Salt and Mosquitos

       First I´d like to give a shout out to my very computer saavy friend Carly for making my blog a little fancier with the map of our travels. I love it.

Salar de Uyuni
After La Paz we headed south to the largest salt flats in the world. We took a 3 day tour to see the salt flats and various colored lagoons, this was by far the coolest thing we´ve done all trip. Possibly one of the neatest things I´ve ever seen. We kept saying that we felt like we were on another planet or that we had fallen into a Dr Seus book.  It was once a salt lake that dried up and left miles and miles of salt. It´s so flat and white that it messes with your perspective, see funny photos below. We hiked up to the top of the fish island which was an island full of cacti and when you looked down onto the salt flat it looked like a huge mirror and you could see the reflection of the mountains and the clouds on the ground it was breathtaking. That night we stayed in a salt hostel. Somehow salt was mixed into the mortar and so there were salt walls, salt beds, salt floors. Most of you know how much I love salty foods so this place was pretty much a dream come true. I licked the wall to make sure it was really salt, it was! Next day was a lot of car time. We were out of the salt but still in the desert. It was strange to be in the car for hours not on a road and not passing any towns or signs etc. We came to a lagoon that was full of flamingos. There are 4 different species of flamingos that live in these lagoons, we´re talking thousands of flamingos in the middle of the desert, beautiful and strange, like I said Dr Seus book. Last day of the tour we woke up early to go sit in some natural thermal bathes and watch the sunrise. Then we drove to a bright green lagoon in front of a volcano. The lagoon had some sort of mineral in it that made it glow green. The fog was rolling over it as we arrived and the fog was green too, once again so beautiful and otherworldly.

Surviving the Bolivian Jungle
From Salar de Uyuni we headed  North to Trinidad to work for 2 weeks at Chucchini a wildlife conservation center. Although it did not turn out the way we had hoped I cannot say enough nice things about this place. The family was so kind and welcoming and the reserve was beautiful, we just happened to come during the rainy season which also means mosquito season. So we started off with a bang by taking 3 overnight bus rides in a row and then took a cab to Chucchinni. The cab dropped us off and said Chuchinni is 2 more kilometers and that he couldnt drive there because the road was too bad. So we put on our packs and started walking. Turns out it was more like 5 km and yes the road was very bad and full of water. We waded through knee deep puddles while being swarmed by mosquitos. When we got there the family was so shocked to see us, they said how did you get here? The men are in town waiting to take you here by boat. Apparently they had sent this news to us in an email but since we had been on buses for 3 days we hadn´t checked it. So we started out like rockstars-the family was very impressed that we had arrived on foot. The swarms of mosquitos we encountered on our walk continued to swarm us for the next 6 days. We´re talking 50 to 75 bugs on your body if you stand still for a second outside. We attempted work the first day and put on long pants and a long tshirt and they loaned us hats with mosquito nets. We did some manual labor, clearing the area type work, which wasn´t bad, it was the mosquitos that were so bad. We realized later on that these bolivian mutant mosquitos can bite through clothes and so after that one day we were just covered in bites. (I´ll spare you pictures) We explained to the family that we loved their home but we needed to leave early due to the mosquitos. They were so kind and understanding and told us that they wanted us to enjoy chuchini and wanted us to stay and not work. They then proceeded to get out their homemade liquor (bolivian moonshine) and their guitar and have a celebration with us because they said they were so greatful we had traveled so far to be with them. So we ended up staying 6 days and not working. The highlight of the week were the boat trips-because when you´re on a boat with a motor there are no mosquitos. We also got to see some cool animals, a prehistoric bird, turtles, snakes, alligators. At night Ibis (the son that´s a vet) took us on an alligator tour in which we go out on the lagoon and he shines a light looking for the orange glow of a gator eye. Then he drives the boat right next to it and pulls the gator out of the water! You hold it by the throat so it won´t bite you-dont worry mom they were little gators (Having some issues with the pics will put them up soon). We caught two and named them Seymour and Reynaldo, they spent the night at Chuchini and then we set them free. After Chuchini we headed back to Santa Cruz Bolivia to relax and let our bites heal. In the next couple of days we are headed to Bonito Brazil and then to the coast of Brazil. Pretty excited to spend the next month exploring Brazil. Thanks friends and fam for the continued thoughts and emails-miss yall!!