Bolivia - Travelling Wakanoobies

May 1, 2008

“Copa- Copacobana….”

We are writing this, having arrived in frigid Puno, Peru and are attempting to whittle away some time as there’s not a whole lot to do here apart from the tours…but thats an experience yet to come and a blog for the future… On that note, we wont be in touch again until early next week, we are headed to the Amazon on Wednesday…

So, Copacobana (thats the Bolivian one), beautiful Copa. It was a fantastic sight after the smog of La Paz!
We left La Paz early in the morning. There was a bit of confusion, as it turns out that the 1st of May is a public holiday (workers day) in Bolivia. Originally, we had been told that we would be picked up from our hostel, which is on the main street. After going down early for breakfast, we noticed that the street was blocked off and there was a marathon taking place..an annual marathon.. Luckily a representative from the bus company came down to collect us and take us the the bus. Everything is uphill in La Paz, so poor old Jo had to lug his enournmous backpack the whole way there (for some reason, he packed an excessive amount of womens clothing and toiletries that havent all been needed… he’ll never learn..). Anyways, it was like a wild goose chase to get to the bus and we collected more and more equally confused backpackers on the way. Very few of us understanding the instructions.. Luckily we got there fine and started our journey fine.. only to stop about 20 minutes later after getting caught in a noisy traffic jam in El Alto just out of La Paz. The street here was also being used for a parade and only 1 lane was being used (which developed into a 5 lane jam of honking busses, trucks, mini vans, taxis and the odd car if it could fit also).. Luckily it only took 2 hours before we were able to move again and 3 hours until we got to Copacobana!

Anyway, enough about the bus trip, as exciting as it was!

Copacobana is a small rural township that sits on the edge of the immense Lake Titicaca. It has a holiday beachy feel to it (well, as long as the suns up… after dark, you realise you’ve been tricked as it cools down to 4 or 5 degrees). As well as the locals and Bolivia’s (landlocked) navy (!), its home to a quite few foreign hippies. Luckily for us, our second day there, was the start of a festival (Fiesta de la Cruz). Many people came from surrounding towns and cities and all paraded the streets dancing and dressed in costume.

Blessing of the dancers

Parade for the fiesta

Most sections of the parade had their own brass band (that somehow managed to play while marching up hills and around town at 3800m)!. It was a great atmosphere and there was lots of alcohol to keep the party going!! We were going to go on a kayak but got absorbed by the festival. We did manage to climb the mountain near the town however and also (surprise surprise) eat at quite a few restaurants!!

Capacobana was cheaper than La Paz, so we splashed out on a hotel vs hostel. The second hotel even had a shower that worked! They have dubious looking electric shower heads with wires coming out to the powerpoint. Doesnt make you feel that comfortable while wet, but Lonley Planet indicates you should only expect a small shock if you come into contact with the shower head, which was a welcome relief from the full electrocution i was expecting!!

Anyway, that was Copacobana. Laid back and sunny!

Top of the hill

7 crosses

Copacobana from the hill

All in all, we have had a fantastic time and really enjoyed Bolivia!

April 28, 2008

La Paz

Before we came to Bolivia, we had heard a lot of weird stuff, lots of warnings read, and lots of travelers tales. The most disturbing was in Mendoza, and Sara was very concerned how we would go! However, we have done ok so far, been reasonably street smart, and endeavored the fumes and the hills. We are only catching the tourist buses, and staying away from anything dodgey. The ATMs all have armed guards now, and we do feel safe here!

We arrived in La Paz early Monday morning of the tourist bus. We where tired, cold, and over it. We knew that our hostel wouldn’t be ready for us, but we went there anyways to dump our stuff. Then we headed out…

La Paz

The town itself is very weird, it is located in a big valley/ravine/gully, and everywhere you look you see houses in the hillsides. We walked all around, saw lots, and was rather unimpressed with how inconvenient it was to have to walk up and down so much. It was almost like you where continuously traversing a hillside, which you where. This added with the ridiculous amount of fumes from old Dodge buses, and the crazy micros, made it a bit of a test. We chilled most of the first day, and had a nice cold shower when we finally got our room!

Tuesday was our big shopping day, and fighting day, but we both endured, did our shopping, looked around a bit more, and enjoyed the beers on tap here at the Hostel. We have also found a local restaurant that has some wicked fruits! Its so nice to be able to have healthy food, just not meat, meat millanesa or pollo… We also went to the Coca museum, learning about the difference between the Coca leaves and cocaine. Bit flavored, but interesting.

This morning, we organised our trip to Copacobana (yet another tourist bus), ate some more fruit, and dealt with the Bolivian postal system (Mom/dad, another parcel on the way, did you get the first one/s from Australia?). We also walked a bit further, to enjoy the views, but there seems to be a big beautification campaign going on, so we didn’t get to enjoy it, we where stopped by construction. We had the pleasure of meeting a very nice Swedish speaking shoe shiner, Ricardo, that sweet talked me into getting my sneaker cleaned. Turned out he and his mate where working for Svalorna, a Swedish charity. Very nice encounter! All the shoe shiners wear black ski masks due to social stigma, so its a bit odd to talk Swedish to a guy who you can only see the eyes to, cleaning your shoes in Bolivia!

La Paz

Walking home, parched and tired after too many beers the night before, I suggested to Sara that we ought to cross the road to get into the shade. Sara dutifully did so, and stepped into the path of a mini van. It was a bit of a shock watching her getting thrown around, but she stood up, no scratches, just a bruised ass. The minivan was luckily driving slowly at the time, was very concerned, but she was ok, only a bruised pride…

La Paz

We are going to enjoy the homecooking here at the hostel again tonight, before going to Copacobana tomorrow, then onto Peru and Cuzco.

April 23, 2008

Tupiza

So, after another overnight bus trip, we arrived in La Quiaca!! This is a boarder town in Argentina and is quite a bizarre place (especially if you are Australian and have to fly off the continent to enter another country)! Everyone gets off the bus and heads to the Argentinian-Bolivian boarder by foot. One moment you are in Argentina and the next step you are in Bolivia!! We attempted to catch a cab to the bus station but they wouldn’t accept Argentinian pesos!! Everyone that doesn’t exchange money in the Bolivian boarder town must use the one ATM in a back street!! You have to get a reasonable amount of money out as there is not many options along the way to La Paz! You don’t feel too safe when you are withdrawing the equivalent of 7 average monthly wages in Bolivia.

We were lucky enough to get a ticket on the bus to Tupiza (despite some confusion, language barriers etc) and left that morning for Tupiza, where we were to start our salt flats tour. The bus ride itself was a bone rattler! Never been shaken that bad before, bitumen is yet to get to southern Bolivia.

Tupiza was a nice little town and pretty much revolved around the tour. There are a few companies running the tour from Tupiza (though we suspect its the same company under different names)!! We had our tour booked by Viache Tours, it was so nice just to have everything organised! We stayed in our first hotel of the trip and it even had a pool!! It did have shared bathrooms though, so don’t think we are too soft!! The tour company also owned this hotel and a few shops around town!! We figure they must employ the whole town almost.. 110 families they claim.

We took a small walk around Tupiza in the evening and started to feel the effects of the altitude (3000m). We probably walked 500m up a small hill and were pretty puffed! Headaches were also the norm!

Tupiza

The next day we set off on our tour. We had a Toyota LandCruiser 60 series, a driver, a cook and 3 other tour-ists (Allesandro, Nadia and Laura. We had met Laura at Salta). Fortunately, Allesandro was able to speak Spanish and we were able to communicate with the driver and cook!! We were really lucky with our group and have had an awesome time.

Firstly we did a lot driving up very steep mountain roads that fall off VERY steeply to one side and were physically a one way road but practically worked as a 2 lane… we learnt this as the driver would occasionally honk as he came to a blind turn and also when we scraped (which could have turned out MUCH worse) past another 4wd!!

The first night, Jo played soccer against some local kids (8 year olds), but got dumped from the team after he couldn’t handle running around at 4200moh. It was very embarrassing.

The landscape changed so much over the 4 days of the tour. We got as high as 5000m when we visited a geyser- was awesome to see!! The altitude leaves a terrible headache, a little nausea and breathlessness whenever you try to do something aside from sitting!! The breathlessness was made worse at night by the extremely thick blankets that we needed to stop freezing at the very basic accommodation on the way and the blocked nose and cold we have developed!! The nights reached minus 10 and there was no heating. Wouldn’t advise wine as a means of helping warm up at an altitude, only makes things worse!!

We have too many pictures from this trip, so a small selection is below… We are also catching up a bit, so this is sent to you from La Paz. At least we can handle the altitude now!

From Bolivia