We knew that we had arrived in Bolivia when the buses turned from luxury Argentinian buses to tin cans on wheels...after an unpleasant journey from the Argentinian border we arrived in Tupiza (Bolivia). We had made friends with a pair of British air hostesses and quickly set about organising a tour of the Bolivian Altiplano and Uyuni Salt Flats. We got lucky and departed in a convoy of 3 Toyota landcruisers the following morning. How these tour companies make any money is beyond me. Our tour included drivers and cook for group, all meals and basic accomm for 4d/3n 1200km journey from Tupiza to Uyuni for the grand total of $200US each, and this was an expensive tour.
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| One of the many water crossings in the Altiplano. |
The tour was worth every cent and more, we had our breath taken away, literally. The tours average altitude was 4200m above sea level, the highest point being slightly above 5000m. We were constantly surrounded by snow capped mountains and volcanoes with lightning and thunder around, traversing snow melt streams with llamas grazing, walking through ancient ruined villages, sitting quietly by mineral lakes with thousands of flamingos wading, climbing over crazy rock formations, bathing in thermal pools and walking around geysers. I have no doubt must be one of the most unique places on the planet.
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| I was lucky enough to capture this lightning strike. |
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| Flemingos wading in one of the many lagoons we visited in the Altiplano. |
The final part of the journey was visiting the train graveyard on the outskirts of Uyuni and the famous salt flats to watch the sun rise and take some funny pictures, as there is no perspective because the horizon is barely recognisable.
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| Good fun in the train graveyard, steel fabrication is not as time consuming these days, look at all of those rivets!! |
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| Of course I got to be at the front of the Evolution line...Cait is still stuck in the Neanderthal Era, haha. |
We were extremely lucky to have a fun and informative guide, a great cook and a fun group of people. Overall an amazing experience and introduction to Bolivia.
After 4 days of bouncing around in a landcruiser, battling the constant headaches from the high altitude, cold at night, very early wakeups, no showering and very basic accommodation we were ready for a break. We escaped from the town of Uyuni ( pretty awful depressing place) the same day we arrived and headed to Sucre ( capital city of Bolivia) for a break. After another pretty awful bus ride (see next paragraph) we arrived in Beautiful Sucre.
We stopped in Potosi for 3 hours in the middle of the night waiting to fill the bus after bepromised a 20 minute stop. At one stage about 1.5 hours into our stopover we pulled out to our delight seemingly on our way, only to head down the road to fill up with petrol before returning to the same spot to wait another 1.5 hrs, extremely frustraiting.
We stayed at a terrific B&B in Sucre, had some showers, ate some delicious food and enjoyed exploring the world heritage listed city with its colonial architecture and all white buildings. We visited and ate at the food market which was a great find for us, it had a huge restaurant section and about 30 fruit salad stalls making delicious cheap food. We had a nice few days in Sucre and felt very refreshed.
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| A beautiful Monastery in Sucre |
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| People are always on strike in Bolivia, not sure what these people were striking for though. |
This time picking a better bus we headed to La Paz on an overnight Cama suite bus, the driver had the heater up full blast and we roasted the whole way which was pretty unpleasant.
La Paz is the highest altitude city in the world sitting in a basin 3600m to 4000m+ elevation, we were getting used to the altitude now. We explored the sprawling markets which were endless ( the largest covering almost 30 street blocks and selling everything), visited the coca museum and cycled the famous Death Road.
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| Fruit salad stall at the Market in La Paz, delicious! |
The Coca museum traced the history of the infamous Coca plant from its use thousands of years ago by the Incas, to the exploitation of it by the Spanish conquistadors to work native slaves to death in the lucrative mines of Bolivia (mostly Potosi), to its modern history being used to make cocaine and being used as one of the first local anaesthetics, in drugs, tonics including coca cola and use as a recreational drug. The locals and miners still chew coca leaf constantly for its amazing properties including alleviating the affects of altitude and giving the chewer heightened alertness and stamina. No samples though unfortunately, haha.
The Death Road also once classified as the Worlds Most Dangerous Road has been closed to all but local traffic can be ridden on a 63km downhill mountain bike in a tour. Cait and I can now say we have survived the tour. The scenery was again spectacular but it was hard to look at the scenery with at the most extreme a 400m vertical drop on one side and a sheer cliff on the other side of a 3.5m wide windey downhill "road". There have been hundreds of fatalities on this road including in resent history I think 10 cyclists doing one of the tours ( mostly people being a bit silly and over confident). We survived!
Taking a break during our death road ride.
We departed La Paz for our final stop in Bolivia, we visited Lake Titicaca and Isla Del Sol ( Island of the Sun). We had a stopover in Copacabana ( tourist town) on the shore of the huge lake and headed our to the Island.
The Island was beautiful, we stayed for two days and walked all over the Island ( no cars) through villages and fields. It was extremely peaceful and relaxing. Again 4000m in altitude. We found a spectacular and truly unique restaurant and dinned with 6 other travellers. We waited hours for our meal watched the sun set over the lake, exchanged travel stories and drank wine while Pablo the one man band did everything in the small restaurant. It was worth the wait, we feasted on delicious fresh trout from the lake and had quinoa and steamed vegetables ( including broccoli and carrot so hard to come by in South America) and was a night to remember.
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| Beautiful views over Lake Titicaca |
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| Locals hard at work on the Island, this man was using a very primative piling technique, quiet remarkable. |
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| Locals on the Island carrying goods from a boat. |
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| Relaxing after walking around the Island all day. |
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| The whole family, dad working, mum resting and kids playing on the Island. |
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| Walking around the Island on day 2 in shorts and t-shirt was a very bad idea, extremely cold, I was having my picture taken by Cait but hiding behind the wall for protection from the freezing wind. |
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| Fastastic dinner at Las Valas restaurant with other travellers. |
Another Bolivian moment was the extremely overcrowded boat which transported us from the island back to the Mainland. The boat was jam packed with about 60 tourists, half on top of the roof and half in the cabin. We were terrified the while time that the boat was going to sink or the roof would collapse. It was an extremely slow boat ride, we were both very relieved to be back on firm ground. I felt almost stupid to be on the boat but with little other choice to get back to the mainland we were again trusting that the little wooden boat would have at least one more crossing left in her.
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| One of the very dodgy and overcrouded ferry´s on Lake Titicaca. |
In summary, Bolivia is an amazing place with beautiful and stunning experiences to be had, and the people are also beautiful and resilient, everything is super cheap but at the same time it can be a little scary, crazy and frustrating. There is so much more to do here that will have to wait until another time.
We have now entered Peru for the next leg of our journey.
Until next time
Adios
