Yesterday night I reached San Pedro De Atacama, a village like "oasis" with 5000 inhabitants in the middle of desert with same name, after 110 km without any village since Calama.
San Pedro has probably the biggest density of backpackers and tourist agencies in whole (to compare with Puntas Arenas further south) but village has kept some attractiveness by forbidding any modern building. All constructions are here on one single level and made of “adobe” (dry mud). Here is the starting point of all tours to Desert and so close !
I’ve met a strange Chilean with its non-ordinary machine: Max Irwin (Chilean) made 2 bikes in 1 and came with a proof of concept with 3 tires.

I tried it and had the confirmation that people can ride around the world with everything that has 2 tires provided they want really to do it. Max can also be useful as a hallstand : he wears not less than 5 jackets on him without the sleeves he cut!
Tomorrow I am leaving to , 500 km to Salta City including 250 km without anything except a 4500 meters high pass. I will need to “pay cash” my way out from Andes and here it is really high and strong heat!

« Coca yes, cocaine no ! » that’s the main idea of Evo Morales, the current president “andinos” of . A discreet guy, he’s not as loud as his good friend Hugo Chavez ( president) and Fidel Castro but he knows what he wants. 4 days ago, he invited Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president in La Paz to have a discussion on nuclear energy, amazing action in front of the states! I’ve seen the convoy passing by quickly in the streets but didn’t get a chance to get a glimpse of the sad face of Mahmund …  Let’s talk about the “coca”. is a huge producer of coca and many farmers of Andes live from on these crops. But with these leaves, on can make cocaine and this drug poison American people! What to do? The decided: let’s remove the crops of cocaine from producers countries, including . People from the come here and convince farmer to change cultures into others from which it’s harder to live… Evo Morales doesn’t agree, for him the coca is an heritage of their culture and most Bolivians (even the tourists) chew coca, it’s very good to fight the cold and when you’re tired …Thus Morales has decided to fire these American controllers and to legalize these productions. There shall be retaliatory measures from the …. Let’s see what happens …
 I met many American backpackers: animated discussions! One of them mentioned: Al Gore will be the next president with Hilary as a Vice President, as Al Gore used to be the Vice President of Bill. A defender of the environment handling the … some doubts …? 230 km within 2 days at 3800 meters high (thanks to the coco), I’m getting closer to SALAR DE UYUNI.

Amazing, almost 400 km totally flat between Cusco and Titicaca lake.It is the ALTIPLANO at 4000 meters high! The air density is 2 times weaker than at the sea level. We can feel the air is not so resistant, a pity the long down hill was at night, other wise it would have been a good opportunity to reach 100 square meters? A lot of animals on the road, often women are taking care of them. The sky is amazing, nights are very cold like the water in the hotels of 2 euros per night. Yves and Olivia are godfather and godmother of Luz, a little girl of 15 years old, I went to her family to say hello, in the city of Checupe ! 

I am in Puno since yesterday, the harbor on the lake of Titicaca : what a funny names for kids in ! Titicaca in the Quechua language means “puma made of stone”, not enough to laugh about …. Livio ? It is the lake the highest in the world, at  3800 meters, 230 km long and 100 km large and it separates and . The people Uros lives on the small islands which are floating on the lake, they are their boats and their house.

I am feeling regarding my left eye, I’ve seen a ophtalmologist who told me it is quite common with this dry weather. It should get better soon …