Copacabana (Lake Titicaca)

Our last stop in Bolivia is in Copacabana near Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America and the highest navigable lake in the world. To reach it our bus had to cross the water on a dodgy looking ‘ferry’, luckily we had to get out and cross the water in a separate boat.

 In Copacabana there’s not much to see besides a basilica and the view of the bay from on top of a mountain. Everyone just mainly comes here to make a day trip to Isla del Sol and cross the border to Peru.

Isla del Sol is a cozy little island in Lake Titicaca about two hours sailing on the slowest boat ever. There are no roads  or motorized vehicles on the island so it’s nice and quiet. It’s home to some Inca ruins who inhabited the area in the 15th century and has some beautiful views. Just a fun daytrip.

Not much more to say about this place!  Sorry!

Yungas Road (Death Road)

On this tour we couldn’t take our own pictures, luckily our guide Ruben took amazing good quality pictures, each one very original. Thanks for not making us look like serial killers with brain damage on the pictures……..

dickhead!

After the Amazon we went on a mountainbiking trip down the Yungas road, also known as the death road (El camino de la Muerte). This road connects La Paz with the Amazon rainforest area (Yungas). It’s around 60 kilometres long and drops 3,3 kilometres down in height. So you are just freefalling downhill at high speeds all day and don’t push any pedals. That sounds really nice, but the problem however is that the road is along very steep and deep cliffs, there are no guardrails and the road is only 3,5 metres wide at some places. That’s why it is estimated in 2006 that about 200 people died along this road (mainly cars falling off the road down into the cliff, but also 18 cyclists have died). Nowadays a new, safer road connects these two places, so cyclists have the Death Road almost for themselves.

 

 

The first part is on a new part and is paved with asphalt. A good way to get used to the bike and after a short period we reached speeds of 60km/h, so good brakes are vital. After that part we get on the actual Death Road. The surrounding area is very beautiful, but you can’t look around too much if you don’t want to plummet to your death.  It’s quite an adrenaline rush going down trying not to slip or fall and before we knew it we were Death Road survivors.

 

 

Rurrenabaque: Jungle and Pampas

 

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Stina was begging to sit at the window seat of the airplane when we would fly to Rurrenabaque. A pointless demand it seems, seeing that the plane is so small it’s only 2 aisles wide, so all seats are window seats. It took us from La Paz in the Andes mountains to Rurrenabaque in the Amazon jungle. It was a relief to get out of the cold mountains and into the tropical heat for the first time this trip. No more jackets and sleeping under 5 blankets, but T-shirt and sweating like a hog under a mosquito net. Reasons enough to celebrate with refreshing cocktails.

In Rurrenabaque we did a 3 day jungle tour and a 3 day pampas tour. Our guide was born and raised in one of the jungle villages on the banks of the Madidi river. While I was learning to fix Nintendo-cartridges by blowing the dust out of them and reading Jommeke-comics, he was getting bitten by poisonous snakes, learning to catch monkeys and kill wild boars.

 

During the jungle tour we slept the first and third night in a hut in a small jungle resort and the second night literally in the middle of the jungle amidst a cacophony of animal noises. During the 3 day tour we mainly did some treks through the jungle where me and my skinny white legs were mainly serving as an all-you-can-eat-buffet for mosquitoes. During these treks we saw some animals (monkeys, birds, spiders, bullet ants – “very itchy guys!“- plenty mosquitoes) and learned a lot about plants and trees. He taught us all things I hope to God I will never need: making shelters, how to keep safe from jaguars and other wild animals, making colour pigment and the use of medicinal plants. The guide was like a pharmacist running around in his shop: “This one is good for diarrhea guys… This plant is good for healing bones guys. Just boil it for a couple of hours, drink the tea and no more problem guys.”

 

We also did one night walk during which, a tarantula the size of my hand started walking over the legs and back of our guide, forcing him to catapult it with his machete into the bushes… all perfectly normal. He also spotted some fresh jaguar foot prints near our sleeping area… comforting!  After an extremely itchy night, we built a raft with which we sailed down the Madidi river back to the jungle lodge, while letting sandflies also have a bite of those legs of mine.

 

The pampas tour was a lot more relaxing. It was basically a safari: sitting in a small river boat and sailing around spotting animals. Or, to be more correct, letting the guide spot animals with his beyond human supervision and then spend three minutes with squinted eyes following his instructions trying to see the same animal.

 

We did however saw a lot of animals: pink river dolphins, caymans, the capibara (a hamster on steroids), monkeys and loads of birds.

 

 

We even had a dozen monkeys run around in our boat after the guide beached it into the bushes. Due to the many tourists I think the monkeys are addicted to sugar and are only coming on the boat to search through your belongings to find Oreos.

The guide even let me sail the boat a couple of hours, as my animal spotting skills are practically zero, but mostly so he could chill out.

After 6 days, we were satisfied and happy to get back to the mountains, where it is too cold for mosquitoes!

La Paz

We stayed in La Paz for a couple of days before flying to the Amazon. The first day we walked around and were offered a free city tour by a starting tour operator. During the tour we learned a lot about religion, the daily life in La Paz and its history. Our tour guide also told about how crazy president Evo Morales is and how traffic lights in La Paz are like Christmas lights, serving mainly as decoration.

We visited the main plaza with the presidential palace, a witches market full of religious items and trinkets (e.g. llama fetuses used in religious ceremonies), a normal market and the San Pedro prison area. This prison is a society on its own: the guards look the other way and the inmates have to rent their cell and get jobs inside the prison. Most of the prisoners are busy with producing cocaine, but some of them give tours to tourists inside the prison. A few weeks ago, some tourists girls were raped during one of these tours, a risk I did not want to take, especially with my handsome looks.

The second day we took another city tour that took us on the ‘Mi Teleférico’ to El Alto. Mi Teleférico is the public transport system in La Paz and looks like a ski lift system. We visited the huge cemetery and learned about the rites of passage in Bolivia. Next we went to El Alto, a neighborhood of La Paz on top of the valley that grew so large it became a city on its own. There we visited the black market: the largest flea market in South America. Here you can buy almost everything, for example all the parts you need to construct a car from scratch.

Finally we went to one of the top events in La Paz. The day before we learned about Cholitas. They are a group indigenous woman with a certain dress code (bowler hat, large skirts) and certain lifestyle. What better way to learn about this fascinating subculture by watching Cholita women wrestle in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of La Paz. The wrestling and acting  is the same level as the Belgian show ‘De Buurtpolitie’ and reached its climax when a midget wrestler entered the ring. Seeing him being tossed through the air was like poetry and the cultural highlight of the trip so far (according to me; Stina however thought it was ridiculous and in poor taste).

After the show my chances of going to hell increased immensely. Speaking of hell… our next stop: the Amazon forest.

Uyuni Tour

We set out on a 4 day tour through the south-west of Bolivia. We spent most of our time in the car driving from one viewpoint to the next while listening to a non-stop Zumba lesson soundtrack on the radio with an average of 45 times hearing the words ‘mi corazón’ in each song.

The first day we drove to the south-west to the ‘Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa’. During the trip we had our first encounter with the majestic llamas and passed some nice viewpoints. When we arrived in a small mountain village at a height of around 4500m, we heard that the road to the southern part of the park, where most of the highlights of the trip were located was blocked by snow and we would not be able to go there the next day. But as an alternative we would see rock formations, and lots of them. A little bit disappointed we went to sleep at night in our freezing room, but first we had a view of a beautiful starlit sky with the Milky Way. I impressed the other tour-members with how little I know of the celestial sphere while being a licensed marine officer.

The next day delivered as promised: we saw a lot of rock formations. In the morning we even saw pre-Incan rock paintings. We were impressed by how old they were and even more impressed by how badly they were drawn, probably the work of a pre-Incan toddler. The rest of the day was filled with more rock formations and some lagunes. We felt the whole day that we were on the ‘back-up plan tour’.

The third day we were back on the normal track and saw the beautiful Laguna Hedionda full of flamingos.

By the evening we arrived in Uyuni and the famous salt flats. After seeing the sunset on the flats we went to our hotel made completely out of salt (scientifically proven by licking the walls).

The final day we saw the sunrise on Isla Incahuasi, an island in the middle of the salt flats, full of large cactuses. It was very beautiful, but very cold and full of other tourists.

 

We rounded off the tour by visiting the train cemetery in Uyuni. Here all the trains that were used on the tracks between the coast of Chili and Potosí are dumped when they are out of use.

 

Finally we were dropped off at the bus station ready to go to La Paz.

Tupiza

We took a bus from Potosí to Tupiza which had Rambo II: First Blood as ‘in-flight’ movie. If you thought Sylvester Stallone was difficult to understand in English, you haven’t heard him in Spanish, but it was all in all a good language lesson.

We arrived in Tupiza in the middle of the night in what was the best hostel so far on our trip (Butch Cassidy Hostal). The hostel bears this name because Tupiza is said to be the area where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed by Bolivian soldiers in 1908 after fleeing from law enforcements for many years for the multiple robberies they did throughout America.

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The theme of this background story can be felt throughout the whole town: it’s basically like walking through the Frontierland area of Disney Land. To fully get into this Wild Wild West theme we put on our cowboy hat and went horseback riding through the desert landscape with matching mountain ridges, cactuses and shrubs. Walking and trotting around with the horses  for three hours while trying minimizing damage to my nether regions was fun.

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Highlight of this stop would be ordering two pizza’s in a Tupiza restaurant, but Stina ruined this pinnacle moment of comedy by ordering lasagna.

We booked the Uyuni tour with our hostel and left on our third day in Tupiza

Potosí

Potosí is claims to be the highest city in the world (together with Amsterdam). Potosí is situated at a height of 4090 metres. There is a lot less oxygen at this height and combined with having the physique of a sloth with asthma, I was out of breath by every little effort we made.

 Potosí was founded in 1545 due to the fact that a huge amount of silver was found in the nearby mountain  ‘Cerro Rico’ (Rich Mountain) a few years earlier. The Spaniards set up the mines to extract all the silver and ship it back to Spain. Because of the very lucrative mining business in the city it grew to the third biggest city in the world during this period with 200.000 citizens.

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The Spaniards forced the indigenous  people to work in the mines and they even sent African slaves into the tunnels. They all died very quickly from working at high altitudes and in very harsh conditions (toxic fumes and working with mercury to extract silver). This caused them to die in high numbers (about  8 million slaves and indigenous people died from 1545-1825).

Also a mint house was set up (Casa de la Moneda), so the silver could be made into Spanish silver coins which was transported and used all over the world at the time. This Casa de la Moneda  is now a museum which we visited and teaches everything about the history of the mines, the miners and how they processed the silver. It was very interesting as my knowledge of miners was only limited to the 7 dwarves from Snow White.

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In 1825 the silver in the mines  was mostly depleted and the prices of the silver dropped, causing Potosí to decline into poverty. There are still mines in the Cerro Rico used to extract minerals like tin and lead. The miners working there work in very poor conditions and have a life expectancy of around 40 years old. It was possible to take a tour and see the conditions in which the miners work, but it kind of felt wrong to do so, although it will probably help you to appreciate your current job.

Potosí was only a one and a half day stop: enough to visit the museum and walk around in the old colonial village. Because of its rich history it is declared UNESCO World Heritage. After we got a whiff of the Potosí atmosphere (consisting mostly out of thick black exhaust fumes of the small busses driving around) we got on the 5 hour bus to Tupiza.

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Sucre

We took the night bus from Samaipata to Sucre. As they are still constructing the road between the two cities, it was like trying to sleep inside of a washing machine. We arrived in the capital of Bolivia: Sucre. Although the president and the government is located in La Paz, Sucre is still the official capital. We arrived in the morning on the 24th and while we were walking to our hostel, we saw the entire city in preparation for festivities. Apparently the 25th of May is a National Holiday, which made sense when we noticed that the main plaza in the city centre is called Plaza 25 de Mayo. On that day in 1809 a meeting was held to overthrow the Spanish president Garcia Pizarro and to gain independence from Spain. This was the ‘first cry for freedom’ (Primer Grito Libertario en América) and was the first in a series of events that lead to Latin American Wars of Independence.

All during the day and night of the 24th there were huge parades through the city and even the president attended the festivities. We went for dinner and looked at the parades afterwards.  When we arrived back at the hostel at 21h30, the receptionist informed us that there was a huge musical performance at 23h. We both rather wanted to go to sleep instead of going out. Choosing to go to bed early instead of partying made me feel mature and responsible and most of all worried.

The day after was a national holiday so everything was pretty much closed. We spent most of our time in our newfound stage in life: like people on retirement. Going to the cemetery, strolling around the city and sitting on benches, visiting the market while complaining about smells and the crowds. Highlight of the day was the pan flute player on a plaza playing ‘Let It Be’. We awarded ourselves after a productive day like true pensioners with cake, coffee and tea.

The final day of Sucre consisted of packing our things and a visit to a museum called ‘La Casa de la Libertad’. The museum told about the history of Bolivia and their way to independence and was surprisingly interesting. It was in this building that the declaration of independence of Bolivia was signed. Afterwards we made our way to the bus terminal and to our next stop: Potosí

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Samaipata

We left the rain in Santa Cruz on the ‘Samaipata Express’, a fancy name for a worn down old Toyota van. After two bumpy hours and some near-death experiences later we entered the Amboró National Park area. The rain stopped and when we were driving into the mountainous hills covered with lush green forests and shrouded in clouds, it was like driving onto the set of a Jurassic Park movie. After seeing some vultures flying through the skies like modern age Pterodactyls, I was immediately sold. Thirty minutes later the sun broke through the clouds and lifted our spirits. We got really excited: the bad start of the trip was forgotten and our journey could now really begin.

We arrived in Samaipata, a cozy little mountain village. A lot of European tourists visited this village and some of them fell in love with this place so much they even decided to stay here. So while most Belgians try to avoid having to deal with Dutch and German people on their holiday, we actually stayed in ‘Landhaus’, a B&B run by Helga and Georg and their adopted Bolivian son. There is something surreal about speaking German in Bolivia with a Bolivian dude named Fernando. After unpacking we walked around in the garden and found the small tea room where Helga served us a refreshing beer and a coffee. We sat on the small terrace in the shade and decided to stay an extra night in this small piece of heaven.

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In the evening we went for dinner in the village and noticed some hippies with their diary with Che Guevarra on the cover. This area is kind of their Mekka, because after Ché left Cuba, he first went to Congo to try and start another social revolution there. When that failed he tried again in Bolivia to overthrow the dictator René Barrientos Ortunño. It was in these woods close to Samaipata he wrote ‘Bolivian Diary’ and where he eventually was captured and executed, which kind of ruined the whole revolution plan.

In the early morning, with the soundtrack of Jurassic Park playing in our head, we went on the Condor hike. A local guide named Jabier, who coincidently also spoke German, took us on  a long and intense hike on top of a mountain. Together with some breath taking views, it was also home for a large population of condors, the national bird of Bolivia and the largest bird on the planet with a wingspan of up to three meters.

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After seeing a few of them peacefully gliding through the air and noticing being sunburned from our contact with the first rays of sun, we walked down the mountain again and went on to go to ‘La Pajcha’, which amazingly means ‘waterfall’ in Quechua, the local Indian language. The waterfall was peaceful, especially because we were the only ones there. To make the dream scenario even better I decided to take a swim, but the freezing water was quick to bring me back to the reality that this isn’t a Hollywood movie.

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Exhausted after a long day of hiking we slept like babies. We woke up and had the Landhaus breakfast that we heard so much about and left on our final day into Amboró Park. Jabier guided us again through the jungle to see some giant fern trees of hundreds of years old and we were lucky to even see some monkeys.

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After a fulfilling day with some more nice views we were completely satisfied and ready to get on the night bus to our next stop: Sucre.

Santa Cruz

Our journey started in the currently largest city of Bolivia and fastest growing city in the world: Santa Cruz. We started here because the altitude is only 416m opposed to the 3650m in La Paz. Starting there would probably mean having height sickness. Although the symptoms sound quite familiar to me (headache, feeling sick to your stomach, vomiting and feeling weak and tired), it was not something we wanted to endure during the first days.

We arrived after 30 hours of flying, waiting and not sleeping. After finding our hostel and taking a well deserved siësta, there was not much left to do but take a stroll through the city and find a nice Bolivian restaurant.

In the restaurant I was confronted with the fact that my Spanish is still in dire need of improvement. Sometimes I can understand most of a sentence , think I’m the man and that one month of playing Duolingo really paid off, but then they ramble another two sentences which do not make sense at all and have you sitting there with the ‘deer in headlights’ look. After successfully reading out loud two unknown items from the menu, I tried to keep the momentum going by ordering a pitcher of wine. But my attempt of ‘un demi litros karafos’ was received with utter confusion. To avoid panic I instantly reacted and saved the downhill interaction with my quick wits by ordering a complete bottle, as I already passed the ‘botella’ lesson in Duolingo.

The three days in Santa Cruz comprised mostly of running through the pouring rain which did not stop, going between places to have a drink, struggling to withdraw money from ATM’s and making arrangements for the coming days until it was time to eat again. The restaurants were all really good and were the highlights of our stay, seeing that all other plans literally fell into the water.

We also visited the Cathedral Basilica de San Lorenzo and the area around the main plaza of Santa Cruz. I’m sure it has a real South-American vibe when it’s sunny and full of people and even though a Mariachi band was  trying to keep a party going under a tent, the rain kind of killed the atmosphere.

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But weather forecasts are looking up! Next stop will be Samaipata next to the national park Amboro.