Bolivia!

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The journey to Bolivia...

We travelled by bus continuously from Friday 9pm until midday on Sunday when we finally arrived in La Paz - an epic journey! On Friday night we got an overnight bus from Cordoba to Salta, northern Argentina. Little did we know an entire sports team of fit young men was on the bus with us who were very rowdy and loud, sprawling into the aisles. Also I had a stroke of very bad luck with my chair which barely reclined at all, whilst the guy in front of me had his chair fully reclined which left me sitting very uncomfortably for the whole night and barely able to sleep at all. It was especially fun trying to navigate past all the guys with their legs and arms sprawled out in the aisle while the bus jerked around. One moment in particular was hilarious when Jo was trying to get out of her seat while the guy in front simultaneously was reclining his seat she kept bobbing up and down. Fun times!
The next day we took a 7 hour bus which took us from Salta to the border with Bolivia. This bus was much more pleasurable as they showed some really good films like 50 First Dates lol. However, neither of us could relax properly since therewas a great looming unknown which was the rest of our journey - crossing the border with little clue of where we were going or what we were doing. I was reluctant to leave the bus for once. Luckily a group of 4 English guys were in the same position as us and we all crossed the border, which was actually very easy.


Since an hour or so before arriving at the border it already had felt like we had left Argentina and entered Bolivia, the poorest country in South America. Suddenly the people, buildings and landscape totally changed. The people changed from European-Spanish looking to indigenous Andes people, of whom the women were often to be seen wearing traditional clothing. The buildings were more rundown, the roads dustier and the landscape soon changed. The views from the bus were incredible - mountains and rivers.
Crossing the border consisted of getting a stamp of departure from Argentinian migration and then crossing a bridge and getting a stamp of entry in Bolivia. We had finally made it to Bolivia!! After getting off the bus we were all struck immediately by the change in altitude. Our chests felt quite tight and it was a bit difficult to breathe. This did not bode well for the Inca trail!

We made our way to the bus station and were bombarded by people trying to get us onto certain buses. We had been planning to go to the salt flats in Uyuruni but discovered that there wasn´t a bus until the following morning. We just didn´t have the time to hang around waiting so we decided to go straight to La Paz and hopped on an overnight bus. The fact that we were now in Bolivia became startingly obvious. The waiting room at the bus station was like a run down village hall, dirty floor and broken chairs. We had our first taste of Bolivian public toilets, which ridiculously you have to pay for, even though they are flooded, do not flush, have no paper, soap or water. We made our way to the platform to get our bus very dubious about what the condition of the bus would be. I think we were both quite impressed that it was a large coach not a ramshackle little bus, and our luggage was loaded on securely. Our driver didn´t appear to be drunk, which we had been told was an issue in Bolivia, although I think that is more on public buses (apparently a while ago bus drivers were demonstrating against the law to prevent them from drink-driving!!). We were struck by how smiley and friendly the Bolivian people were we didn´t feel at all threatened or uneasy, even on the bus where we were the only foreigners.

A little girl got on the bus selling empanadas, she was so sweet we decided to buy some off her. I made the somewhat foolish decision to believe that the queso empanadas didn´t contain any meat, half way through I found a morsel of meat, great! Through the night several children got on the bus or were waiting at stops to sell us food or drinks, it was really sad. On entering Bolivia in the migration office I saw a poster that said "Recuerden los niños no son objetos, no les pueden vender" (Remember, children are not objects to be sold) - not very promising.

I was fascinated by the women´s dress - most of them were wearing traditional clothing - huge, long skirts, thick jumpers, bowler hats or wooly hats perched on top of their heads, hair in long black plaits down their backs. In contrast the men all worse much more western clothing, trousers and jackets. Everyone was loaded up with thick alpaca blankets in bright colours. It wasn´t very cold and we were still in our Argentinian attire so we wondered why they were so well equipped. We later discoverd why as the temperatures plummeted, and the window near us was broken and we only had thin scarves to keep us warm, we were so cold we could not sleep. In fact it was probably one of the worst nights of my life. There were no lights on the bus so as soon as we got on the bus at 7pm we were forced to sit in total darkness. The broken window let huge quantities of dust enter the bus, at one point I wondered seriously if it was possible to die from suffocating on dust. The roads were absolutely terrible, and what followed was hours and hours of being literally thrown around in our seats, fearing that the bus would go over the cliff edges or tip over. The bus must have been driven by an absolute madman, you would have to be drive the bus along those roads! Also there was no toilet on the bus and in the entire 14 hour journey we only stopped once.

We finally got our first view of La Paz from above at El Alto and it was amazing - thousands of buildings clinging onto the valley sides - the sheer magnitude was incredible and the backdrop of the moutains and blue sky was very impressive.

La Paz

Arriving in La Paz was a shock. Coming from the wealth of Argentina to one of the poorest areas of South America was daunting to say the least - driving from the bus station to our hostel we saw terribly rundown buildings that people lived in, homeless children running around in bare feet, and women struggling up hills in their traditional clothes carrying their babies in sacks on their backs. It was unlike anything we had ever seen before; so dirty and noisy, but what really struck us was how perfectly happy everyone seemed despite everything. Nobody whistled or stared at us like they had done in other places, instead everyone smiled, said "Hola" and went about their business. For that reason we really took a liking to La Paz!

Our hostel, we discovered, was right next to San Pedro prison, which alarmed us even more when we were told that there was no key for our room as the last occupants had lost it! So we then had to make the difficult choice as to whether to leave our valuables in the room or take them out onto the hectic streets of La Paz. We decided upon the latter and ventured out for some food, trying to avoid getting run over by the crazy drivers who seemed to have no awareness of anything that was going on around them! The food we found was very different from what we had been expecting, and surprisingly good! Rachael had been told that she would find nothing to eat except rice and beans, being vegetarian, but we actually had some of the best food of the whole trip in La Paz! Granted none of it was particularly Bolivian... twice we went to a fantastic Mexican restaurant and had burritos and margaritas, and another night we found a nice Italian restaurant called Sol y Luna.

Our favourite thing about La Paz was the famous Witches Market, which was just up the road from where we were staying. It is run by Bolivian women who sell all sorts of traditional things - hand woven clothes, bags, food and the most horrifying thing, llama foetuses which are supposed to have magical powers to bring you good luck. We did not buy one! We spent the best part of two days in the market...it was just so different from anything we had seen before and we really loved it! Plus the prices were incredibly cheap, not only at the market but throughout the whole of La Paz and it was strange to suddenly feel like a wealthy person.

Lake Titicaca

After La Paz we decided to leave the city and go to Copacabana, the little town on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. After our several margaritas the night before we were both feeling a little under the weather, so getting up for our 8am bus was not ideal. Luckily we met 3 really nice English girls on the bus who we ended up staying with at Lake Titicaca. Me and Jo had already booked ourselves into an eco-lodge overlooking the lake which we had read about and the girls decided to join us. Once arriving in Copacabana we all got a taxi which took us out of the town, along the lake wh ich was beautiful and arrived at the ecolodge which was a series of cabins in a rambling garden. It was so peaceful and picturesque, and clean, which was a delight after the hectic craziness of La Paz, similar to arriving in Paraty the little beach town after Rio. We all went for lunch at a restaurant overlooking the lake, and we tried trout caught in the lake. It was so delicious!

The next day we decided to do a day trip to Isla del Sol, an island in the lake. The lake is so huge, and the boat which took us there so rubbish, that it was a 2 hour journey to arrive there. Despite the tedious journey it was well worth it. The island was nothing like I could have imagined Bolivia to be. It was a beautiful hot sunny day and the island was absolutely beautiful. It reminded me of the Greek islands. The beaches were white and sandy, we were very jealous of people lieing around sunbathing. We had come to explore the island however, so bought a map and set off on our trek which would take us from the North to the South of the island. The locals seemed to be living a simple life of farming. We walked past many fields where locals, including women, were tending their crops (potatoes, quino and sweetcorn), and saw many animals such as pigs, sheeps, cows and alpacas. We made it to the rocas sagradas, sacred Inca rocks, where we stopped for lunch. From this high point you could see the water below and around the island it was so beatiful. There was the option to get the boat around to the South of the island but me and Jo were feeling adventerous, so together with a friend we trekked across the island. The woman at the ecolodge had informed us it was an easy walk, quite flat. I´m not sure what she was talking about as it was a demanding walk up and down hill with steep slopes, which at such a high altitude was not too fun! The landscape and views were incredible and it was such a rewarding day.

We decided to try chewing the coca leaf as it is supposed to alleviate the symptoms of altitude sickness, stop hunger and increase alertedness etc. It involved chewing coca leaves gently then moving them to the side of your mouth and after 5 minutes putting some ash in with the leaves and gently moving it around in your mouth. The leaves tasted very bitter, and after a while made your tongue a bit numb. After a while I grew accustomed to the taste but then the ash was horribly sweet and produced lots of juice so after a few minutes I had to spit it all out. Unfortunately Jo had a stronger reaction and vomitted hers up on the sacred island. I'm not sure how effective the coca leaves were but that was probably down to us. We had to rush quite a bit as the boat to take us back to the mainland left at 3.40pm, and as it was we ended up running very late and having to rush down the Inca steps without taking in the view. When we arrived the boat had left but luckily there was another one a few minutes later.

The next morning me and Jo had a well-deserved lie in probably the first of the whole trip, we went to breakfast in our pijamas then went back to bed! We had a very lazy day for the rest of the day as we were feeling the effects of our high-altitude trek the day before. We hoped our bodies would acclimatise to the altitude before the Inca trail! The main effect I found was that I was absolutely exhausted all the time.
The rest of our time at Lake Titicaca passed very pleasantly, it was a relaxing couple of days and we were sad to leave the eco-lodge which was so peaceful. Sadly the girls left us a day before we left, we decided to stay the night near the bus station as we had an early bus to catch the next morning. An old man had invited us off the street to see his hostel but it all seemed a bit dodgy, so we went to another hostel where we had noticed lots of travellers staying. We managed to get a private twin room for a ridiculously low price which even included breakfast the next morning. The guy who showed us around was a boy of about 15 (there were many children doing adult jobs in Bolivia) and he made us promise to pretend we had paid less than we had, we assumed he would be keeping the rest. It all seemed a bit dodgy! We took our valuables out with us when we left the room to go and get dinner. Once we got back we realised that our curtains were totally see through, and since our room faced the street we had to get changed in the dark to avoid exposing ourselves to the whole street! The next morning we got the bus to Cuzco, Peru!

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