A short Bolivia Tutorial

Bolivia is a country of almost 9 million people high up in the Andes in South America. It's Latin America's 5th largest country though much of its territory is sparsely inhabited due to rugged landscape and a harsh climate. The low population density contributes to vast, incredible, untouched, raw, barren beauty. On the altiplano, snowy mountain peaks always remind you that you are soaring in high altitudes. (That and the fact that you can only climb two of three stairs at a time because you are gasping for breath in an effort to inhale just a little bit of oxygen.)

Salar de Uyuni

Bolivia's most dramatic natural beauty lies in the Salar de Uyuni, better known as the Salt Flats, a 12,000 km area on the southern end of the altiplano near the Chilean border. This area has kilometer after kilometer of spectacular landscape. Deep red mountains rise out of sandy plateaus. Active volcanoes spew smoke. Brightly colored lagoons suddenly appear around each corner. Their colors come from their high mineral contents and the red, green, deep aqua blue burst out amongst the tans and browns of the open terrain. The edges of the horizon were met with clear bright blue skies.

A link to photos from my Bolivia Trip

PHOTOS FROM BOLIVIA

I got published on Budget Travel Online!

TRUE STORIES
10 Amazing "Small World" Encounters

We recently asked readers of our blog to share their experiences of traveling somewhere far from home only to encounter someone from their hometown…or from their past. You sent us dozens of great stories. Here are the 10 most surprising ones. read more

Check out number 6!

#6 I was in Budapest and had just been attempting to use a pay phone to call an arriving friend at our hotel. After dumping more than three euros of change into the phone and getting nowhere, I was frustrated so I gave up and decided to walk back to the hotel. As I was walking I saw a women talking on a cell phone. I looked at her and the ease of her phone with great jealousy. Suddenly I took a closer look and saw that it was Katie Callahan, an old friend from high school who I hadn't seen in almost 20 years! She practically dropped the phone in surprise. I ended up borrowing her phone to call my friend, who had also gone to high school with us and we all went out and caught up at an elegant hotel overlooking the Danube.

It reminds me to always look at people when I am walking around, no matter how far away I am from home!

Posted by: Cordelia Persen | May 21, 2007

Silvermines in Potosi, Bolivia

One of the stops on the trip was in Potosi. It is a small silver mining city where the Spanish Empire reaped the majority of its wealth. In the height of the empire Potosi was larger and more important that London and Paris. Money was pouring out of the city and it was the place for entrepreneurs to come make their fortunes. Today Potosi looks beleaguered. While there are little signs of its older grandeur with ornate churches lining many of the streets, it shows more signs of the reaping and pillaging of colonial empires, than the investment of people planning to stay.

During the Spanish Empire over 9 million people died in the mines. Today silver mining is still the main job provider in Potosi. And while job conditions have gotten a little better than in colonial times the average life of a miner is still only 10-20 years from the time he starts working. Arsenic poison attacks their lungs. As Westerners, who have been able to choose our professions, it was very hard for us to look in the miners eyes without why do they keep doing these jobs? How does one start a job when they know it’s an early death sentence? How can you father the average 6 kids and then leave your wife as a widow at 30 or 40 years old to raise them, when for the most part there are no almost no pensions or support after you die? But, in reality, we had to reflect back that this is all these people know. For hundreds of years the men of Potosi have been sacrificing themselves to dig up silver and now other minerals like zinc. Their fathers died as they will too.

We were able to go into the mines and experience a bit closer what life is like. We climbed through little tunnels and traveled deep into the mine. We met miners and even got to experience a dynamite blast and hear the broken rock fall away in the tunnels around us. At times in the mine I really began to question what I was doing there. Safety seemed to be a secondary concern. The smoky dusty explosive filled air sent sharp pains through my sinuses. Darkness, mud and deep holes were treacherous parts of our journey, but I am an experiential explorer and feeling that blast of air from the dynamite that practically pushed me over might be the coolest thing I’ve ever felt. The process we experienced is how most minerals are retrieved and I got to feel it first hand in a way I'd never be allowed in most countries.

In the end, I must say though I’m looking at silver in a new way now. Capitalism pushes for the lowest price for commodities but if you saw the conditions that people worked wouldn't you pay a little more for your trinkets???

Beautiful Bolivia

Hats, hats and more hats! If only those sales ladies really would have let me take their photo?!? Can you see them?



Tiwanaku, the worlds second oldest civilization, existing almost 3000 years before the Incas


The sprawling Salar de Uyuni


White churches, public squares and kids playing soccer... Bolivia in a nutshell.


Yes, I am off again, for a mental health break from job searching. I've headed down south to Bolivia, tucked up in the Andes at 12,000 feet above sea level! Yes, that means I'm high up in the mountains! Its beautiful, traditional and oh so very alive. Bolivia has the largest indigenous population in Latin American with between 50-60% of its people having pure Indian blood. It makes for fascinating people watching. Its a country with even more hats!

My birthday in Austin

Photos from the trip

Austin, Texas on my mind

Many of you know that I have started a tradition of taking an exotic trip for my birthday. The first two years I spent whiling away days in historic Cuba with fresh mojitos while listening to live music. Then last year I really upped the ante by going to Afghanistan. Of course that was so far out that I couldn't even remember that it was my birthday. This year fresh off my India trip I decided to take it down a notch, but not too far down, so I chose Austin, Texas. Yes, I know... Texas, did I say Texas?

Many of you may be asking why because perhaps you aren't as familiar with Austin and its many virtues. Others who have been there before automatically get why I'd pick Austin. One friend told me the saying goes "that once you go to Austin, you never want to leave" And I can assure you that my travel companion, Christy, and I spent many, many hours contemplating what our life would be like if we moved to there. Would I buy one of those cute little houses and fill my lawn with yard art, which can be seen all over? Would I have the energy to go see bands and dance the night away every night like it seems like people in Austin do? Could I really trade in all my black for blue jeans, buckles, boots and hats? Perhaps I should give up my career and get a bartending job, work on my rhythm and really learn to two step? Or better yet, there is a lot of cool sustainable growth issue stuff going on in Austin. Could I be part of that?

Have you been to Atlantic City lately?

This past weekend I took a trip to see the "new" Atlantic City. I was there for a bachelorette party. While Vegas was our first choice, various reasons made us pare down our ambitions. So, if not Vegas, where? Big hotels, pools, restaurants, bars, gambling... really!?, only just over 2 hours away from New York??? Wow! That sounded like an option. Truthfully though, I didn't know what I was getting into. I hadn't been there in at least 10 years and didn't have high expectations. I had heard changes were afloat but I had no idea just how many changes had been made.

Faces from my trip

Link to the photos

Photos from India

Click on the Photos from India words above this photo for a link to the slideshow

Link to the photos

Photos from Bhutan

Click on the Photos from Bhutan wording above the photo to link to the slide show

Link to the photos

Doors from Around the World

Click on Doors from Around the World above the photo for a link to this slideshow

Link to the photos

Happy New Year!

I just met two people coming home from a night of yoga for New Years Eve. At midnight 150 people began a series of chants for world peace, which sounded like a significant way to wish in the New Year but also at first seemed a little elusive until I put my own spin on it. I began to think about all the different people I have seen this year and all the things I hope for everyone I know, including all the things I am thankful for and suddenly New Years had significance in a way it hadn't earlier in the night.

I wish for the next New Year for:

Everyone to have access to water when they need it
May electricity power their lights
May they be able to dream and achieve those dreams
May public transportation exist to get them where they have to go.
May healthcare, immunizations, medications be available when they don't feel well.
May everyone be able to get an education, read a free press, and actively participate in their political systems like I am so blessed to do.
May they have a safe dry place to call home
May they be able to provide for a family and live together in a web of support.
May food be available to satisfy any hunger
May clothes be available to cover every back

I am a lucky person. I appreciate that I appreciate the wonderful people I have around me that make my life more rich. I appreciate the hot water that fuels wonderful long showers, I appreciate being able to eat anything I have a craving for. I appreciate my cosy flannel sheets.

And mostly I hope all of you will take time to appreciate what you have too.

This might sound a little hippie-like, but humor me and think of the things you are thankful for and think of those that might not have these things and feel the significance of really wishing well for people.

And lets be thankful for the other things we are blessed with.

Happy New Year!
Happy Life!
Happy New Starts!
Happy Old Ways!

Global Exchange Kerala Trip

India can be an overwhelming place. There is so much to try to understand and so much that gets lost in translation. To no surprise to all of you who know me, since I have arrived I have been reading everything I can get my hands on. The local new agents laugh as I purchase every English language newspaper and news magazine they have. I have written some in my blog about the many contradicting faces of India and I realise that no matter how much I learn there will still be so much beyond my grasp.

In an effort to add even more substance and context to my trip, I decided to spend the last two weeks on a Global Exchange "Reality Tour" of the southern state of Kerala. Once again GX helped me connect with local leaders, professors, workers and activists so I could hear their stories and ask some of my ever expanding list of questions. It also gave me a group of fellow US travellers to share observations with.

Kerala and Gulf Money

One thing that has surprised me on my visit to Kerala is that this is the community that all those Indians I met (and photographed) in Dubai are from. It feels like a lovely completion of a journey, because when I was in Dubai and meeting so many Indians, I got my first pull thinking that I had to visit India. Although most of my family members have been to India multiple times and have always sung its praises, it wasn't until I met those men that I really wanted to visit. Their sweet soft spirits brought the country to life in a place where I was expecting to meet Arabs.

Kerala Photos

A short school break just to say hello. Every time this happens I get afraid that their teachers will come out and yell at them, but it seems that they like the diversion too.


A women making beedie cigarettes out of leaves and tobacco. One of the many co-operatives that I visited to learn about the programs they provide to give better wages and somewhat of a safety net.

Indian Child Labor: Up Close and Personal

Last night I shared my overnight train compartment with an Indian family. I had the top bunk so I watched and talked to them from there. They were a small family from Trivandrum, Kerala, in South India. The father was an army doctor. I thought it was a young couple and their two daughters, but at sleep time one of the two girls disappeared so I asked where she went. The mom said rather indignantly that she was not her daughter but her maid and apparently she was sent to sleep in a lower class train car while the three in the nuclear family cuddled safely together.

Beautiful Kerala