July 22, 2006
Day 297
Since the Apolo trek didn't pan out, I wanted to find one last challenge before heading home. I had wanted to climb a mountain for a long time, so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity. Even though Huayna Potosi is 6088 meters (20,000 feet) high, it supposedly can be climbed with no previous experience. I went around looking for guides that would take me and got a lot of information, but a lot of the tour companies were closed because it was Saturday. It seems like every time I'm in La Paz it's the weekend and it's hard to get stuff done. I'll try to leave for the mountain on either Monday or Tuesday.
The big highlight of my day was that I went bowling for the first time in South America. Craig found a bowling alley called "Twin Lanes Bowling," and we decided to check it out. At home, if a bowling alley doesn't have automatic scoring it is primitive, but in Bolivia, it would be quite modern. As the name implied, Twin Lanes Bowling only had two lanes, and not only was there no automatic scoring, but the pins didn't even get set up automatically! Instead, a guy sat behind the pins and jumped out of the way when the ball was bowled. Then, he'd set them up manually and roll your ball back to you on a track next to the gutter. I was barely able to break 100, but it was a lot of fun trying to bowl the ball before the guy could get out of the way. It added a whole new element to the game. Maybe bowling alleys in the States should consider hiring a teenager to set up the pins manually. It would give the game a newfound rustic appeal.
I would bowl there if you opened a place like that Dan!