more bolivia

Pachamama, or Mother Earth. In reality, it's a huge hill that is the Potosi mine, and where the colonial Spaniards got boatloads of silver.

Sofia and I on the top of an old, renovated cathedral, for a delicious lunch of spicy chicken.

Inside courtyard of the Potosi Mint.

Getting ready for the 6 hour, off road, bus ride to Uyuni, the gate to the world's largest salt flats.

Bolivia. continued

Johnny, our tour guide for the Potosi mines, with a handful of coca leaves, bitumen, and unfiltered cigarettes for the miners.

Helmet, explosives, and coca leaves.

"Lungs of Metal," the name of a local coop of miners.

Yes, that is a small, handmade grenade in my hand. Johnny made it for me!

Bolivia, summer 2008

The lone guitarist at Valle de la Luna.

Rodrigo and I getting the ATV out of a hole...

Dehydrated llama fetuses, and other indigenous religious artifacts.

Yes, those are ocelot skins hanging on the wall, and yes, the are on sale, for a gratuitously low $35 (and that's without even bargaining). Aren't they endangered???

Via Ferrata

Mikey hanging out on the 'other' side... this gorge goes down at least another 150 meters, if not more!

Greg keeping an eye on the flash flood... was just a baby one, though it was a burly 30 minute storm, complete with hail in the Sultanate.

Greg getting himself up to the third traverse. Probably the dooziest one, you had to do a bit of a climb before you could get on a little perch (one person at a time) to set up your pulley for the cross. Once set though, it was smooth sailing straight across.

The descent down to the beginning of the VF.

Via Ferrata

More Oman this past weekend, with another visit to Snake Canyon. This time, in addition to the wadi walk through of Snake Canyon, we topped it off with a run through of the Via Ferrata there, basically a bolted section of steel cabling with several traverses across the wadi, all 300 meters from the canyon floor. Fun!

Via Ferrata

Oman Roadtrip August 2008

I'll definitely post some more pics later, but I wanted to at least get this link up so that everyone can see the full album if they want to:

Oman Roadtrip

Absolutely fantastic trip, good guys, breathtaking scenery, and some damned good cliff jumping! Oman rocks!

scuba trip - RAK

Mungo and John Gregory

Makram, Mungo, a drunk blondie, and Sean

Iraqi Moe wants YOU...

Makram, Mungo, and Ewan? at the pool next to the Gregory's place up in RAK... pool and beers and marlins - doesn't get much better.

Phuket cont'd

A little bit o' Speedracer in a Thai downpour... I just missed it, but those three in the background are all about to spin out!

and some off-roading...

Oh, damn, these were flippin' amazing - banana milkshakes all around! And who knew that I'd even like it? HATED bananas not even 5 years ago...

OK, not the best pic, in fact probably a really bad one, but the only one I got of all of us on our rice rockets.

Phuket 10s with the Hurricanes!

The beach is THAT way!

We sponsored two children from the local town to be able to attend school for an entire year. I'm not sure which two they actually are, but they're supposed to be sitting with us somewhere...

After making it to the playoffs, we lost in the semi's to the Kukri Badgers, a UK-based team comprised mainly of semi-pro guys outta London. Seriously fit, strong, and big boys. They knocked us out, but then asked me if I wanted to play with them during the Championship game (I very happily agreed). I managed to get almost the whole game in with them, and am happy to say that I kept up with them, and even managed to get a couple of nice runs in myself. They didn't share their famous pink socks with me, but I managed to stand out just fine with my bright yellow ones! I've been invited to join their mailing list and will hopefully be able to join them for future tournaments (7s and 10s) this year.

DWS continued

From the right: Mike, Yon, Jenny, and Ben (?)...

Just outside of Masafi coming back from Dibba and trying a fresh date (quite tasty). Nope, can't remember this guy's name, though he did sell Mike a great looking watermelon for AED10.

Dibba Deep Water Soloing

So we headed to the East Coast this past weekend for a little deep water soloing. Hired out two speed boats from the local Omanis and shot up along the coast line for a few hours to get some climbing in. The fun part is getting to the top of the route and having no way back down except jumping! There were some great lines right along the water, with plenty of deep blue beneath for a safe bail out.

Special thanks to fellow Yank Mike Olver for organizing the trip.

Yon, Dave and Felipe all at once.

The approach to the pic below... Absolutely stunning cliff faces, ranging from smooth sandstone like this to jagged volcanic rock that can shred your fingers (and shoes).

Yes, we actually jumped this one (at least Mike, Tom, and I) - a solid 60 footer...

Pakky

In Taxila - about an hour outside of Islamabad - on the top of a hill and standing amongst Roman ruins. Less than 1km away there were some old Greek ruins dating back to Alexander the Great. Stunning. The two guys on the right are students at a local engineering school that offered to give us a bit of a tour. We would never have found this place without them. My colleague, Paul Wood from DMCC on the left, and our driver next to me.

The walk up to the Roman ruins took us through golden fields of wheat, just being harvested.

Psychedelic bus... only one amongst millions.

A little bit of wild pot... seriously, the stuff was growing everywhere. So weird to be driving along only to get smacked in the head with wiffs of stinkiness!