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- Newsgroups: rec.travel
- Path: sparky!uunet!super!jill
- From: jill@super.org (Amelia J. Scott-Piner)
- Subject: Re: adventure in latin- and southamerika
- Message-ID: <1993Jan25.172146.19126@super.org>
- Sender: news@super.org (USENET News System)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: bart
- Organization: Supercomputing Research Center (Bowie, MD)
- References: <1993Jan10.145726.29382@kth.se> <1993Jan11.211333.25108@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com> <1993Jan16.163547.27954@head-cfa.harvard.edu>
- Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 17:21:46 GMT
- Lines: 45
-
- In article <1993Jan16.163547.27954@head-cfa.harvard.edu> shaks@head-cfa.harvard.edu (Jonathan Schachter) writes:
- >
- >In article <1993Jan11.211333.25108@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com>, JEFFS@LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM (Jeff Schaefer) writes:
- >> In article <1993Jan10.145726.29382@kth.se>, tordm@vana (Tord G.M. Malmgren) writes:
- >> >
- >> >
- >> > Hi! does anybody out there have any good tips on adventurous travels
- >> > in Latin- and South America? For example some nice places with waterfalls
- >> > in the jungle which would require going by feet through jungle or by horse..
- >> > Thankful for any kind of info!
- >> >
- Lots of stuff deleted for brevity....
- >
- > I haven't been to those places, but I just returned from my second trip
- >to the Altiplano, the high plane of the Andes in southamerica. This time
- >I was in Lauca National Park, in the extreme northeast corner of Chile.
- >Last time I was hiking around La Paz, Bolivia. Both are really spectacular
- >places, with the base altitude around 4000 m, and the mountains over 6000 m.
- >To me, it's like nothing else in the world.
- >
- >jon
-
- I have to agree. I haven't seen a more breath-taking spot on the face of the
- planet than Lauca National Park. A dead snow-topped volcano, two shallow
- fresh water lacks, tundra lichen, and an abundance of alpaca, chinchilla,
- flamingos, etc. The scenery is spectacular and totally strange. It's also
- so high up that any slight exertion puts you out of breath. We had terrific
- headaches by the time we got back down to Arica, Chile (a beach/port town at
- sea level). If we had known ahead of time, we would have taken decongestants
- and aspirin before going up. The lunch stop offered coca tea. This *isn't*
- cocaine, it's just a few coca leaves steeped in hot water. Smells kind of
- like mint tea, has a mild effect like coffee. Opens up sinuses. (It takes
- a ton of leaves to produce one kilo of cocaine...and it's got to be processed.)
- The local indians chew wads of it. We didn't go that far. Refused it on the
- first stop, were dying for air by the second so we drank a cup for relief. It
- worked for about an hour, then the headaches came back in full force.
- I'll state that despite our discomfort on that trip, Lauca was one of
- the most incredible sites that I've ever seen. Someday I hope to go again, but
- armed with decongestants, aspirin, bottled water, and probably a wad of coca
- leaves if all else fails :-). I just hope that it remains as unspoiled as it is.
- --
- -------------------------------------------------------------------
- Amelia Jill Scott-Piner | Anything that I say has nothing
- jill@super.org | to do with my company.
- Bowie, Maryland USA -----------------------------------
-