Day 285 Altiplano Jeep Tour Day 1 16 November 2012

Today we started our 4 day jeep adventure tour of Southern Bolivia. Our group of 4 tourists, driver and cook/guide headed out into Bolivian high dessert.  We saw some beautiful landscapes along the way.

 

 

 We saw our first llamas! One fell in love with Martijn and started following him!

 

 

 

 

At the little village, San Antonio de Lipez, where we would stay the night we climbed up the hill to have a nicer view of the sunset. This turned out to quite the effort because we were at a high altitude of over 4,000 m/ 13,000 feet. The view of the sunset was not as spectacular as the guide made it out to be but we did see a cute little bird nest on the climb up- making the effort totally worth it.

 

 

 

 

In the evening, after dinner, we had a group discussion. Apparently the minor road block our tour vendor told us about was a lot more. It turned out the block was to the entrance of the Reserva de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa and that the small villages within the park boundaries had been attacking tourist jeeps with rocks and encircling them, not allowing them to exit or enter. This is because they want the government to step in and change how the funds generated by tourists entering the reserve are distributed (more money based on population of the village versus on the physical size/acreage of the village). As the discussion continued Ana was thrown into the role of translator and the discussion moved away from the actual situation to a discussion about the tour operator not telling the whole truth as to not risk losing a sale and the principle of a good faith discount on account of being misinformed/misled. Ana asked Martijn, in Dutch, if it really mattered to him and he said no but there was the principle of the matter. Ana continued with the translating of the discussion trying to explain why the group should get a discount. After an hour of translating sarcastic remarks, vague promises to call the tour operator, how the guide gets paid, who pays the cook and alternatives such as ending the trip early we were at a stalemate and Ana was beyond irritated. She said she was done and that she and Martijn didn’t, in essence, care about what would be a 20dollar discount and that we were fine with whatever the outcome but did not want the trip to be cut short. More than anything we have learned to be flexible and go with the flow. Of course we were sad that we would not be able to visit the Natural Reserve but for us a 4 day organized tour means a mini vacation from figuring out where we are going to sleep for the night, how we will get from point A to point B and what we are going to eat as well as awesome sites to see.