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Published: April 7th 2007
Day 92 - Day 103 (28/03/07 - 09/04/07)
Our Bolivian adventure began as we crossed Lake Titikaka, from the Peruvian side to the Bolivian side, a 20 min boat ride for the passangers and a rather home-made raft ride for the bus. The first place we came across was a little lake-side town of Copacabana (although a charming town it is without the attractions of its more famous namesake in Brazil - rather it is named in honour of its virgin stature of Copacabana held in the towns cathedral). Having been impressed by the Peruvianside of Lake Titikaka, although the Bolivian side was also nice, it was just one big blue lake to us now....a few hours was enough!
La Paz
The world´s highest city was our next destination - La Paz - more than 3,500 m above sea level, few cities have a setting as spectacular as La Paz.La Paz is Bolivia´s capital in all but name (technically the capital is Sucre, in the south-east of Bolivia, we didn´t hear of anyone going there or anything much to see). The city is built in a hollow between the ice bound peaks of Mount Illimani,
Lake Titikaka - the Bolivian side
Very similar to the Peruvian sideon all sides the steep slopes of the valley are covered by the ramshakled homes of the cities poorest inhabitants which cling dangerously to the edge of the mountainside. In the bottom, the cluster of tightly packed church spires, office blocks and market stalls form the centre of most activity, which goes about its business in a chaotic and hectic manner.
Amongst the craziness that is La Paz life, exists the "Witches Market", a traditional market place where the old peruvian ladies provide potions and medicines for the superstitious and curious. We happened to live in a hotel here in the middle of the witches markets, and we have to say it was a smelly experience. The main steets fell on a very steep v-shaped valley, at these altitudes, to walk up any part of the hill was unbelievably tiring, and desoite our familiarity with altitude now, we were often worn out walking around in La Paz. One could purchase magic potions inc those for luck in love, in fortune, in air-flight, in health and in sex. There were paccumammas, wierd figurines which were both male and female, as well as many stuffed animals and endangered animal furs (inc
How our bus didn´t sink we don´t know!
Crossing Lake Titikaka from Peru to Bolivia, an interesting ride! puma, jaguar etc), but the most wierd and incomprehensible was the llama foetueses....the peruvian people sacrifce pregnant llamas, and after extracting and drying the foetus, they bury or burn the llama foetus in front of a new house, or with in the wall cavaties, so as to warn off bad spirits or omens. Thankfully we didn´t witness this ritual in person, though we met travellers who had, but the sight of the llama foetuses on sale in the market was enough insight and smell for us!
The World´s Most Dangerous Road
Now call us fools or call us brave, one thing we had to do in our short time in Bolivia (or so it seemed at the time) was to attempt to mountain bike ride down the world´s most dangerous road. The road from La Paz to Corioca is recognised worldwide as offically being "the world´s most dangerous road", this classification owes to the number of people who have died per year whilst travelling along this piece of roadway....so....an american tour agency "Gravity" (as well as many other companies) cashed in on this mortality increasing road and created an adreniline-fuelled sport - a 4hour downhill mountain
bike ride on gravel on a narrow and winding path, often met by large truck and vehicules....why oh why i don´t know...but people feel obliged to try it out. At this point it´s worth noting that of all the companies offering mountain bike rides down this ridiculous road, "Gravity" is the only one which has had NO mortalities within its 17year history (or so they told us) and so we felt in relative safe hands! The particular Saturday that we decided to engage in this activity, at the early hour of 8am, the beginning of the road, some 4,700 m - was completely and unusually for this time of year snowfilled and getting thicker, thus we were not able to commence the downhill plunge until a few kilometres further downhill, at which point it was pouring with icy cold sleet-type rain - not pleasant biking conditions.
Not being experienced mountain bikers, we were unfamiliar with the type of trerrian we were dealing with - gravel - and big chunks of it at times, making the ride all that more difficult and unnerving. This however did not stop some of us (C) challenging himself and the road by accelerating to
speed, getting out of control, and pushing the brakes too hard too fast resulting in 4,000 m high mountain top acrobatic displays - head-over-handlebars, not once but twice.....most unnerving to onlookers, and thankfully resulted in him being more cautious and staying to the back of the group, going a little slower with Kate!
The views were incredible though, not that we had much chance or nerve to look, but every nowand again, when you caught sight of the landscape around us you were reminded of the reality of riding on this road by the crosses for those who had lost their lives over the years. Every 200m or so there was another cross, including one for an Israeli guy who had gone over the edge only a month earlier, and another for a Canadian who simply disappeared a month before (these are just a few of the tourists, neverminding the hundreds of locals each year).
Half way down, we heard a loud rumble not too far ahead of us, turing a corner we were witnesses to a huge part of the mountain collapsing right on the road in front of us. Part of our group had just crossed
the path, and we were about to cross it when it happened, not good for our nerves! Quickly climbing over the rubble, bikes in hand, we hoped that there was no more mountain to follow, we were able to carry on - the bus however which was following us with emergency and first-aid kits in, had to back up the whole 2 hour way back - the road was completely out of use for vehiclules now - not good news if someone was to break a leg!
I (K) personally did not enjoy the first half of the trail, it was much too steep and narrow for my liking, and the 400m drops were too close for comfort...i was freaked and stressed out, feeling weak from using all my strength to hold the brakes on full and avoid falling off, or down! However hours later, at a lower gradients, it was much more enjoyable and i could appreciate the surroundings!
Successfully reaching the bottom, now 1,100 m, the air was more easily breathable, and a huge sense of relief, survival and achievement waved over us! It may sound dramatic...but thats how i felt (K) and we´ve done it,
Took our breath away....literally
Trying our hardest to keep to the right, even though our guides stressed we have to stick to our side of the road....thats the left in this case as the cars and trucks have the right to be on the right!scary stuff! i have to say i´ll never be doing something like that again!!!
The Salt Plains and Bolivian Desert
Though our time in Bolivia was short, one must see was the Solar de Uyuni - The Salt Plain, which was without a doubt the highlight of our trip so far. With little hype or publicity, we were unprepared for what to expect from the 3 day tour we took of this area. We toured around in a maroon 4 by 4 jeep with a cute Bolivian couple as our driver and cook. The first stop was the famously bright white salt plain, which supplies the whole of S.America with its table salt. It was like nothing we´d seen before, where you could not see the distinctions between land and sky it was all so bright white and blue. As you can see from the pics we were very excited by it and had hours of fun trying to manipulate the surroundings to create photo illusions...looked better in our heads though!
The second day, we explored the bolivian desert area, in which the landscape changes completely every half an hour - in a nut shell, we saw
Few memorials to the lost souls on this road
one year more than 360 people died, mainly trucks and buses, thankfully theres a new road being built they can take now vast differences and transformations in the landscape from the bright white salt plains to sandy desert, to multicoloured mountains, to smoking volcanoes, to snow-capped mountains, to strange rock formations. We stopped off frequently to admire the views including the array of lakes as well. There were lakes like we´´ve never seen lakes before, green lakes, red lakes, white lakes, blue lakes, each reflecting the mountain behind it and surroundings, and inhabited by pink flamingoes.
On the third day, the extremely early wakeup call was less than appreciated but was reconciled when we drove in the pitch dark and freezing temperatures with frozen windows preventing the driver from seeing but not stopping him from driving like Colin McRay up and over the rocky terrain, and saw the bubbling effects of geishers in the moonlight. Shortly after when the sun was just beginning to rise, we had the best ever bath. The steaming natural hot springs were too inviting despite not being able to bear the thought of getting into our swimsuits in the frostbite cold - it was a reward well worth the effort!
The whole experience of touring these less than well know landscapes for a remarkably cheap
price, was unbelivable at times. The variation of terrains and natural sites was amazing and unforgettable and most of the time it was like being on the moon!!!
Still way behind on our blogs, we have been busy touring Argentina for a month, and then returning to Brazil we have visited the Pantanal and are currently relaxing for a while in Rio with our adopted family. Next stop is Chile before our time in South America comes to an end. Hope all is well at home!
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Linda and Mum
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Ehhh dont want a lama foetus now.....
Hey hey hey. Fantastic pics. Must say that these were best so far... amazing. And i thought that pic when you managed to shrink Kate was fantastic haha. And the beer bottle was cool too. Mum says you must have angels watching you when taking that bike trip in the mountains... scary business!!! God would never done that myself, rather go diving... and that scares me... Ok my dears, hope to spk to you guys b4 you go to Chile. Maybe you can ring me on the computer. Lots of luv Linda and mumXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX