Blogs from Bolivia, South America - page 511

We've just come back from a weekend at Lake Titicaca - at 3812m its the world's highest commerically navigable lake in the world and is on the border of Peru and Bolivia. It took a 3 hour drive from La Paz, including crossing the lake on a barge (as shown in the photo). From Copacabana (a town on the lake) we hiked for 4 1/2 hours along the coast and passed many pigs, some cows, sheep, llamas, and donkeys. Donkeys are definitely my favourite... i want to have my own one! They are cute. James thinks they have overproportioned heads and stumpy legs... but thats what makes them so cute! During our hike we had awesome views over the lake and of Isla del Sol (the lake's largest island). When we got to the last village ... read more

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James 1:27 "Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for the orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrup us" The last three weeks I have been in Cochabamba working with Mike and Bonnie Timmer and their family as they minister to orphaned and abandoned children in Bolivia. It has been an amazing experience getting the chance to see how God is using their family and blessing their work in this much needed ministry. Three years ago the Timmers began construction on their first orphanage. Partnering with a local church, the vision of the Timmers organization, IOU, is to provide a Christian family environment for the children who are in need of a home. As a result their orphanages are small homes ... read more

We'd decided that Bolivia (rather than Ecuador or Peru) would be the country where we'd visit the jungle. Rurrenabaque, a small town north of La Paz was the obvoius place to head for. There are 3 ways to get there. You can fly from La Paz (40 mins, 65 dollars), take the bus (super cheap but 18 hours of hell down the worlds most dangerous roads) or go by boat from Guanay, a gold mining town about 4 hours from Coroico. As we were already in Cocoico, after cycling down the worlds most dangerous road (WMDR), we decided to take the boat rather than bus back up WMDR to La Paz and fly. It was more expensive than flying (120 dollars each) but incorporated a 3 day jungle trip on the way (thus saving on food, ... read more

The Pantanal visit was great. We spent 4 days in the wetlands area and camped out in a tent. Each day we did an activity at dawn and dusk, like hiking through swamps, pirhana fishing (Jon caught two), night safari, horse ridings, river boat trips etc.. and we saw so much wildlife, such as toucans, giant storks, aligators, macaws and much more. After we left the Pantanal, we decided to head for Corumba on the border and cross into Bolivia. We hadn´t looked into this at all and it proved to be fairly difficult. No-one seemed able to say specifically what we needed to do (in any language apart from Portuguese either), but it involved visits to various places to get passports stamped etc and each time you turn up at a place, they tell you ... read more