July 2, 2007

AAI's second Bolivia Expedition of the season is underway! Guide Danny Uhlmann called today at 2pm with a brief update from the field. He recounted the last few days:

"Saturday, the group met in La Paz and went to dinner at Highlanders for a nice "tex-mex" meal. Very delicious. On Sunday, we all had a tour of Zona Norte in the morning, and then in the afternoon we took a guided car tour to several places, including Valley of the Moon and El Alto (a town outside of La Paz that sits up on a hill and allows for a great view of the entire city of La Paz). Then we went to dinner at Mongos, a lively nightclub and restaurant. We woke this morning and left town at 9am for the first day of our Taquesi Trek.

"We trekked in for a few hours, had lunch, hiked a little longer, and then set up camp. Now we're about to have a big dinner (and a big cake!), and after that we'll take a short walk to visit the Mina San Francisco. Tomorrow we'll be trekking over a 15,000-foot pass (we're at 13,500' now), then descending to 11,000 feet where we're camping near the town of Taquesi (population: 15). Tomorrow we'll also be hiking on a section of the Inca trail, which is extremely well-built and has really effective drainage systems.

"That's it for now, we'll be in touch!"