Bolivia - Lake Titicaca to Wild West of the south

---

Bolivia

Time for our last country on the list and that was Bolivia. We crossed the border with a few questions, got our Bolivian stamp and we were on our way to our first destination, not far onto the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca, the town of Copacabana. We headed for a water front hotel for a sea view, well lake view anyway but due to the other side of the lake being in another country so you could not see it, it may as well been the sea with a nice little beach as well.

Our first impressions of Copacabana were not the best after possibly the worst food and service we had received this far in our trip and that is a bold accusation considering the c$ap we have eaten this far! After our runs ins with stray dogs we avoided the stray dogs prowling the streets and booked a ferry over to Isla Del Sol for the next day and as Copacabana seemed pretty small we decided to book a coach out the following day, after our island visit.

That morning we had breakfast and headed over the street to our waiting ferry ride. A nice two hour cruise over to the island, with the sun beaming down on us, on the world’s highest navigable lake - whatever that means. After at first somehow going the wrong way, we eventually found the path we were meant to be on for the next five hours. The island was surprisingly nice and more like a Greek or Spanish style holiday island than something we expected to find in the backwaters of Bolivia. A good day around the island and plenty of time avoiding the stampeding Llama’s making there way down the Inca steps on the way to the docks.

Back on the main land and we boarded our coach for La Paz, sadly Matt had not got the best stomach on the journey due to some of our resent meals and Jo promised she would purchase an aerosol for the next journey! 

La Paz

The city was better than expected after facing some of South America’s large cities. We even found a British curry house so popped there for a traditional English meal. By this time in the journey after roughly 2 ½ months of travelling we were both over churches, local crafts and any day trips to near by ruins. What we decided is that it would be nice to have a little bit of luxury at the end of our trip and managed to book from Bolivia a Caribbean cruise which times in with our return flights from Lima to Florida.
So with the aim now of getting something to wear for the cruise, (rather than waterproof hiking gear and duck down coats) we had been told about a huge local market. A bus ride later 30 minutes out from the centre of La Paz and some really friendly locals we spent the next 6 hours around this never ending market with almost everything you could possibly want, all genuine brands at very cheap prices...we didn’t ask were it all came from.

After another day in La Paz we got a bus for Oruru, which was a little delayed so we madly rushed from the bus station to the train station. Matt had been hoping to get on a South America train journey in a few countries but it hadn’t worked out up until now. A relaxing train trip took us eight hours to southern Bolivia, passing flat plains and lots of flamingos all at Bolivia’s altitude of 4000m. We arrived at 10pm and made our way to our hostel via a few tour agencies for the Salar de Uyuni (Salt flats) jeep tour we wanted to do and made a booking for the next day.


3 Day Salt Flat Jeep Tour

Our first destination the next day was to the train grave yard just outside Uyuni, a good collection of old skeleton shells of trains left from 50years ago. A few more stops on the way for lunch and we picked up a Belgium mum and her two daughters who were to be our travelling family for the next few days in the jeep. Amazing islands of rock and cactuses dotted in the middle of what once was an inland sea but now only a salt desert as far as the eye can see. Another stop on the way back for snaps and that’s where we got plenty of photos of us looking tiny, as there is no perspective with so much of nothing for miles behind us. That night we stayed in a salt hotel with the bed, walls and tables made... yep you have guessed it, out of salt. One of the nicer places we have stayed.

The next day we visited more lakes filled with flamingos, saw Alpaca and Vicuna, fossilised coral desert, some great extinct volcanoes on the Bolivian/ Chilean border and finally finishing in our daily ‘hotel’ were all 5 of us shared a room with freezing temperatures outside as we were about 4200m in the middle of no where.

The next day we had a very early start to catch the thermal vents erupting in the morning, very impressive but fecking freezing even though hot air was spewing and bubbling from everywhere. This was followed by a stop at a natural thermal spring about 7am in the morning, cold outside in your little binki, (Matt looked especially nice in his) but lovely and warm once you were in the water. We were then wide awake for a pancake breakfast out of the back of the jeep. The guide/cook/driver did a great job at feeding us and looking after all of us and with Matt’s limited Spanish he managed to understand some of the conversation about the area and Bolivia as a country. This was our third day and a long one at that as we headed for the red lake, then the green lake before a four hour drive, very dusty drive back from more or less the south west frontier of Bolivia all the way across deserts to Uyuni.

Tupiza

When we arrived back in Uyuni we found a nice restaurant with a great Pizza and luckily a book exchange that had English books, a hard thing to find at times in South America. Then it was time for our nightly train journey to the very south of the country to Bolivia’s Wild West, a town called Tupiza.

As so many times on our journey we were luckily enough to find the next day a great University parade through the streets of the town. There weren’t many tourists so a really nice remote feeling and the University parade went on all day with fantastic colourful costumes and that regular Andean tune that they seem to play in all the countries.

Matt had been eager to try some horse riding out at some point but Jo was not that keen after previous unruly horse incidents but we had a great day. Us a great French guy and our guide riding through scenery that is just as we would expect to find in the Grand Canyon and the Rockies of North America, great day of relaxing on well behaved horses with a sore arse from the saddle.

Another parade was on when we got back from the horse riding but this time the schools turn, it seems a none stop excuse to dress in amazing costumes that seem to have no relevance to Christianity as we have seen in some places or the Inca civilisation, more so a Disney parade or something from the Power Rangers.. No joke!

Our last day sight seeing down south was taken up with using the local bank to get a cash advance as we arrived with very little cash and found out that there was no ATM in this town; luckily we managed to get by because of our dwindling supply of emergency US dollars that can be changed everywhere. A lunch time set menu that happily didn’t feature chicken foot soup, nearly being trampled on by Bolivians trying to get to our table (no English manners here) and a relaxing jeep tour of some fantastic canyons and ravines looking back down the valley. This was not far from where Butch Cassidy and the Sun dance Kid finally met there end.

Final days in Bolivia

A long train journey awaited us as we were travelling 13 hours back up the country, not that far but the train and tracks were in need of maintenance and we never got that fast, but a few films were provided and we reclined our seats fully back and managed to both get some sleep.
Back into Oruru and a walk to get the bus back up to La Paz. Even though the bus journey was over flat plains at around 4000m in the distance you could see snow peaked Mountains over 6000m, but we had hiked enough recently and Jo convinced us that we should have a few days to get us sorted before the buses, flights and cruise. Our first task back in La Paz was to figure out how we were going to get back up, either a bus to Lima or one to Cusco and then fly to Lima, we finally decided on a long 26 hour bus journey all the way to Lima with a stop at the Bolivian/Peruvian border to stamp out and in. This decision to use the bus would come back later to hurt us!!

We found a cinema in the centre of the city that had the Michael Jackson film and the new disaster film 2012 so we had a day of cinema - twice, internet, phone calls back home, a nice relaxing day for a change.

Our last day in the city and we managed to get a few more things for the cruise as we had a feeling that our waterproof coats and combats would not go down well on the formal nights on the Ruby Princess. We packed up all our things and had an early night in preparation for our 26 hour bus journey the next day. At least after the hostel both messing up our booking and leaving our bags unattended all day we got the correct room for a couple of our final nights, South American efficiency is not legendry we now know for a reason.

Troubles with a Blockade in Peru

Our first bus took us from La Paz coach station two hours north to the hectic border crossing with Peru. After an hour or so to queue up to get our Peruvian entry stamp we boarded our 24 hour bus for Lima. Roughly 5 hours on the road and about 2 hours south of Araquipa all the traffic on the road was grinding to a halt... We would later find out that this was a protest by a local village that had not got running water and were hoping that the government and media would take note of the blockade. A few other travellers with flights or connecting buses for the next day decided to get of the bus and walk at 11pm at night across the blockade of boulders and fires in the road to try and get a bus to the other side. We decided to wait till the morning to decide what to do as we had over a day’s lee way before our flight to Fort Lauderdale.

Sadly the next day didn’t bring any improvements and in a desperate attempt to epees the protestors we were even writing on the windows of the coach with lipstick and toothpaste, as it was said this way they would let us cross. Unfortunately with no end in site to this we walked over the blockade not feeling that safe and after 2km of dragging several bags we managed to catch a bus to Araquipa, two hours later we got back to some sort of civilisation. We found the bus company stand that we had got tickets with and got a seat on the 14 hour Lima bound bus. Now we asked twice, as did other people on the arrival time of the bus to Lima. We had 3 hour to get to the airport and check in. Though it was getting closer we thought there would be no problems...

It seems in Peru there is always a problem... At around 7am we woke from the second night of a very bad restless sleep to check on how far we were from the city and to our dismay we were told that there was another 2 hours or more to the city... In a nut shell after stressing for a few hours we got back to Lima, made a taxi driver race through the city to the airport only to find we were in vain and the plane was on the tarmac, all sealed up and ready to fly... We had missed it!

---