BOLIVIA

 

February 19-25

We caught an early bus leaving for Copacabana.  The border crossing was stress free.  We had heard about the riots that had taken place in La Paz the week before and had thought it might not be so easy.  Basically, the riots the previous week had killed 25 people and injured another 115.  The military was fighting with the police, and civilians really weren’t involved.  We had heard that there had been demands for the present government to step down by Wednesday.

 

From the border, we went to Copacabana, which is on the shores of Lake Titicaca.  We arrived at around midday and checked into a cheap place to stay - 10 Bolivianos per person per night, which is US$1.30.  The town was very small; so we managed to walk around the whole town in less than an hour.  Later that afternoon we went to a restaurant to see a free movie (pirated DVD).  To see a free movie, all you had to do was buy a drink or something to eat.  You then get to choose from among 50 or so new releases.  We settled on "Gangs of New York".  So there we were, sitting back, finally relaxing and getting into the movie.  After about an hour, the DVD starts jumping and replaying scenes over and over and over again.  It was amusing to begin with, but soon became extremely frustrating.  Someone jumped up and tried to forward through the "jumping" scenes, but accidentally stopped the machine.  The DVD player didn’t have a memory so we had to FF to the spot we were up to.  Easy enough?  No.  The machine would only FF x8 frames.  It took us ages to get back to the right spot.  Just before reaching it, the DVD accidentally stopped and went back to the start.  We decided to give up and get another movie.  While putting the disk away, we noticed "Disk 2".  Great, we’d miss a bit in the middle but at least we’d see the end!  Well, 40 minutes in, disk 2 started breaking up.  After 3 hours, we never saw the end.  We did get to memorize some scenes though, and they were funny!  The next day, we put our bags into storage and hiked 5-6 hours along the Copacabana peninsula, along a road that led out of the town across some flat plains.

On the path to Isla del Sol

The road then headed up a steep hill and past a fish hatchery.  We finally made it to the peninsula point by 5:30 PM.  Luckily, there was still a person by the dock, so we got someone to row us across to Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun).  They were not meant to take tourists across after 5 PM, but he didn’t have much choice.  The crossing was meant to take 45 minutes but took more like 1.5 hours.  It was getting dark, and we were told that the village we needed (it was the only place for us to stay) was way up the hill.  Tired, cold, getting dark, and with lightning in the distance, we pushed ourselves as fast as we could up the steep hill to the top.  One kid we passed told us it would take 45 minutes.  He was wrong!  We made it in 15 minutes, just moments before the rain hit.  We located the first place we could see, dropped our stuff, and found a place to eat.  There were not many choices.  Starving, not having eaten for 7 hours, we went for the simple menu del dia, stupidly thinking that it would be quick and easy.  We waited 45 minutes and then went to see what the delay was about.  What could possibly take so long?  We soon found out that despite taking our order and not saying anything else to us, they were sitting in the kitchen, eating dinner with their family and had not even begun to prepare our food.  When the food finally came, it was hardly worth waiting for.  Welcome to the reality of island life in Bolivia.  It was actually kind of cold during the night, and of course there was no heat, but luckily there were many blankets in our room and we fell asleep.

Views from our hotel on Isla del Sol

 

We got up quite early the next morning to hike across to the other side of the island and catch a boat back to Copacabana.  This was a spectacular hike across the mountain ridges, passing numerous little villages along the way.  We finally reached the northern end of the island around midday. 

A couple of pigs doing their thing

We then organized a private boat to take the five of us back to the mainland.  The following morning, we caught a bus to La Paz.  The ride was interesting because it consisted of a lake crossing in which the bus went on a float to the other side, while the passengers on the bus had to take a different boat.  It was a rainy and cold day, so, upon arriving in La Paz, we pretty much just relaxed and had a little party at night in Mark and Lynne’s room.  We played a game called pass the pigs.  It is basically a couple of pigs that you roll in the same way as dice. The game is more complex and Lynne did a superb job of enthusiastically reading to all of us the rules.  We also played some “shithead."  Roel lost the game of pass the pigs and he had to finish off the Rum.  He soon stumbled off to bed. The rest of us stayed up until after 3 AM, having lots of silly conversations.  Somehow, all of us felt fine the next day!  We began the next day by taking a walk around the city, as suggested by our travel book.

In front of a church in La Paz, and a place to get delicious fruit drinks, followed by Ali and I enjoying one (at a different place)

 

One of the areas we walked through was the Mercado de Hechiceria (Witches Market).  After wandering around various markets for a few hours, we stopped at a street vendor and bought some saltenas and ate a bunch of them.  Saltenas are moon-shaped pastries filled with boiled egg (whole) and other spiced vegetables, such as onions and potatoes.  The vendor also had condiments to add, such as peanut salsa.  After filling our bellies, we continued down the main road in La Paz to the more ritzy neighborhoods of Sopocachi and Miraflores.  Being Sunday and festival time, there were literally hundreds of kids with water balloons and water pistols.  Gringos were prime targets.  At one point we had a huge group of teenagers all aiming at us.  I was running in front and all I could hear was the smashing of water balloons.  Each one of us got wet at some point.  We were targets from passing cars, passing pedestrians and people in stores.  I eventually bought some water balloons from someone on the street and got some revenge!

The next day, upon exiting our hotel, we noticed a huge police presence in the streets, many dressed in full riot gear.They were actually clustered near our hotel.  We were not quite sure what was happening.  A little bit later, we heard some explosions.  Cars backfiring?  Firecrackers?  Gunshots?It happened too frequently to be cars.  We soon discovered that they were firecrackers being set off by people at a massive public march down the main street.  There were thousands of people protesting about the government and workers’ rights.  We walked up to the plaza, which was half a block up from where we were staying.  One building was completely riddled with hundreds of bullet holes.

 

After visiting the plaza, we skirted around the demonstration and caught a bus out to Valle de La Luna, about half an hour outside of La Paz.  The area was closed because it was Monday, but there was a guy there who showed us a spot where we could climb the fence and, for a small donation, he gave us a brief explanation.  La Valle de la Luna, or Valley of the Moon, is a small area where bizarre erosion patterns have created an extremely strange landscape.  It wasn't really like the moon, but there were lots of narrow gullies and towers of earth, all soft earth, and with a slippery little path weaving throughout.You have to be a bit careful as parts of it collapse. 

Entrance to the valley and some scenery

Lynne taking pictures, a common sight while Mark and Ali debate something extremely interesting!

 

Nearby, just a couple of km up the road, there was a zoo, and we decided to visit!  When we first walked in, the geese greeted us from a small lake.  Lynne spent some time squawking back at them.  Most of the animals seemed pleased to see us.  We saw some pumas up close. and there were also some condors.

Then we caught the bus back.  We spoke to some people about the bullet holes in the building in the plaza near our hotel.  Apparently, the police were hiding out in the upper level and the military was firing at them.  On our last night in La Paz, the five of us went to the swanky part of town, Miraflores.  We had dinner at the really good Italian restaurant that I had previously been to during my brief stay earlier in the trip.

 

The following day, we went to the Coca Museum, a small building detailing the history and use of the leaf and, more recently, cocaine.  Later in the day we caught the overnight bus to Uyuni.  The journey took a long time, with much of it on unpaved roads with potholes and mud.  At times, it felt like we were going to roll over.  We stopped in a small town, at about 10:30, for a meal and bathroom break.  We  saw a little stall with a woman selling chicken and fries.  For some reason, she would only sell the fries if we bought the chicken as well, even when we offered to pay the same price.  She also seemed unusually annoyed when we asked.  Fortunately, there was another stall a little further up the road, run by two 10-year old girls, who had no such qualms.

February 26 – March 2

We arrived in Uyuni the following morning.  We were immediately bombarded with tour companies eager to sell us a tour through the salt lakes and down into Chile.  All the tour companies seemed the same, so we didn’t really know if we were getting a good one.  As it turned out, we didn't.  We settled into a lazy day in the sleepy little town, and feasted on salad sandwiches in the courtyard of our hostel. 

Relaxing the day before visiting the Salar de Uyuni

 

The following morning we awoke early enough to be ready to leave by 9 AM.  Our party of 5 was rounded up to 6 with an extremely tall Dutch girl and her extremely small dog - strangely, we had bumped into her a week earlier in Copacabana.  At this juncture, things started to go wrong.  We were kept waiting until about 10:20, then we were loaded on to a different 4WD.  They assured us it was exactly the same.  Our guide, Placido, was not very talkative.  He first took us just out of town to the train graveyard (just a bunch of trains rusting in the desert), before returning to town at which point he disappeared into somebody's house for a quarter of an hour.  When he returned, we finally headed off to the small town of Colchani, 22 km north of Uyuni.  People here mine and refine salt for consumption.  From here, we entered the Salar, the salt lake, about 3653 meters above sea level, and about 10,000 to 12,000 sq. km big (the largest and highest in the world). 

The first view of the salt flats, check out the shapes formed by the salt on the surface

 

The salt flats are about 7 meters deep.  We stopped for photos, but not for very long.  Placido kept yelling "VAMOS!"  We were lucky in that we got to see some of it wet (a couple of centimeters of water) and also dry.  When wet, it reflects the sky and mountains like glass, and when dry it is blindingly white.  We stopped at a couple of little hotels constructed from salt.  You are not allowed inside unless it is to buy something, but if you are quick you can pop in without them noticing.  Placido was shoving something into the grill at the front of the car to stop the salt from getting into the engine.  The other companies used plastic sheets.  All of the other cars were also a lot faster than ours.  The next stop was at Isla del Pescado, a little hill in the middle of the salt, covered in cacti up to 12 meters high.  Ali asked the guide why it was called "Island of Fish."  His response was, "Because it looks exactly like a fish from a distance.  Didn't you see it 20 minutes ago?"  What a great guide to point out things like that.

A short distance away from here, when we asked about the mummies, we were told that we do not go there, despite it being promised, because the road is very dangerous and, anyway, he thought they were closed.  Ten minutes later, there was a loud crunch from under the car and we came to a grinding halt.  We were told to walk ahead a little way and wait.  An hour later, Placido came puttering along, with some part of the 4WD system on the floor in the back.  The car could move, but not well.

Lynne asking "What the #@$# is going on here?"

Just chilling on the side of the road, you can see our vehicle in the background

 

We limped to the closest town - Atulcha!  Such a dangerous road!  Not.  We bunked out in back of a little house on the world's hardest beds, while Placido attempted to repair the car.  We were told we could go to see the Mummies, but were kept waiting until dark.  This town had radio contact with Uyuni only twice a day.  In the evening, Placido assured us that he had been in contact with the company and we would get a new vehicle (and guide) in the morning.  We settled in for the night, and  Placido  told us to get up at 5:30 AM, have breakfast at 6, and then be ready to leave by 6:30.

We were up before dawn, packed by candlelight, and then stood outside in the cold waiting for breakfast.  The Dutch girl, Femmka, woke Placido at 7:30.  He was not happy.  Nor were we.  At 8, we had breakfast (bread and jam, instant coffee - who knows why it took so long) and waited for the new car.  We were lied to all day.  They said the car would arrive in an hour.  We finally got to see the mummies, but it wasn’t really worth it.  The guide was with another woman who unlocked a gate and then returned to the car to wait.  His explanation was bizarre.  “The people from here existed before the sun,” he said.  We're not sure if he had any idea what he meant.  It consisted of one mummy in a small cave.  Then you can climb up a ladder and scramble into a dirty cave, only then to scramble out backwards trying not to plummet to your untimely death, before eventually emerging completely covered in dirt.  Only Roel and Mark did it.  We continued up a path to another cave with a cheesy recreation of a mummy and some utensils.  When we got back to the car, Placido asked if we had continued up the path to see this.  One would think he would have said something before.  We returned to town to wait.  Another guy came and told us about the car difficulties.  We were told to have lunch, as the car would arrive immediately after lunch… or the next morning.  Later, Roel went to check again about the car.  We were told that if one did not arrive, we were to return to Uyuni in the damaged 4WD.  We wanted to return straight away.  We were told this was impossible because we might break down and have to spend the night in the desert.  A little later, Placido had gotten so drunk he could hardly stand.  We resigned ourselves to the fact that we were stuck there.  We played cards and drank rum and beer.  In the evening, another vehicle did arrive with a new guide.  Later still, yet another vehicle and guide showed up.  The vehicle did not look any better, but at least the guide was friendly… and sober.  Again we were told to wake up at 5, and we asked the guide to wake us up.  He did so, and things went smoothly for the rest of the trip, aside from two flat tires.  We saw a number a lagoons of various colors, filled with various types of flamingos.  We saw some vicuñas, a relative of the llama.  We also saw some viscachas, like a rabbit with a long tail that hopped like a wallaby.

 

 

There were some interesting rock formations, notably Arbol de Piedra (Stone Tree). 

That night we stayed at Laguna Colorada, with bright red water, at 4315 meters.  A vicious wind made the temperature plummet.  It can get as cold as minus 25 Celsius.  We walked around the lake to an area that looked like mounds of snow - actually borax, a salt-like substance used to make a type of glass.

 

Another early start in the morning, 4am, and we headed off to the geysers at Sol de Mañana for sunrise.  These are at 5000m, and consisted of boiling water and mud.  One geyser shot steam nearly 1000m into the air.  It was definitely below freezing here.

 

 

A short drive from there, there were some hot springs.  I jumped in one of them, as did Ali, but Mark, Lynne and Roel refused, since it was freezing outside. 

It was well worth it!  Following that, our final stop was Laguna Verda.  When it is windy, the copper in the water makes it look emerald green.

It was a very still morning though, so we skipped stones along the surface instead.  From there, it was a short drive to the border, where we got into a minibus bound for Chile.