Toilet talk and salt flats - Beautiful, bizarre Bolivia

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Beautiful, bizarre Bolivia - August 2008
Villazon, Tupiza, the salt flats and Uyuni

On the Tuesday morning we finally arrived at La Ciaca, the border town of Argentina and Bolivia. IA soon as we got off the bus I had a really funny turn and felt horrendous. I don’t know if it was the altitude or dehydration or what but I felt in a really bad way. It only lasted about 20 minutes though and after some life-saving, blood-sugar raising Oreos, was fit to walk over the border in one piece. Was pretty glad not to be American at this point as entrance tax was about ten times as much for American Nationals than any other person. We entered into Villazon, which is the border town in Bolivia and was a cute little place. All the Argentineans come over to shop here because it’s so much cheaper and you could honestly buy anything you could ever want here. We booked a bus up to Tupiza and then wandered around just shopping and stuff. We wandered into this crazy little place for a cheap lunch, it was like a set menu. God, such bizarre food, and we got a few funny looks, presumably for being.....white. It really felt for the first time, that we were not in a tourist area and it could not have been more different to Buenos Aires. On the street outside, these two little girls came up to us, so lovely and tiny and inquisitive. I had just bought a handbag and so gave them my old New Look one...and you should have seen their faces. They were overwhelmed! Struggled with the Spanish chatting to them but managed a bit and ended up not wanting to say bye to them both.
So onwards, north to Tupiza. The bus was nothing short of hilarious. We should have known when we saw the chaos of everyone getting on and putting their luggage underneath. Luggage, by the way, included everything from furniture to chickens. Looking around from seats, it cracked us up. The front windscreen was cracked all the way down in a couple of places. People were crammed on, haphazardly, the women with the big coloured sack things on their backs, filled with babies and shopping. We were kind of half on our seat as a little old Boliviano woman perched on the side, which would have been funny in itself until we realised how off-road we were gonna go. Was like the bloody waltzers or something. When we finally started to give up on the journey every coming to an end, we were released at Tupiza - a little more life-weary than a few hours previous. The little hotel place we found there worked out to be a few quid each a night, it had a pool, breakfast and was ever so posh! Our main thing in this town was to find and book a tour of the salt flats. Once that mission was completed, we went for tea and tried had the local Bolivian dish - Pique Macho - which is kind of like bits of steak, sausage, all mixed up with fries, onion, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. Surprisingly nice! After that we thought we found a comedy bar, completely empty...despite the 80p cocktails! We ended up meeting the other couple from our tour and had about ten 80p cocktails too many.
The next day before our tour was a lovely recharging day really. We just bought some warm clothes for the tour and had a real relaxing one. Could not be said for the following day though! Our little tour guide fella and helper lady met us in the morning and we got on our way. It was us two and another couple, Stuart -an Australian fella and Aga - his fiancé, a polish woman. We were I suppose a bit hesitant of them at first, they seemed a bit...hard to judge, but soon realised they were both comedy geniuses. Geniuses who prided themselves on having every piece of backpacker kit known to man, all tucked safely into their matching, micro backpacks. Anyways, that first day we drove...a lot. We had llama meat for lunch - it was lovely, really rich. It’s amazing how resourceful this little Bolivian woman is, she has everything of four days for 6 people in our little Toyota. Just driving around I t felt so remote, so far removed from anything western, such a wild west landscape. That night we stopped at this little hut thing for the night. We really had not prepared ourselves for the cold - like way way below zero, ski resort cold, as soon as the sun went down. E had dinner, which was wonderful, and sat and played Shithead all evening with the other tour group until we finally headed to bed. Getting changed was unbearable, so I ended up putting clothes on rather than taking them off. I think I wore everything I’d brought with me that night, and still shook as I lay there. Stuart did a newsreel of the day as we all drifted off to sleep.
The next couple of days was more of the same, we saw all of these natural Laguna’s, natural Geysers and loads and loads of flamingo everywhere. It’s funny, it takes no time at all to get close to people, while in an enclosed space. I thought I had a small bladder until I met Aga - we literally had to stop every ten minutes - it was hilarious. At one point we got a flat tyre and Daniel, our tour guide driver fella, was amazing, just sorting it out like a true mechanic - these people are so... practical. Life is so refreshing without health and safety guidelines, mobile phones, facebook and the AA. The next couple of nights we got wine and played Shithead continuously with the other group, who we got pretty close to as well. Two British girls called Sally and Jess and a comedy French couple. The final night we stayed in a salt hotel, which was real nice, and these local kids came in to play the panpipes to us. We didn’t learn our lesson though, and drank enough wine to make the 5am start painful. We drove in ice cold and pitch black to the salt flats, the biggest ones in the world, to see the sunrise. It really was everything I could have imagined and so beautiful. Once it got a bit warmer we took all the standard salt flat photos, a good few hours’ worth and Daniel took us to Fish island(which surely should have been called giant cactus island...) for lunch. Our tour finished in Uyuni, a town which I’m struggling to say one positive thing about. So I’m not going to. It was grim and grey. We all tried to check in to a hotel, but apparently weren’t welcome there - so we moved to a more welcoming one! Late afternoon found us sitting outside a pub, waiting desperately for Minute Man to open - which it never actually did. We ended up going for a pizza, as a final goodbye to the Frenchies. It was later that night we struck upon the ‘Extreme Fun Pub’, - surely trying to be Ironic in Uyuni - where we had a fest of comedy cocktails in various phallic shaped cups and it ended up being a hilarious night.

Potosi

The following day, Me and Jones, and our new found crew all got the bus to Potosi, the highest city in the world and known for all the silver mines. The journey was a ridiculous farce....if we’d thought the bus to Tupiza was comical, this driver wanted to prove himself to be more of a wit. We broke down a couple of times, for a good while each time...and then stopped to give a donkey a drink. When we finally reached our destination we were all knackered and ready to crash. We met this older teacher fella, and thought he met the criteria to join our crew temporarily - so he came for tea with us. Went to this little 4060 place ( named after the altitude of Potosi) and hailed a taxi back. Now, you try not to listen to all the horror stories people have on south America. But you do try to bear all the scams and potential dangers in mind. We’d already heard lots about drivers picking up westerners and driving them to a secluded area, to meet a group of people who would beat and rob you. So when the driver started crawling through the streets, literally around the block and through various side streets, we admittedly did start getting a bit unnerved. We’d tried a couple of times to understand why we hadn’t yet reached our destination and not had much response. Eventually the driver stopped, looking at us apologetically in his centre mirror. Turns out he wasn’t a taxi at all, just an opportunist looking to make a quick buck. So we walked from there, laughing with nervous relief all the way home.
The following day, was our tour of the silver mine that we’d heard so much about. Sal and Aga were a bit ill, which meant a lot more toilet talk that we’d all go so familiar with at this point. On the way up, our tour guide for the day had taken us to a roadside shop, recommending we buy dynamite and a gift for the miners. When we got up to the mine, she took my stick of dynamite and lit it, a bemused look on her face, as she handed it round for photos. We didn’t mess about taking holidays snaps with the lit dynamite, before the guide took it to the bottom of a hill, and started to run - fast - back up towards us. We were expecting the bang, but bloody hell, it still made us jump massively. At this point we were all hyped up for a giggly day trip - so it was a bit of a shock to the system when we finally entered the mine. The working conditions were horrendous - wet, murky, cramped. The men work here from about 14, 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year. The miners chew on cocoa leaves, in keeping with Bolivian ancient tradition, to almost numb the stark reality of working life. This obviously hasn’t got anything in it to make you really high, just a little bit more.. anaesthetized, I suppose. We had brought some cocoa leaves and cigarettes for them, but it felt so... inadequate. After that we left and just spent the rest of the day wandering around Potosi, which is a really pretty little town, before me, Jones, Sal and Jess finally got the overnight bus to La Paz.

La Paz

When we finally arrived it was so early morning we couldn’t check in to Loki, so we just had to faff around on
the internet and went shopping - much to Jones delight. We saw all sorts of baffling wares for sale around the street markets, everything from cushion covers to llama foetuses. It felt like I bought loads, and overspent on what I meant to, but actually realised it worked out o be less than a tenner. The first night we cooked in Loki and just went to the hostel bar for the quiz (which, by the way, we came second in!) Met a bizarre leg feeler bloke called Diane, worked away at our bag of cocoa leaves and what with a tab set up and all, had a load of shots.
The following day was a good, yet very strange one. Being obsessed with Marching Powder, as I am, I’d got in a few conversations with people about San Pedro prison. A woman in Tupiza had given me a phone number to call when we got to La Paz, never quite explaining what it was, but something to do with the prison. So I called the number today, from a phone booth....albeit very hesitantly. The jovial voice at the other end of the line, invited us to come visit the prison, only instructing not to bring any cameras or passports, only money. Turns out he was one of the inmates, answering his mobile. We met him grinning at the gates, after following his strict instructions to go to the ‘Gringo entrance’. He guided us in past the guards, who eyed us up indifferently. Once you walked through you were in the main courtyard, which was every bit like the images described in the book. A tin roof above a row of plastic chairs, filed with vacant eyed prisoners, smoking and watching young lads play a ball game in the centre of the yard. We shuffled in uneasily, following our guide closely. He began to explain what I’d imagine is his usual spiel, about the different cells available and the different standards of living. He took us to his cell, proudly explaining it was a relatively expensive one, but from our point of view - still pretty dire. He began to elaborate on his chequered history in crime, from swallowing bags of cocaine on planes to being a death row in Asia. We gradually opened up and began to ask more and more questions, the reality of it all beginning to sink in I think. He told us about the recent segregation of prisoners, between the gringos and Boliviano’s due to the incessant murders and persecution between prisoners. We peered through the door separating both sides, while he explained that all his years in the prison, he’d only been over that side a couple of times (to buy veg no less!). And as a white prisoner in a Boliviano prison, you’d last probably 24 hours, maybe 48 if you speak Spanish. He went on to tell us about the infamous cocaine factory within the prison, which now is in the Bolivian side. No worries though, he went on to explain, the little hatch about the tin roof in the courtyard leads through to the factory and your order would be delivered through there, bounce of the tin roof and into the courtyard - in front of the unresponsive eyes of the guards. When I asked how the guards reacted, I got a shrug as a response. Apparently why should they care? They get a profit from everything profitable in the prison, including the drugs. (And come to that, any backpackers coming in.) The men’s wives and even children, often reside with them in the prison, or move freely in and out shifting the coke. It was at this point that our guide moved us on, to meet a friend of his - Jacques. We hesitantly entered this new cell, thinking this day could only get weirder. Jacques and his wife were on another planet. They welcomed us in before Jacques returned to his crack pipe in the bathroom. It was only when It got a bit more bizarre and Jacques went from strangely vague to incomprehensive, that we thought it might be a good time to get off.
Stepping out into the afternoon sunshine into the centre of La Paz, was peculiar and we couldn’t really get our head around the day so far. That night we ended up back in the hostel bar, met a few more people, returned to our cocoa leaves and cracked up at our Bolivian experiences so far.
The next day was a nice easy one around La Paz again, and we had decided to go to Wagamama that night, as Stuart and Aga had arrived in the city and it was our final night as a group. Wagamama wasn’t quite what we expected but it was a lovely night. We ended up at a bar called Sol y Luna, where there was an Afro-Bolivian band playing.
The next day was our death road day! This was something I’d heard loads about too. The most dangerous road in the world, with the most number of pedestrian and vehicle death annually than any other. I surprised myself by being ever so nervous in the morning when we met at a coffee shop, bright and early. Once we got going, driving up the mountain, I was fine though actually. La Paz itself is at an altitude of 3, 600m but this mountain bike ride started even further up at 4, 650. When we got there we all got set up with our bikes and was given some traditional 100% alcohol/ethanol stuff to put on your lips, wheels and the ground - for good luck. Once we got going I loved it, forgotten how much I love riding a bike. We were caning it down the hill, on a real high, obviously feeling the altitude if we ever had to go remotely uphill though. AT one point the leader guy said the next section was really pretty hard and we could go in the van if we wanted. A lot of people did but I think neither Jones or I wanted to in front of each other! So we both did this hill and honestly, it was one of the hardest physical things I’ve ever done. The altitude was the first thing, but the mud and rain was another. The mud kept splashing up and covering our goggles so we couldn’t wear them at all, so it was just flying into my face. I could barely see. Even without that, I could only see about a couple of metres in front because of the rain. I couldn’t see or hear anyone else around me either and started to pray that I was still going the right way...it felt like forever. Every 15 seconds I thought I was gonna have to give up. Anyway, I didn’t realise until the last minute, as Id spent the whole thing squinting at my front wheel....but, all of a sudden I was at the top. There was only Jones in front of me. I was well chuffed to be the first girl and second to the top (I know its stupid to be so competitive coz it’s just not about that, but I can’t help it!)
Anyway, It was so so beautiful over the edge of the cliff, you lost any idea of the danger. Apparently that’s how the majority of accidents happened, just that momentary lapse of concentration, not necessarily the road itself. But just to keep you reminded, you constantly pass crosses as you go down, a perpetual reminder of where you are. We rode through waterfalls and over parts where the ground was crumbling away beneath you. It was spectacular. Well it was up until about half way through the day when I could see a car ahead. Jones go there first and tried to tell me to stop. A bike rider from a previous group had come off the side, and thankfully, God knows how, got caught in the shrubbery, avoiding the 10 foot drop below him. A man and his young son had seen what had happened and were busy getting g a rope from the car. Everyone had to move fast and begin to winch this guy back up. It was pretty dramatic to be honest. When the rider finally appeared over the side, he must have realised he had someone above looking out for him that day. He got a ride down the mountain and we carried on, distinctly more carefully and a half the speed. If there was anything to remind us of the dangers, that had been it.
When we finally arrived in Coraico, the town at the bottom of the mountain, we were all exhausted and appreciated the food and beer given to us. Jones began to feel really rough and had massive chest pain for the whole 3 hour drive back up to La Paz - so much so that we had dinner in the bar and went more or less straight to bed when we got back.
The following day we went to the Cocoa museum with Stuart and Aga, which was actually pretty interesting. After we had said our goodbyes (once again) we packed up and left for the airport to begin our jungle tour. Turns out we were the only ones of the 14 person plane - which was bizarre - we felt like real VIPs again as we watched the pilot drive the plane! Arriving in Rurrenbaque was different again, a real jungle town. The airport was little more than a shack really and there was just a market and a few shops in the stifling heat. We had a little explore and then found the Mosquito bar for dinner and drinks.
It was an early start the next day when we all met for our jungle trip.

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