Carnavals, mines and loooots of salt

Since our last post about La Paz, so much has happened that mentioning every single thing would lead us too far, but we wouldn't be engineers if we didn't serve you with a few facts. Since La Paz:
- if one combines the amount of kilometers we have both traveled, it roughly amounts to 6430 km
- we have saved 5.49 GB of pictures, and this after Dimitri spent late nights making a best-of selection
- we have gone up to 5200 meters altitude, with temperatures below freezing, and we went down to 0m altitude, with tropical 35+ degrees Celsius.
- the trip amazingness factor has multiplied by three.
 What on earth have we been doing? I'll try to summarize.

 First off was the Carnaval in Oruro, which despite apparently being legendary among South-Americans, is little know among Western tourists. Since all buses from La Paz were completely packed we decided to split a three hour taxi ride with two sympathetic Frenchies, François and Anouck, and ended up paying the equivalent of only 15 euros each.

The carnaval was amazing. One group after another performed traditional dances in simply spectacular outfits with tunes by large marching bands. The crowd went wild and joined in the festivities as Bolivian beauties in short skirts and machos in impressive outfits walked by. As we were some of the few "gringo"-looking people around we were frequent targets for kids armed with foam sprays and extravert locals wanting a photograph with us. We had so much fun that, together with the Frenchies we went out clubbing late into the night and had the time of our lives.

After Oruro, we stopped by in Potosi, the highest city in the world. In Potosi we decided to finally take on Carcoke's mission to descend into a mine. It turned out to be one of the most memorable and exhilarating things we did so far. Let me tell you about 4090m altitude: it is hard to breath up there. Now imagine what the breathing was like when crawling down three levels of a mine shaft on your stomach with temperatures rising up to 30C. This one was definitely not for asthma patients nor claustrophobics. Nor for people that mind a rod of dynamite exploding 15 meters further down a narrow mine shaft.

Down in the mine we met two Belgians from Ninove, Davy and Bert. Their sense of humor was so delightfully Belgian that we couldn't resist traveling onwards with them, and we didn't regret it for a minute. Well, maybe when the four of us were forced to hitch hike because the second bus in a row in Bolivia had a part of it exploding. Two is just a more convenient number to hitch hike, but then again we eventually made it to Uyuni, where we went on the spectacular Salt flats tour, leaving us breathless at the Bolivian landscapes and had us overnighting at 4800m altitude.

At the end of the tour we reached San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. A relaxed little city with lots of fun activities. We went sandboarding, mountainbiking for a disputable 50 km, and last but definitely not least, we participated in a memorable astronomical tour, exposing amazing sights of the milky way which cannot be seen from the northern hemisphere and providing an astonishing look at Saturn which left us awing in amazement for a large part of the late night.

In the lunar valley of San Pedro de Atacama

As you all know we take the missions you send in very seriously. Even though we aren't able to perform all missions successfully, sometimes due to weather circumstances, itinerary differences or just shameful forgetfulness, we do make an effort. This is also the case for the mission of Carcoke which demands an itinerary that forms a huge smiley with at least 100 km diameter. Well, Carcoke will be pleased to see that we have decided to split up in the next two weeks, in an already infamous attempt to create a huge smiley with an estimated diameter of 1100 km. Have a look for yourself.

Legend-wait for it and smile-dairy