Larry Memmott's Blog

The mine tour in the Cerro Rico de Potosí is not to be missed if you can handle the physical demands and the tight spaces involved.  I’ll provide more details later, together with my recommendation for a tour guide, but for now, just a few reflections about the tour and the mountain, itself. Legend has […]

Today we drove from Sucre to Potosí. Tomorrow Christina, William and I will take the mine tour down into the famed Cerro Rico. Wish us luck!

We visited Cal Orck’o and the Cretaceous Park this morning. It’s definitely a worthwhile stop in Sucre, and from the management we understood that it will be getting even better. Cal Orck’o is the site of a major cement plant of the disputed Fanesca cement company. It is also the quary where Fanesca gets its […]

We’re in Sucre, our first stop.  If you haven’t been to Sucre, you certainly should go.  It’s a beautiful whitewashed colonial city of great historical importance.  It’s a pleasure to walk, has at least one great hotel, and a number of sights well worth visiting. We got here this morning and immediately checked into the […]

This is our favorite museum in La Paz. It’s especially fun for kids, since there are many instruments you can play and play with. The number and variety of instruments is impressive. The museum is at the bottom of Calle Jaén which is well worth exploring anyway.

The Aymara new year tradition is quite different from those I have been accustomed to in other places. Rather than celebrating the night before, culminating at midnight, the Aymara celebrate at dawn on June 21 (winter solstice here in the southern hemisphere). This morning, I was up at 4 am to prepare for the drive […]

  Last night we went up to El Alto to check out the famed Oveja Negra rock bar, see one of our favorite bands and a couple of others.  As usual, we had a fantastic time.  We got there a little late, so missed Morbogore, but caught Angaros’ set, which was very good, and Armadura, […]

So, I finally broke down and got a Garmin Oregon 450.  This is not a review.  There are lots of reviews out there, anyway, and you can find all the details about the unit on the Garmin site.  Instead, my point here is just to mention its usefulness in the Bolivian context (or that of […]

The church in Jesus de Machaca looks quite different from other churches on the altiplano.  It also looks quite out of place for such a large and sumptuously decorated church to stand in such a small town in such an apparently poor region.  With its whitewashed facade and blocky look this church is an example of late renascence architecture.  German Ambassador […]

Maybe it should not have surprised me to find natural arches in Bolivia.  After all, the scenery is often reminiscent of that of Utah, my home state.  Still, it was a big surprise to look up from my sandwich as we picnicked on a rock outcropping south of Tiwanaku and see two natural arches.  They are only […]