Boats and bikes in Bolivia

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After reluctantly leaving the beautiful city of Cusco behind, I made my way to the far less charming city of Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. There's very little to see or do in Puno - its basically a base to explore Titicaca, th highst navigable lake in the world at around 4,000m.

I think the locals must have sensed my sadness in leaving Cusco and the Sacred Valley behind and gone to extra lengths to throw out the welcome mat. You see, someone (my guess is the town Mayor) arranged for the restaurant we ate in on our first night to play some homegrown music: a bit of Jet and then a Missy Higgins remix. Of all the places I might have thought it possible to hear some Missy in South America, a tiny restaurant along Puno's "Gringo Alley" would not have come near the top of the list.

The next morning, we boarded a little boat and headed out onto the lack for an overnight stay on Amantille Island, one of the largest in the lake. The local joke is that "titi" means "stone" and that "caca" means shit. Because the lake is divided between Peru and Bolivia, the Perivians say they live on the stone side and the Bolivians live on the shit side. The Bolivians of course have a different opinion. My personal opinion depends on which country I'm in at any given time and which member of the military police happens to be pointing their AK47 at me.

After that little dose of humour, our first stop was at one of the many floating islands that can be found near the shores. The islands are made of reeds and inhabited by a small number of families depending on their size. I was warned beforehand that the reed islands have become very touristy and this indeed was the case. I almost got the impression that the "locals" on the island had all sailed out from the mainland very early in the morning, in time to greet us tourists when we arrive.

After an interesting little tour and a ride on a reed boat, it was another 3 hours to Amantille Island. Fortunately, there's no wave activity on the lake so seasickness did not threaten once again. Unfortunately, we were packed in like sardines on the littleboat and, combined with the constant whiff of diesel fumes, that boat felt like a floating prison after 3 hours.

Once we got to the island, we were allocated host families to stay with for the night. Since the introduction of tourism to the lake, families on the island have been taking in bewildered tourists to stay with them for a night and get an insight into how the families live.

The landscape of the island is extremely picturesque and the houses are all very basic but quite charming. It was quite something to have lunch with our host family in the dirt floor and mud brick kitchen with the room heated by an open fire. I felt rather intrusive and at the same time extremely fortunate to get a glimpse into another way of life. I was concerned that the food we were given was better than what the family eats on a daily basis, but the family had the same soup and fish and potatos as us, so that was comforting to see. I'm not sure whether they have the same food all the time, but I hope we were as least invasive as possible.

Our "foster mum and dad" were so welcoming and friendly that I felt at ease, despite my very mediocre attempts at communicating. I managed to learn that they onlyhave tourists stay with them for 2 or 3 nights per month and that they are on a waiting list each time. Our foster family consisted of mum and dad, 4 boys, and 1 daughter and we had a fun time stumbling over overour Spanish learning some basic things about them.

After lunch, there was an exhausting game of soccer at over 4,000m in the village centre. I discovered that our foster dad wasn't too shabby in the soccer department, but some young Brits helped the tourists triumph over the locals. After the match and when the Queen had finished handing out the trophy and winners' medals, we took a hike to the highest point on the island and watched a special sunset over the lake.

That night the families put on a dance and some traditional music on the village hall. Part of the deal was thatall the tourists had to get dressed up in traditional gear, so I donned my pointed alpaca beanie and threw on a poncho and headed down for some dance action. I think I must have looked rather pathetic in my getup because my foster mum took pity on me and dragged me out onto the dance floor. Little did she know that I have two left feet, filled with lead, and about as much rhythm as a sack of rice. Still, we twirled our way around the floor, bouncing off the other pairings of tourist and locals. It was a terrific night with plenty of fun had by all and I think that night we all slept well.

The next day it was sad to bid farewell to our host family. I´m not sure they'll remember us from the other tourists they've hosted but it was an experience that I'llnot forget soon. As we left, wegave our family the gifts of rice, pasta, candles, textas and paper for the children, and a couple of other essential items we had bought on the mainland. They were so grateful, but I still think we got by far the better of the exchange. Still, I wished that I could have given much more.

That night was our last in Puno and our last in Peru before we tackled the border crossing into Bolivia the next day. Like the homestay, that was another experience I'll not forget in a hurry. The border crossing was completely chaotic to say the least. There is no order or organisation whatsoever. There are people and animals everywhere, some trying to gt across the border, some trying to peddle evrything and more under the sun, and some just so crazy they have no business being out in broad daylight.

The highlight of the crossing was spotting a small crowd gathered around a little stand. On closer inspection, I discovered a guy there making frog smoothies. Yes indeed. After grabbing a live frog from a fish tank, he whacked it on the edge of a table to knock it out, then skinned it and dropped it into a blender bubbling over with some evil looking yellow liquid. Then he added some growth hormone and who knows what else before straining the concoction and selling it. The bloke next to the mixmaster was yelling to the crowd that it, of course, cured every ailment known to mankind. The old war injury in my left knee was playing up so I decided to see if it would help, but thought I should err on the side of caution.

After a bus ride across the altiplano, we were in La Paz by the afternoon, the highest capital city in the world. Actually, whilst the airport lies at just over 4,000m, the city itself sits in a valley about 500m below. Still, they'll claim it.

Apart from the Witch Market which proved to be tame compared to my mate´s frog smoothie stand, there's little to do in La Paz apart from wander the hectic streets in search of all manner of goods that have fallen off the back of a truck. So we booked ourselves into one more mountain bike ride from La Paz to Coroico, down the World's Most Dangerous Road (WMDR). It gets its name because its a 3600m descent down a 64km road that winds its way down the side of a mountain. The road is only about 3m wide in some parts and there are plenty of trucks and buses going in both directions around around many blind corners which adds to the danger. In order to negotiate the blind corners, you have to ride as far to the left as possible. And of course, the left hand side is where there is sheer drop to the valley below. The WMDR is notorious for the number of people killed as a result of vehicles going over the edge. Call it human stupidity but since people started biking down the road, a further 7 people have been killed. We'll never learn.

But...let's not allow common sense to get in the way of some adrenalin-pumping action. We started the day at about 4200m and after about an hour of tearing down some asphalt roadway, we reached the start of the WMDR. Its hard to concentrate on staying to the left hand side as much as possible and not try and look and the sher drop just a metre away. The 2 hours or so it took to ride down were some of the most nerve-wracking I've spent in my life. Apparently, I didn´t find it dangerous enough since I decided to falloff my bike not once but twice. Luckily both spills happened to occur on left hand bends so I fell towards to the cliff side. I shudder to think what might have happened if I had stacked on right hand corners. One guy in our group did in fact go over an edge but had the good sense and luck to do it where there was a small ledge below. Otherwise I'm sure the WMDR would have notched up number 8.

I absolutely nailed myself on those 2 tumbles and my left knee, hip, and shoulder are still aching now. My left hip looked like it had a golf ball sticking out of it. Still, I managed to survive to make it to the pub at the bottom of the hill where I celebrated with my free beer and took posession of my well-earned survivor's t-shirt. My advice to anyone who ventures down the WMDR is not to go the same pub as I did and make use of the facilities. The pub contains the World's Most Dangerous Toilet. I know because the day after the ride, I did the World's Most Dangerous .....

On that note...until next time!

(For anyone interested in seeing more, photos from the WMDR can be found at http://www.shutterfly.com/pro/GravityBolivia/April2005/20050423 . The password is: photos. Enjoy!)

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Comments

[anonymous]

nitemaaaaare
i check out your piccies of the WMDR Geez, you werent kidding about the sheer drop!!! Alas I seemed to have missed the pic of the WMDT... - ian