Oil and Water Project

So 20 minutes after we left for the first road trip with Alex and Jody….the thermostat went out (at least we thought it was the thermostat). We have removed it and are traveling without one until a replacement can be found.

Jody is an engineer and builds airplanes for a living. He jumped right in and started helping us.

Alex has is an MD and has a PHD. She constantly reminded us about the similarities between the human body and the inards of a vehicle.

First look for the obvious symptoms. In this case we replaced the cap to the radiator.

Since that didn´t work we tried some straight up tender lovin care to the thermastat.

It is so frickin awesome to have these guys along with us after a month of just the two of us. We are so psyched for the annual wine fest in Mendoza this weekend, then a boat load of presentations in Santiago and South of Chile. Stay posted this weekend for tons of new photos!

Yeah! We got Dr. A and Tylers brother. We are headed to Argentina…the wine country! We will stop for a little kayak session this afternoon just north of Bermeja, the border town of Argentina and Bolivia. The roads are paved all the way to Santiago. Yeehoo.

A speical thanks to all the folks who helped us to make such a great program in Tarija!  As well thanks to Andrea Frangoisia, Sarah, Kristian and Priscilla from the Bolivian Peace Core for saving all this oil.  As well shout out to Mario Moreno from Santa Cruz, Bolivia for sending us 40 gallons of the wonderful Soy Biodiesel.  Thanks Jody for pumping in into the tanks!

Sunday afternoon we had another presentation at the Centro Integrada de Santa Isabel (or
C.I.S.I) in San Lorenzo, Tarija. The C.I.S.I is home and haven to about 65
Bolivian children ranging in age from 7 to 18 from poor adjacent areas, which provides
shelter, food, and guidence to the students.

We got to do a roll session with some of Bolivia´s Olympic Kayak polo and slalom team. They came really close to getting their rolls!

We noticed that all of our radiator hoses were very swollen on our trip through death road. So we spent the last days coordinating new rubber! yesterday, once complete, Kristian…a boater from Oregon took us south to this river north of Bermejo. We loaned him our extra boat (it didn´t come back home the same afterwards, but regardless…it came back). We expected class 3 and got some sweet 4plus with some great scenery. On the way home one of the hoses blew off, we over heated, and spent half the night getting back to Tarija, where we couldn´t find a parking place for the life of us! We settled for a nice spot in front of the Police station at 2:30 am.

We were up again this morning at 7am to present to over 600 primary school students….followed directly by a hazy press conference with all the local media.

The kids had some great questions and they all brought in the waste oil from the mom´s kitchens for us to use on our journey south!

In the afternoon headed over for a around 750 secondary students.

The primary kids at this school didn´t get our presentation, so we took them for laps around the soccer field.

Hey all…

Well, after arriving here in Tarija we realized that our plan is not going to work.  As many of you know, we have not had our own map for the majority of this trip.  The map we saw on google showed a road that went from here to the Salar de Uyuni….well, I just found out that is a train track…and the only way to get there is back the way we came to Potosi (the worst road ever..not an option!).  So we are re-routing our trip South to Argentina via Bermeja.. and will be  hitting the wine country instead of the Atacama now.  Sorry Dr. Alex…we will figure a way to get you from La Paz to here!!!! Thanx for following!

Right before we headed into the unknown..we stopped to top off our air shocks and tires.  It was lucky we did, because Tyler noticed a flat tire on the inside of own of our rear duallies.

Ty has officially taken to knitting.

Some folks in Potosi told us that it was 7 hours on a dirt road.  There was absolutely nothing out there….truely Bolivian wilderness.  8 hous later we saw a small sign pointing to Carmargo.

The last bit of light revealed this marginal single laned road.  We spent the night driving a nasty road etched into the side of the cliff, and dropping over 10,000 feet into the desert.  It took us over 16 hours altogether to make it from Potosi to Carmargo.  It was the most extreme conditions that baby has taken on yet, and this is only the beginning of our stint through Bolivia.

Some say that this weekend in Oruro, Bolivia is the biggest party of the year here in Bolivia. We were out mingling in the street for half the night, and woke up early to the parade this morning outside our hotel.

The costumes have been incredible:

The protocol is usually a big demonstration of dancers in costumes followed by a marching band.

Each group just keeps getting better and better.

It is now dark, and the parade is still going!!  The costumes are full of color and the masks are surreal.  The dancing in the street won´t stop until Tuesday I hear.

The team was up EARLY this morning trying to get baby rolling. It was soooo cold (La Paz is situated at 13,500 feet) that the Palm Oil Biodiesel was coagulated rock hard in our tank with no hope to get her to the first event. We got rushed down to the center of town in a government vehicle to attempt to entertain 600 school kids. We broght a kayak for a prop, and Tyler was sliding down a set of 40 stairs as everyone cheered!

Demonstration at Plaza Villarroel, Final Busch, Miraflores

With the use of a trusty new space heater, we got baby fired up for the afternoon event at the top of town, El Alto. This was one among the biggest events we have had. The Ambassador of the US Embassy, Phillip Goldberg (right) and the Mayor of El Alto (left) joined together for our introduction and drove Baby into the event with us standing on the top!

It was nice to have Baby for this one!

Demonstration at Campo Ferial, Ceja, El Alto

The crowd treated us like real celebrities, the girls swarmed and squealed like we were the Beatles.

The day started at 7 am with a pick-up from our hotel in a white suburban with tinted windows.  They first took us to a studio where we did a studio interview talking about the weeks biofuels events.

After the interview and a nice breakfast they carted us over to the university for a meeting with the Minister of Science and Technology, the Director of Science and Technology, and the General Coordinator for Climate Change in Bolivia.  We all agreed to start the ball rolling for some massive national changes regarding the use of alternative energy here in Bolivia.

Afterwards we had a meeting at the US embassy with all the activity co-sponsors.

La Paz local government, El Alto local government, Institute for the Development of Chemical Processes, Nacional University of San Andres, NGO Educadores para la Democracia, and Pollos Copacabana.

We were pretty tired by the time we went on with Juan Carlos later in the evening.  This is one of the biggest talk shows in Bolivia.