Today I was reading the paper and there was an article about droughts in Bolivia. While Bolivia is the country making headlines, Ecuador is also have many problems and towns here have to shut down electricity for set times during the day. Apparently Bolivia is in even worse shape and if water problems are not solved, "El Alto, a poor city near La Paz, could be the first major urban casualty of climate change"...

On Wednesday we left La Paz and the morning was certainly eventful. First thing in the morning, I encountered one of the scams that is mentioned in my guidebook: I saw a huge bag of money on the street. My guidebook says that if you pick it up, someone will accuse you of stealing and try to have you arrested. Some guy next to me said to me, “look at that huge bag of money,” but I just kept walking and everything was fine...

When I was biking across Canada with Daniel we had a game called "you know you've been on the road for a while when..." One that stuck with me was that you know you've been on the road for a while when you can anticipate the steepness of an upcoming climb based on the smell. Before we had turned the corner and could see the hill, we already know the steepness based on the smell of burnt rubber from the previous truck to go down the hill. The stronger the smell, the steeper the hill...

I am now in La Paz. The biggest city of Bolivia with all the conveniences of the western world. Since Oruro we had a two day ride along highway 1. The first day was 140 km of relatively flat (for Bolivia) terrain to a campsite on the side of the road. I had some troubles along the way with food. I stopped for food in 2 towns a long the way for food but both times they got the wrong order. I did get a meal in the afternoon for 1 boliviano (12 cents) In the afternoon the wind really picked up and was battling a rough headwind...

We have now completely separated from the Chilean coast and entered the only landlocked country in South America - Bolivia. The process of entering Bolivia was a little complicated. First a stop at the exit Chile station and than 5 km bike on dirt roads to get through Bolivian Customs. The first day we rode to the town of San Juan. A roughly 100 km trek on roads that weren't as bad as I expected. San Juan was a neat town that had this ancient necratorium where you can see people buried a long time ago. They also had a little writeup in the town on global warming and how it is impairing their water supply...

I am now in a city called Oruro, Bolivia. The last quick blog I sent was in Antofagasta and I left off with riding in Valenar. From Vallenar we stuck pretty much to highway 5 and went north up the pan american highway. We hit a series of towns on the Chilean coast. Some great fishing towns and beaches. One highlight was staying in a campsite in Pan Azur national park in the town of Piquero where we got to see some interesting marine life...