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Published: August 7th 2007
View of La Paz
The city of La Paz lit up at night, with the snowy triple peak of Illimani in the backgroundOur last episode left us as we boarded the bus to La Paz from Copacabana, Bolivia headed for the big city.
The trip had the most interesting ferry crossing so far. We arrived at a port expecting the bus to drive onto a ferry or brage. Instead, everyone on the bus had to get off. We understoof why when we saw the boat. Barely larger than the bus and tilted at an impressive angle, the little barge was towed across the strait while the passengers were ferried across in our own little runabout. As we approached the city, honking at everything that moved (literally, even pedestrians several metres off the road got several warnings) we had our first views of craggy snow-capped Andean mountains. We had seen some snow on far off peaks in Ecuador and Peru, but they had nothing on the ranges that surround La Paz. The city is nesteld in a high valley in the mountains, with peak visible from the center of town.
La Paz
Our introduction to La Paz started on the sidewalk outside the bus station. We have been getting pretty complacent with our pre-planning for each new destination, often
Not your average water taxi
Our bus on it´s own ferry across the channel on the way to La Paz from Puno. simply taking a look at the guidebook when we arrive. It´s worked quite well for us so far. This was not to be tolerated in La Paz though! We hadn´t been studying for more than a minute when we were accosted by the tourist police from the bus station. We didn´t feel at all uncomfortable on the sidewalk (and have since then walked here several times), but they weren´t going to let us just sit there with book in hand looking like lost gringo tourists. Through broken spanish we let them know that we needed to find an ATM before grabbing a cab and that we hadn´t decided where we were going to spend the night. We were then escorted by three armed police into the station to the ATM. They felt it necessary to stand by while we got some cash, and then escorted us directly to the taxi stand. Along the way, they had provided the names of a few of the more popular hostels for our consideration....until we arrived at the taxi stand, where they insisted on having us jump in a cab immediately. So we picked one of their suggestions at random and headed off to
Different Strokes for Different Folks
A monument we saw while waiting for our bus to arrive on it´s ferry... not for the squeamish! You can just make out the blood pouring from the neck of the unfortunate bloke in blue. see where we were going to be staying for the night!
The hostel was in the right part of town, but there wasn't much to recommend it. It was classic cheap backpackers hostel, with dingy rooms, a terrible mattress and musty carpeted walls. We decided to only stay there for one night, as we felt we could afford a little more than the $8 it cost for the room! After throwing our packs on the bed, we headed out for a look around town. That first stroll was a real eye opener for us, having not spent much time in the downtown areas of the cities yet on the trip (even in Quito and Lima we had bunked down in traveller´s ghettos that were outside of the core areas). The city was very much alive and vibrant even though it was a stormy, windy night. The streets were very crowded, and personal space was non existant. Pedestrians, vendors and stalls all compete for space on the steeply inclined sidewalks, while low slung tarps shielding the merchanidse forcing us to stoop as we moved with the crowd. In many places it was simply easier to walk on the street with
Don´t forget your seatbelt
Anything goes in Bolivian transportation the traffic. The vehicles move quite slowly through the most crowded area so you can simply walk right behind the bumper of a car and move with it. Walking so close to moving vehicles, including large trucks, felt very sketchy...safety is not in the Bolivian vocabulary. We eventually got used to walking in traffic and letting fate take care of the rest.
Our itinerary in La Paz was pretty simple; see the city, book a jungle trip and figure out what else we could do in Bolivia with the time that we had. This was the first time we were feeling the impact of our decision to do a 'highlight' tour of the world. There were many exciting places that we had heard about in Bolivia from fellow travellers. We felt rushed to do even half of them, so we didn't want to stay long in the city. We had already pushed back our flight from La Paz to Rio by two weeks, stealing time from the second half of our South American itinerary. Every destination had more to do and see than we had the time for, and the constant travel between was having it's effect. We were
La Paz at night
Busy night market traffic in La Paz pretty tired, and the elevation didn't help! La Paz sits at 3600 m (11,811 ft)....really high up. For comparison, Ottawa is at 114m and Everest tops out at 8848m. So while we weren't about to keel over and die from altitude sickness, we did get to wheeze and huff as we hiked up the steep sidewalks that are everywhere. To add to the problem, Jen still wasn't completely over the cough that had plauged her since we left.
The first 'oh my god' moment of the trip occured the next morning. We received an email from our travel agent back home (Travel Cuts - highly recommended) that Lan airlines had listed us as a no-show for our flight out of La Paz the week earlier (the one that we pushed back two weeks) and had therefore automatically cancelled the rest of the flights we had with them, including our flight to New Zealand! Needless to say, our stress level went through the roof, and we immediately had a new priority! We confirmed with American that the date change had indeed been completed, but the Lan office was closed for the day and we had no luck with their
Don´t lean out the balcony
An example of La Paz´s electrical systems! You could easily touch the wires from the balcony of our first hostel. This is a picture of another part of the same street. phone systems. It was a stressful night as we were unsure of the validity of all of our flight coupons on the round the world ticket as a result of the no-show record (we had read articles which described how airline systems can automatically cancel all flights on a reservation when there is a no-show, releasing seats in fare classes that may not be available again when you try to re-book the same flights). When we arrived at the Lan office the next morning, we were dutifully told that indeed, there had been a mistake (the AA staffer who had processed the date change had screwed up by recording it as a separate reservation) and they could happily place us on the correct flight to Rio, but that there was no longer any seats available on our April 11th flight to New Zealand (aaaarrrrgh!). The lady at the Lan office was none to cheerful, but after making a few calls to the head office, she proved to be very useful. We had seats on the April flight, and all was well. We heaved a huge sigh of relief and headed down the street for some celebratory ice cream.
Our
Nothing to Crow About
This one´s for mamma Law - who loves her roosters. visit to the city was very near the end of the Carnaval celebrations. The city was in a lively mood, with vendors selling party supplies on most streets. Balloons, ribbons and confetti decorated many of the businesses. The streets were a war zone of water guns, water balloons and spray foam. No one was let off the hook and gringos were a popular target. We were variously sprayed and pelted from pedestrians, passing vehicles and even from fourth floor balconies. With some keen dodgeing, ducking, diving, dipping and dodging we managed to stay fairly dry most of the time. The local girls were not so lucky. They suffered the brunt of the attack from the mostly schoolboy crowd of liquid armed soldiers.
We managed to arrange a trip to the jungle, but could not get a seat on the flight out until later in the week. We were hoping to leave right away, as the flights were notorious for being delayed and cancelled. Leaving later in the week meant that we had to leave a few days at the end of our Bolivia schedule empty in case we had difficulties making it out of the jungle to catch our
La Paz witches market
Dead baby animals, the perfect gift for that person on your list who already has everything next international flight.
Uyuni
We left that night, heading to the tiny hamlet of Uyuni to take a trip out to the famous Bolivian salt flats. Our tight schedule and last minute planning meant that we could not take the popular (and sold out) train from La Paz, instead catching the overnight bus. This was our third night bus so we weren't too worried about it....but we should have been.
The bus to Uyuni was a nightmare. Our first warning sign was the layout of the bus itself. IT looked liked a regular tour bus, but many years older than most, with another foot of ground clearance and massive springs. The seats were old, tattered and rock hard, spaced close together leaving little leg room. This would all be quite meaningless though as we passed Oruro three hours into the trip and left the paved road. The next ten hours were spent bouncing over what could barely be described as a road. When we weren't following a dusty track, we were fording small streams. It was so baldy washboarded that we were regularly bounced right off our seats (made worse by the fact that we
Please keep to the sidewalk at all times
The sidewalks in La Paz are so crowded with everything that it´s often easier to walk in the traffic were seated right behind the back wheels). To add insult to injury, the latch on the window in front of us was broken, causing the window to slide open, blasting us with dusty freezing air. After reaching forward to slide it shut every ten minutes for most of the night, we finally devised a method to hold it closed by wrapping the strap of one of the headlamps around the handle of both windows. We arrived in Uyuni tired, sore and desperate for a cup of coffee. While the tour touts attacked our early morning crowd with vigor, we couldn't find a single shop to sell us some breakfast! An hour later we were finally sipping some coffee, having arranged our one day tour and sat waiting for a restaurant to open. The only upside of the experience was getting to know a very friendly couple of Aussies, a father and his daughter who were in Bolivia to celebrate his 60th birthday!
The salt flat tour looked like it was going to be a no-go as our tour operator spent the next hour variously calling people and wandering from tour office to tour office, obviously trying to arrange our
Driving across the salt flats
Trucks starting out across the water covered salt flats (it´s rainy season!) day trip as she didn't have enough people to fill a truck. Eventually we were grouped together with another Canadian couple (16 months into their trip) and a younger couple from Germany. The salt flats are mostly underwater at this time of year, which meant that the trip started with the driver stuffing long grass in front of the radiator to prevent the very salty water from entering. The rest of the engine bay is protected with a blue tarp. Were once again in a Toyota Landcruiser, the vehicle of choice in South America for anyone who needs a truck to beat to crap every day. It's incredible what these vehicles withstand for years on end.
The landscape of the slat flats is totally alien. It's a beauty that messes with your head. Where water covers the salt, the effect is a complete reflection of the sky as far as the eye can see, broken only where the peak of a distant hill comes into view. Where it is dry, it is an endless expanse of blindingly white...nothing. It's hard to focus your eyes as there is simply nothing different in the landscape all the way to the horizon.
Would you like fries with that?
One supersize portion of salt... The tour took us to isla Pescada (named so because it resembles a fish when seen from above), a very odd small island in the middle of the salt, covered with cacti. Having a restaurant with cold beer, it was an oasis in the white desert! We had a small lunch provided with the tour, followed by some fun taking pictures on the salt flats...the lack of feature in the landscape allows for some fun illusions. The return home was made memorable when we overheated in the middle of nowhere. Our only choice was to sit and wait, hoping the engine would cool down enough to let us make it the rest of the way home. We visisted a unique railroad graveyard to finish the day. Arriving back in Uyuni, we were exhausted from having spent the most of the last twenty five hours sitting in a vehicle. We managed to find some good pizza at a great little restaurant, and crash landed in a little hostel, thankful for a crappy mattress and four walls.
Potosi
The next stop on our travel adventure was the historic town of Potosi. This town was once, long ago, the
The Karate Kid
Jen explores a new style of yoga largest city in South America. It was all about the silver, buried deep in the mountains surrounding the town. The silver petered out a long time ago, but there are still several thousand independant miners working in the area, with tin being one of the main targets now. Our goal was to tour the silver mines and head back to La Paz the next night on an overnight bus. We were anticipating a very lively city, as our arrival coincided with the last two days of Carnaval. The streets were fairly crowded, with many water fights, but the town did not have the all-out party atmosphere that we were expecting. The holiday was more like our Christmas than anything else. Most of the shops and restaurants were closed. There were scattered celebrations on the streets, but most people were celebrating with private gatherings in their shops and homes. We tried to book a mine tour and overnight bus for the next day, but were foiled by the holiday. All the buses were cancelled (something about all the drivers being drunk) and nothing was happening in the mines (definitely because all of the miners were drunk). We found only one of
One pill makes you smaller
Jen goes down the rabbit hole into a land of wonder the recommended hotels open (the splurge option) and seated ourselves for dinner. We recognized an older gentelmen, travelling alone, from the bus ride in. We invited him to join us for dinner, and had a wonderful evening. He is a communications consultant for diplomats in his home in Europe, and we had great conversation of South America, Bolivia, politics and weather. He surprised us by picking up the tab!
We slept in very late the next morning, havething not much else to do but stroll about town for the day to kill some time. The place was a dead zone. Any locals that were in the streets had the shadow of a good hangover on them, and just about everything was closed. We managed to find one place serving empanyadas, with a hoard of hungry gringoes decending on it. The obviously hammered host was good fun, giving everyone little shooters of a traditional Bolivian drink, laughing constantly. We had an early night, as it was Andrew's turn to fight a cold...Jen had finally gotten over her cough.
The mine tour the next day was a lesson in safety rules in the rest of the world. The tour starts
Jump!
White women can jump! with a visit to the miner's supply stores, where you can buy gifts for the miners that you meet on the tour. These gifts include lights, coca leaves (they chew big wads of them all the time), straight liquor (190 proof) and the best gift of all, nitrogen based explosives complete with ignitors. The explosive and ingnitors and cheerfully tossed into a grocery bag for you to carry to the mines. At home, these two items would not be allowed near each other until required for detonation. We both bought some explosive and other goodies, ready for the tour. When you arrive at the mine for the tour, they use a couple bags of this stuff to give you a demonstration blast...fun stuff. Of course there is no safety precautions at all, other than the fact that they have already dug a couple of holes a hundred feet from where the tourists gather to meet. They take the explosives, insert the ingnitors and light the five-minute fuses while everyone looks on, standing a few feet away. After hamming it up for the cameras with the fuses merrily burning away, they stroll casually down the trail to drop the explosives into
Isla Pescada
A beautiful bay, the sound of salt lapping at the shore... the holes. A couple of good thumping blasts later, and we're all ready to follow these guys into the mountain!
Unfortunately for us, the mine tour was a complete bust.....After only fifteen minutes of walking down the shafts, Andrew was wheezing like and turning red. Still fighting a cough, walking bent double at the waist to avoid the low ceiling and breathing some dusty (being the last in line) and foul air, he gave up and we walked back out. It was a good idea, as only a few hundred yards from the exit, he managed to just about cough up a lung. We did see the underground museum and some of the shafts that are still in use by the independant miners. The conditions are horrible, and most miners can only work for about ten years before the bad air and suspended particles give them black lung. The rest of the people on the tour emerged after another forty five minutes with tales of having to crawl on their hands and knees through dusty tunnels, with air that was worse than we ran into. It was a good thing (given the coughing fit) that we had turned back
Cactus on Isla Pescada
One of these things is not like the other... when we did.
After the curtailed mine tour, we were glad to have a reasonable bus for our fourth overnight bus of the trip, back to La Paz. Our flight to the jungle left the next day, and we hoped to get some sleep on the bus, as we wouldn't be finding a hotel until late at night.
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