Camping in the altiplano

We camped in and passed through all sorts of barren places, but there was a beauty in the dry and desolate land that I've come to appreciate.  It's a far cry from the green forests of Colorado, but holds a different kind of allure.

Camp #1

muña

 We tried to hide the car from the road in a narrow, small valley so no one from the neighboring village would hassle us about camping near their town.  It's not illegal to camp in the highlands, but there's a very different sense of communal land versus public land.













At our first campsite, we found muña, a high alpine shrub that makes just about the best tea I've ever tasted.  Wish I could've brought some back to the States!

 I'm training for a mountain race this fall, so I took advantage of the higher altitude to get a good run in.  It was one of the most impressive views I've ever had on a run, and also the most stares I've ever gotten as I ran past open-mouthed workers in their fields.

 We drove along a road the second day that skirted a ridge between two deep, deep valleys.  Impossible to capture in a photo, but thrilling to drive along.

We stopped on top of the ridge where the road split for a high alpine picnic, surrounded by layers and layers of mountains.

mountains of La Paz on the horizon, the capital city a 6-7 hour drive away

There were lots of beautiful alpine flowers, like the p'enga p'enga that carpeted the ground where we hiked and walked.

 It still amazes me, 13 years after I first started exploring the Bolivian highlands, how people live and survive in such remote and lifeless places.

Camp #2

Our last day, we hiked up to a large lake around 15,000 feet and identified the different high alpine birds we saw.