Blogs from Bolivia, South America - page 532

We tried to visit the Amazon Jungle while we were in La Paz but the flights we had booked could not not land in the town we were supposed to start our tour from because of to much rain. Apparently the runway was some sort of gravel, and turned to mud in the wet weather. I thought maybe stupidly, that because the airstrip was in the Amazon rain forest they would have forseen this problem, but hey who am I to judge. So next activity was a little bike ride.They have a gravel road in Bolivia that goes down into a valley, the start of the road is at over 4000m and it descends over 3000m into the valley. There are no barriers to protect you going over the cliff sides that are sometimes only cm ... read more

Yes it´s slow, it´s fair to say this was probably our least favourite city so far! Maybe it´s unfair, maybe the altitude dampened our mood, maybe because we arrived on the weekend and almost everything was closed we felt the town had little to offer - or maybe it´s just plain old pants! Potosí for the record, is the highest city in the world ("self-proclaimed") at 3,967m. The town is dominated by the towering pink mountain called "Cerro Rico" (Rich Mountain) where the silver mining takes place. Potosí is certainly rich in history, it´s a mining town which boomed during colonial times when huge amounts of silver were found in the surrounding hills. At the time it was the richest city in the Americas and only London, Paris and Seville were more wealthy, on the world ... read more

Hi again! We just wanted to let everyone know that a few more pictures of the trip can be found at http://community.webshots.com/user/mieldelsol It takes quite awhile to upload photos, so there are only 20 for now but more will be added when a faster connection is found (who knows when that will be...). Today we may be making our way to Cochabamba, or possibly staying here or going to Oruro, a city in between the two. As a city, La Paz doesn´t have the greatest reputation, but we are having a good time. It´s similar to Lima in some ways, and very different in others. There are many many more indigenous people here, and fewer tourists, so this is good! This morning we bought some exciting hats and scarfs from an indigenous woman, and we told ... read more

First of all, THANK YOU to all of you lovely people who got in touch to say Happy Birthday to me on the 7th. Tom promised me a 3 day birthday celebration (possibly because our English pounds go three times as far here) so here´s what we got up to. Tuesday, 6 June After a very bumpy overnight bus journey we descended into Bolivia´s official capital city, Sucre. At a lower altitude than La Paz, we noticed the warmer climate as soon as we stepped off the bus and eager to soak up the sun began peeling off the layers. After T gave me orders to choose a hotel out of the "Expensive" list, I of course plumped for a four star hotel with a great view from our bedroom window and a pool, which we ... read more

Lake Titicaca is (and here comes another superlative) the highest commercially navigable lake in the world at over 3800m. It is also mentioned as one of the highlights of Peru in my guidebook. What they don’t mention that it’s also a freaking cold place and not that interesting. Did I mention that I disagree with my guidebook? Ok it’s not such a bad place as it might have some attraction to some but let's start from the beginning. I arrived in Puno after a nice 8 hour bus ride from Cusco. You really have to say that some South American countries have the bus system figured out. There are busses going left right and centre all the time and you can go from cheap cattle class (speak no leg room, dirty and slow) to super ... read more