Meanderthals in South America 2023

There’s not too much to say about the cities that made up our last week in Bolivia but we did enjoy a few unique sights. Our first city, Potosi, was world-famous about a century ago for the lucrative silver mine found there. In true colonization fashion, the Spanish exploited the people and natural resources generating enormous wealth alongside enormous human toll, and while the wealth left Bolivithe shadow of 9 million deaths still stands over Potosi and the still-functioning mine, Cerro Rico. Here we visited the old mint, another area of human exploitation but now a museum that walks through the phases of the coin creation process and upgrades throughout the centuries. It also houses a coin collection, extensive good collection, and art collection. The most interesting piece was understanding how indigenous religion presents in Christian art,there are many symbols that were retained which is surprising considering the forced conversions brought by the Spanish conquistadors. The best ...

  Uyuni, a town in the Western side of Bolivia, has been one of our favorite places to visit this far. Not be the town itself is anything noteworthy, but because of its proximity to the Salar de Uyuni salt flat, one of the largest in the world. We were fortunate to get to see this natural wonder in 2 distinct phases: the dry season and the wet season, both in close proximity. In the dry season you can drive across the whole Salar, taking in the surroundings and admire the endless whiteness of the place. During the wet season, the Salar becomes the biggest mirror in the world. This experience was literally indescribable so I’ll just put in a bunch of pictures for you to see for yourself. In addition to the Salar, we embarked on a 3-day trip into the altiplanos. There, we saw stunning lagoons full of flamingos and some thermal geysers. Sunny was even able to swim in a thermal pool at 5,000 meters altitude! We had beautiful views of the mountains after an overnight snow, and enjoyed s...

La Paz is an amazing city where we got to really experience highland Bolivian culture. From the new Telefericos (ski lifts) we had amazing views of the city from above. On our walking tour we learned of the unique culture here: from fresh food markets to politics to a jail where inmates have to pay for their own room and board and live with their wives and children. (The details of this prison are extremely intriguing, guards are only on the  outside  and there’s a whole economy and judicial system inside. Coca Cola even has an exclusive contract to be the only soft drink sold inside!) its a vibrant and unique city that we spent a few days One such experience was to visit a local shaman to have our fortunes read from the coca leaves. She said nice things so that was a plus! We were also in town during one of the yearly festivals in La Paz, where locals purchase miniatures of the things they are hoping for in the new year (food, money, cars, etc) and then perform a ritual with ...