hellbent hikers homers home

What a fawken day!!  The bus ride up to La Paz was going good until the bus suddenly stops behind a 5 kilometer line of transport trucks ahead of us...not moving an inch.  Sure we breezed through the border getting all of our passports checked and stamped but in the middle of the Andean Plateau,half way between Arica and La Paz,Bolivia,smack in the center of the Bolivian highlands @ 4000 meters above sea level,where you gasp for air just tying your shoe laces,our driver says we have to get out,collect our backpacks and walk the 5 kilometers past a native roadblock that was paralyzing traffic both directions.  There we go marching down the highway with the other 44 passengers,young and old.  The two of us were actually wondering if we could survive this our first exposure to thin air at 13000  feet above sea level.  We all threaded our way past groups of indigenous Bolivians who were gathered at the blockade.  The tons of rock and sand they had moved onto the road made it totally impassable.  Now a bus was waiting for us on the other side but more  Bolivians had blocked us in once again.  I guess it was a good 4 hours before we were able to start rolling again. Just found out on BBC news why all the roadblocks in Peru and Bolivia. Seems that PM Simon of Peru is going to pass legislation regarding the cutting of trees in the Amazon basin and the indigenous are rebelling against this. These are the worst protests and deaths in recent history and we happen to be stuck in the middle of it.