Bolivia - a land of incredible natural beauty, dizzying altitudes, loose rules and tough people - at least that's our conclusion after spending the last month taking in its best and worst. What is for sure is that, now we are in Argentina, there cannot be many more neighbouring countries in the world that are so strikingly different.
Bolivia really was the experience of highs and lows, aside from the obvious 'high' of it being, well, very high - we've seen South America's (or the World's?) most unique landscapes in the Salar de Uyuni, had incredible experiences in the Amazon Basin, had crazy nights in La Paz and enjoyed Sucre's fine colonial streets.
At the same time we've endured some terrible food (not many Bolivian restaurants in London are there?!), fairly regularly sampled Bolivia's national dish (food poisoning), witnessed some of the most unimaginably bad working conditions in Potosi's mines and generally had our hygiene standards considerably withered!
The people of Bolivia's altiplano (the high, flat area between the two Andean ranges encompassing most of our travels) are tough, hardy and sometimes slightly miserable people - fair game given their life seems a constant struggle. Especially, the women, who always seem to be working. When they are not working, they are carrying ridiculous loads (and any number of babies) on the side of the road, sometimes hitching rides in buses. It's a fairly wide generalisation, but I didn't see that many men helping out...
Exactly a month has passed since my last update, and we have exactly a month left until the fateful 'end' - so appreciate the symmetry and read on...
As always some photo highlights included below, but all can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/fernando.nilanga
Birthplace of the Incas
Our first stop in Bolivia was the town of Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca - a marvel of a lake at nearly 4000m altitude. The town isn't really much more than a row of below par tourist restaurants, but it is the launchpad to the Isla Del Sol - an island with huge importance to indigenous people as the place of emergence of the first Inca King and his sister, who he later married and thus created the Inca dynasty, apparently.
The island itself is beautiful - surrounded by a clear-blue mass of water it's a bit bizarre to think you are 4km above sea level, and the clouds seem kind of close-by. We hiked from the north of the island to the south with our friends Jon and Kat, shortly before an episode involving rum at £1.50 a bottle - to keep away the cold.
La Paz (means 'peace') - Intense, crazy, dirty
We got the bus (obviously) to La Paz from Copacabana, no real highlights from the journey other than a comical 'will it / won't it topple' viewing of our bus crossing some of the lake on a wooden barge.
La Paz is famous to 'Gringos' for three things: Altitude (the highest capital city in the world), 'Death Road' (a bike-ride down 'the world's most dangerous road') and partying. Death Road was closed for most of our time due to striking coca farmers, who decided that a road block would be a good idea (I think it worked), and there's not really a huge amount I am willing to say about the partying...
One 'unique' thing we did do was to go and watch some Bolivian wrestling - unique it was, as we saw some pretty amateur WWE-type arguing and 'fighting'. The main attraction was 'Chulita' wrestling - basically crazed, overweight women going hell for leather against amongst other things a ninja, a werewolf and a soldier:
Anger...
(Fake blood obviously)
Some other photos of La Paz's nicer views:
Learning to be a Real Man - The Amazon Basin (Jungle)
After a few days in La Paz we caught a flight to Rurrenabaque, gateway to the jungle. The Amazon Basin covers almost half of Bolivia, and our 40-minute flight could not have taken us further in terms of a change in altitude (back to sea level), weather (HEAT at last!), and culture... We wasted no time in booking a tour into the jungle - in Bolivia's Madidi National Park - no place in the world is richer in terms of biodiversity.
With excitement and trepidation (mainly Jo's fear of spiders) we left on boat, along the Rio Beni, deep into the jungle.
"The jungle is our home, the rivers are our roads"
We were to spend three days and two nights trekking into the jungle, the last night sleeping under nothing more than a tarp ceiling and a mosquito net - as deep in the jungle as you can get in one day's hot and sweaty walking.
We couldn't believe how much we enjoyed it - being surrounded by so many noises, so many signs of life, in truly unspoilt jungle. We went on night-walks encountering some pretty cool bugs, awoke to a snake attempting to eat a frog under our lodge, saw howler monkeys, plenty of birds, jungle pigs and many bugs... But the best thing wasn't spotting animals, it was learning how communities have lived in the jungle for generations - using its immense wildlife without constantly taking from it.
Our guide, Alcide, was one of my favourite people we've met so far - 26 years old, speaking Spanish only for four years, he'd grown up in the jungle and it was all he knew and loved. In order to become a guide he had to pass a test: Dropped in the middle of the jungle with nothing but a mosquito net and machete - the first one out in 5 days got to be a guide. He nailed it (piece of cake).
His knowledge of the effects various trees and plants (that's a contraceptive... that's an anaesthetic... that's good for treating malaria... that will kill you...) was astonishing - they all looked the same! We tried some anaesthetic and within 10 minutes I couldn't feel the right-side of my mouth.
Two real men...
We also took in some spell-binding views, where nothing but nature could be seen for hundred of miles...
When the time came to return back to our lodge and then to Rurre, our guide and chef built a raft and we coasted along the river, taking regular dips after our 3 days of trekking - what a way to get back! Our feel good factor was complemented by the fact we were staying in a community-run venture, so felt good about the extra money we were spending. Our only regret was not staying longer...
Cities of old fame and fortune
We flew back to La Paz from the jungle (back to cold and altitude), and continued our journey south to the cities of Sucre and Potosi.
Sucre is without a doubt Bolivia's 'nicest' city - i.e. colonial architecture, cobbled streets. It's also the judicial capital, which went some (but not all) way to explaining just how many lawyer-practices there were. The Spanish, upon finding Bolivia's riches (silver, gold etc), built some incredible churches and plazas - we took in some fine buildings and finer food poisoning before continuing our travels...
...not before we visited the site of 68 MILLION year old dinosaur footprints (!), accidentally discovered by a cement factory - which had over millions of years, been shifted from horizontal ground to vertical cliffs. That's what I loved about Bolivia - here you have something truly amazing and a real historical relic, and they only started protecting it a few years ago!
Which took us to Potosi. I was especially keen to visit this city (the highest city in the world) having read some Latin American history. Back in the 16th century, it's 'Cerro Rico' (Rich Hill) was discovered to contain stupendous amounts of silver - this almost entirely bankrolled the Spanish conquests and the city grew into the RICHEST and LARGEST in the entire world.
Cerro Rico in the background - stripped bare
As soon as the silver veins ran dry it was largely abandoned and what is left now (of course) is a poor city, still dependent on mining, but with some lovely old buildings.
Miners amazingly still work in conditions that actually have not changed since the 16th century! As they are cooperatives (so, so poor), they buy their own dynamite and work in small groups with basic tools - none we saw were electric/pneumatic - and work in 12 hour shifts in horrendous conditions. Drinking, smoking and chewing coca leaves is their only refuge (as is worshipping the 'devil' who they claim owns the mountain's riches)...
Entering hell...
Our tour was enlightening and depressing at the same time - the miners are proud of their work and they appear to live a 'happy-go-lucky' life, albeit a tragically short one as silicosis-pneumonia restricts their lives to only 10-15 years from when they start in the mines.
We ended our tour with the compulsory dynamite explosion, and a final few sips of 96% proof alcohol. That night was spent (genuinely) reflecting how lucky we were to not have to work in or enter those mines ever again...
Truly mind-blowing Salar de Uyuni
From Potosi we took the bus down to the town of Uyuni - launchpad for the mind-blowing Salar de Uyuni and nearby high altitude lakes. The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world - formed millions of years ago by the withdrawal of the inland atlantic ocean.
This was the location of the famous 'photos locos' (crazy photos) where you can play havoc with perspective...
The 3-day tour involved being driven in 4x4s from the salt flats to numerous high-altitude lakes, in the process turning one's brain into strawberry milkshake - so much we were shaken about. It didn't help that our jeep was a liability, and our on our third day we could not stop for fear of not starting again. Despite a broken radiator, no clutch, low battery, no fuel (we had to siphon some) we made it back thanks to some miraculous driving and repairing by our driver.
An all too familiar site
That's the rant over (DO NOT GO WITH OLIVOS TOURS!) - now for the good stuff...
The landscapes we took in I can honestly say cannot be found anywhere else in the world. At points we hit 5000m altitude, and at this height the lakes are filthy rich in minerals - attracting the famous flamingo and turning the lakes into crazy colours, including the famous red Laguna Colarada...
WOW
Some of the mountain landscapes were also crazy - this one below is known as the 'Fields of Dali' and you can see why:
The final 'f*** up' from our tour company was to book us on the wrong carriage for the 3am train from Uyuni to Tupiza near the Argentinian border. It was well below freezing and there we were sitting on a crowded bench in the unheated section - it's never good when you see Bolivians with a lot of blankets (especially when you have a raincoat and not much more). Anyway, I managed to sleep a bit (Jo none), despite a local lady putting her aforementioned heavy load on my head....
Red rock country - and happy people
Our train episode scarred us (and our wine-making friends Mick and Jeanine who, thanks to us, booked on the same fated tour) for a while - but we recovered well in the lovely town of Tupiza in the south. There's some fantastic hiking around proper 'cowboy country' here, once you can navigate out of the town.
Our last few days in Bolivia were spent hiking, enjoying some welcome warmth and dreaming of Argentina's relative development, famous steak and wine, and silky smooth paved roads. Having been here for a week we weren't wrong, on any count.
So - we have one month left, and after the mind-altering, emotionally exhausting and eye-openingly 'real' experience of South America that is Bolivia we have Iguazu, Mendoza, the Lake District, Patagonia, Buenos Aires and hopefully Uruguay to look forward to - that and the small matter of a rushed detour to Buenos Aires for the biggest (and ugliest?) football rivalry in the world: River Plate vs Boca Juniors.
If I blog again, we will have survived...
