I´m In Awe!

Hello Again,
This may require more than one blog. First for the mundane. As soon as we got in to Bolivia, I broke down and bought a bottle of Bacardi Dark, my favourite rum. The very next store had the illusive ´mickey´(small bottle) of rum, and every store since has it. Love Bolivia!
I strongly encourage everyone to read Joy's blog about the last few days. Not only can she create beautiful paintings of what she sees, but she also paints with words. My first reaction was to record a lot of minutia about what we saw and the events as they occurred, but that hardly is sufficient to do justice to one of the most amazing areas on the face of the Earth.
First, we were very fortunate in our choice of Tupiza Tours, as we met 2 wonderful folk in Gerardo, our driver and guide, and Silvia, our cook. At the end of the four days we developed a close friendship with them both, and both were great at their jobs. Driving sounds like an easy job, but try wrestling a 4x4 over twisty, rocky ground for 4 days. For Sylvia, it was hopping out and whipping up great hot meal for the 6 of us, 3 times a day, and making certain that she had the ingrediants with her. And they do it every week! Fortunately, Joy was able to present them with sketches of themselves before we left the Salar de Uyuni. The jokes that were flying around as Gererdo was poising for his! He has been at this for 9 years, and knows the ground intimately. We hardly noticed the 2 flat tires, as they were fixed and back on while we were resting or eating. We will remember them.
The other friends we made were our 2 Aussie lasses. When you are our ages (mine anyway), you have never stayed in a coed dorm and it has the potential to be a somewhat uncomfortable situation and was what I dreaded on the tour. These 2; Steph and Mandy, were just the greatest travelling companions and we got along like the proverbial 'house on fire', despite my twisted sense of humour. It was a riot watching them trying to make the perfect strange photo. That is the reason why there is a photo amongst ours which has Mandy holding out her hands with Joy and I apparently standing on them. They are both 22 years old and at various stages of their university, having already hade many life experiences, and strong families at home. I even had to pretend that they were my daughters when a 'creepy' guy came along. We later met another 6 of their friends who were going the opposite direction to us. The coed sleeping arrangements proved to be no problem as is usually the case with those fears. Our 2 Aussies made it easy.
I will have to leave my description of the trip for another blog, but if you only see one thing in your life, it should be this. I love Canada very much, but this area of the world defies description.
Off for the laundry.
Jim