouldn´t have guess that she is a 62 years old grandmother, travelling in South America for 6 months on her own. She has 3 kids in their 40´s and 8 grand kids. As part of the 6 months trip in South America she is studying Spanish, working with street kids, saving the turtles in Galapagos Islands.

We were the only 2 students in our Spanish class and we constantly made a nuisance of ourselves to our teacher Elizabeth. It was quite fun to have another person around and to learn with someone else. Last night the class organized salsa class and everyone had fun.

I hope to catch up with Shelagh in Quito in a September as our roads will cross once again!

4 Hostels in 2 weeks!

I have been in Sucre since last Tuesday and I have moved hostels 4 times! The last move was yesterday, after I found a room mate to share an expensive hostel. :)

We thought we´d treat ourselves after staying at crappy hostels for the past week. My room mate is Laird, a 27 Canadian studying Spanish in Sucre like me. And we are staying at the Grand Hostel. As the name implies, it is indeed grand. We walk into 2 beautiful courtyards, filled with statues, water fountain, plants and flowers. Our room overlook the second courtyard. It is HUGE! With 3 beds, 2 of them double size, big mirrors, study table, a huge bathroom and satellite TV. I could lounge in this room all day!

This is definitely the nicest place I have stayed at, and even though it is expensive in Bolivian standards, we are paying 150 Bolivianos for the room. Which comes to USD17.50 between the two of us!

Sucre

I´m still in Sucre, the University city of Bolivia. Yesterday (25th March) there was lots of people out on the streets, marching for Sucre to become the capital of the country. It was loud and lively, with lots of marching bands, plane dropping leaflets, adults letting off bangers and school kids waving the Bolivian and Sucre flags out on the streets.

I am here in Sucre for this week to study Spanish. The routine for the week has been getting up at 7.30am, eat breakfast and take off to my class which starts at 8.10am. The walk to my school is only 7 minutes. After 4 hours of lessons, I would meet up with my new room mate Laird for lunch. Over here in South America lunch is the biggest meal of the day. And our favorite dish is the ¨Menu del Dia¨, meaning menu of the day. And since it is buffet we would stuff ourselves. Afterwards, I´d spend my afternoon doing homework, exploring the neighbourhood, visiting a museum or do some Internet. Finally, I´d meet up with a bunch of people for coffee, followed by dinner. Night time would be spent watching movies and hanging out at the gringo bar call Joy Ride. :)

As for the Spanish lessons so far it is ¨bien¨- well. I still have a long way to go before having a conversation with locals... But I am not too worried about it yet as this is only week 3. I will have more opportunities to practise the lingo!

Tigger Lilly and friends

Tigger lilly wanting to say hi to her putriku with her new friends. Finger puppets purchse from the markets. :)

Each of these puppets cost 2.5 Bolivianos = 40 cents US. In NZ they sell them at Trade Aid for NZD10!

Rubbish worker strike

On Tuesday last week I left Potosi to avoid a miners strike, and arrive in Sucre to see another major strike happening. This time it was the rubbish men. They block off all major roads into the town center with rubbish trucks. They have also dump a pile of rubbish in front of the City Municipal office!

Whilst walking past the Municipal office I saw this cute little doggy hanging around outside.

Not long after, I walk past the Municipal office and saw took a picture of the door... And saw this hanging!

... Such is a dog´s life aye?

Alex the kid

Why do I always end up travelling with French people? Like this fella Alex Taurand. A 23 year old student of Economics whom I met back in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. We happen to be on the same route so I ended up sharing a room with him here at Sucre.

But seriously he´s been great! We get on well and he´s been helping me with my Spanish. Yup! Alex studied in Santiago for 6 months so he speaks it fluently. Throughout our stay I´ve been giving him shit about France though, from Green Peace to rugby. :p He is also a brand brasher... in a small way! His entire closet consist of American Apparel, from his undies to his sweater! LOL! But he did point out to me that this brand is not displayed anywhere.

Anyway Alex leaves tomorrow for the border of Paraguay. He will be sorely missed!

Alex also has a blog - It is chilealex.blogspot.com

Cooperative Mine Tour in Potosi

This is a real life TNT you are seeing me holding. In 5 minutes the whole thing would go BOOM! It was lit up and passed around amongst the tourist for posing. This TNT cost 15 Bolivianos all together and is legal to buy anywhere in Potosi. In fact, the number one suicide method is by blowing one self up!

The tour of Potosi´s mine itself was pretty grim. It shows you the harsh working condition face by the miners, some as young as 9 were used, even though the legal age is 18. Luckily we didn´t meet any kids underground. The mine itself is a real working mine, with 4 levels deep. Underground the temperatures can get to 45 degrees. Workers were scurrying past us as we follow our guide inside the shaft. At parts it got very narrow and the fumes were choking. Good thing I wore my Cambodian scarf to help with breathing. Some people freak themselves out and a friend had to be led out after getting too claustrophobic.

Because of the condition underground most often die of silicosis pneumonia within 10 years of entering the mine.

I follow Koala Tours on this and highly recommend them and my guide - Pedro.

Spending 19th July

32 Bolivianos - Accommodation
4 Bolivianos - Internet
12 Bolivianos - Dinner
25 Bolivianos - Lunch
32 Bolivianos - Spanish Lesson
==========
105 Bolivianos

Spending 18th July

32 Bolivianos - Accommodation
18.8 Bolivianos - Moisturiser
14 Bolivianos - Snack
16 Bolivianos - Museo de arte Indigena
10 Bolivianos - Drinks
5.5 Bolivianos - Grocery
14 Bolivianos - Lunch
3 Bolivianos - Internet
=============
113.3 Bolivianos

Spending 17th July

2 Bolivianos - Internet
24 Bolivianos - Dinner
10 Bolivianos - Drinks
32 Bolivianos - Accommodation
14 Bolivianos - Lunch
13 Bolivianos - Laundry
==========
95 Bolivianos

Exchange Rate USD -Bolivianos

1USD = 8 Bolivianos

But in the streets you get 1USD = 7.78 Bolivianos.

Check out my daily spending as I am now definitely coming under 20usd per day. :)

Toilets in Bolivia

This is instructions on how to poo found at a hostel from the Bolivian border to Salar de Uyuni. One thing I can say about toilets out here is that despite the fact that the country is the poorest in this region, it is still cleaner and more hygienic then toilets found in Asia. Especially China, Tibet, Nepal and India!

Salar de Uyuni

Here is a 360 degree video taken of the salt flats at Uyuni. Being there blew me away, so watch this and judge for yourself.

Salt harvest

Salt are actually harvest from the salt flats. Here you can see piles of salt being left for collection by trucks to near by towns.

Pose 2

Salar de Uyuni
Originally uploaded by benwoo

I Taekwon-Do this fella´s ass! Actually I was just doing a side kick when James (bloody English pom) jump into my photo deliberately. But then it did look good for the photo! So thank you James for trying to ruin my picture!

And me doing this on my bible was all my idea! hehehehe

Pose 1 - Group Pose

This is Salar de Uyuni, the famous salt flats in Bolivia. It occupies one massive huge plain of hundreds and hundreds of miles. It is so huge all you could see in the horizon are the blue blue sky. This must be one of the natural wonders of the world.

So what do most travellers do when they arrive? They pose for pictures of course! Here is my group doing various cool pose. From the left you have Jason, Michael, me, Stephanie, Heekow and Joan. Cool aye?

Salar de Uyuni

Amazing salt flats. What you are seeing here is the dry salt plain and the hexagon shape are the effects of salt drying under the relentless sun. The altitude here is over 3,600 metres and covering 12,000 sq km. The reflection on the sun is blindingly white. I thought it was one of the most fabulous natural sight I have ever witness!

More about the background from the bible: It was part of a prehistoric salt lake, Lago Minchin. Whcih covered most of SW Bolivia. When it dried up, it left a couple of seasonal puddls and several salt pans. Including the Salar de Uyuni and Salar de Coipasa.

Expediciones Strella Del Sur

Jason on tour.
Originally uploaded by benwoo

I highly recommend this tour group whom I used to take us from San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni. The company is "Expediciones Strella Del Sur". In our group we had 6 people. They were the 2 Canadians Jason and Michael, Joan the Spanish, Stephanie the Mexican, Heekow the Korean and mua! Our guide Carlos was the driver, cook and guide to the trip. He was knowledgeable and has a great sense of humour. He didn´t speak any English but 3 of the crew did so it wasn´t an issue. It cost us 4,900 pesos or 90 USD for the trip. I know people who paid 4,300 pesos for other tours but I have also heard lots of horror stories, like people not having enough blankets up there or the food was horrid or the 4x4 ran out of gas or broke down halfway. We did not experience any of these problems, though when we got to Uyuni the 4x4 was running on empty! :)

Welcome to Bolivia!

Our bus waiting at the Chile-Bolivia border... And the guys in bus are Canadian Michael and me. Altitude at around... 4,000 metres+ perhaps? All we know was that we were freezing our ass up there!