¡Hola! ¡Buenas tardes!

Jarki and I are still on the planet. We arrived in Sucre, Bolivia last night. We´ve been moving fast, covering a lot of ground. We´re looking forward to spending a few days here - resting, looking, walking, and washing our feral selves. The continent is huge! We´ve FELT every kilometre while travelling in the bus!!! We have rattled and rolled in dust and people filled buses, accompanied by a bouquet of smells and scents.

All the roads in Bolivia are gravel - not sealed! I will never complain about transport in NZ again! The first photo shown is a typical village scene. The people´s homes and dwellings are all adobe brick! There is no grass, no paved footpaths - the footpaths and roading in the villages is dust and stone. These first two photographs on this blog are taken at Tilcara - northern Argentina. Our favourite place so far!! The hills surrounding the village are layered in multicolours - pink, orange, blue, cream, red and brown. Jarki and I couldn´t understand how the local people could always look so clean and tidy while living in such a dusty environment.The pople are quiet and gentle.

The land is arid, dry and dusty - I´ve seen few trees, instead a lot of scrubby tussicy plants. The people are amazing .- I stand in awe at how they can eak (sic) out an existance in such a harsh environment. These people are so adaptable - they grow their crops and use the resources within their environment to make their clothes, build their homes and to get their food. They grow quinoa, all sorts of interesting and colourful potatoes, and corn. Their clothing is woven from llama wool, their furniture and lamps made from dried cactus (very decorative), their food grown in the land around the village.

From Tilcara we travelled to the Bolivian/Argentinian border. Another new experience for me - moving through a border crossing, walking through the ´no man´s land´ between the two countries. The photo on the left is Jarki and I entering Bolivia!

Right - our friends we met in Tilcara are standing at the Tropic of Capricorn!!! Check that out on the atlas!
XXXX Adios