Blogs from Bolivia, South America - page 7

Today we are taking a minibus to Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. It’s only 90 miles but takes 4 hours. Partly because it takes ages to fight our way out through the crazy La Paz traffic and partly because it involves a ferry crossing. First, breakfast. It’s not as easy as it seems as we are behind a Chinese tour group. The buffet looks like it’s been hit by a plague of locusts. There’s no fruit left at all, meanwhile a Chinese woman is trying to force an entire watermelon into her handbag. Once we have left the city, the driver seriously puts his foot down and our white knuckle ride begins. Soon the highway runs out and we continue on what look like abandoned road works. Eventually the quinoa covered plains give way ... read more

The combination of a cold and altitude mean I didn’t sleep well and have a pounding headache. When we arrived in La Paz, some of my toiletries had leaked, the rest had inflated to almost bursting point. That’s pretty much how my head feels. After breakfast, the old man sets off to explore the city and I take some painkillers and return to bed to regroup. By midday I’m ready, the old man is recalled from his cable car extravaganza and we head for old La Paz. The secret is to do everything slowly, which incidentally I’m rather good at. We start at the 18th century Church of San Francisco, where we take a guided tour which includes the cloisters, the church, then up a tiny, dark staircase onto the roof. Just as I poke my ... read more

Schon etwas länger her seit dem letzten Eintrag, aber entweder hatte ich keine Zeit, keine Lust, kein Internet oder war einfach krank. Dafür gibt es jetzt umso mehr zu schreiben über das spannende Land namens Bolivien. Gleich nach dem Grenzübergang von Chile nach Bolivien, starteten wir unsere total 3 tägige Tour mit den 4x4 Jeeps durch den Altiplano, eine riesige Hochebene. Die Aussicht aus den Jeeps war einfach nur atemberaubend, man sah Vulkane, Berge und diverse Lagunen welche durch die darin enthaltenen Minerale mal grün oder rot aussahen. Neben der faszinierenden Landschaft gab es aber auch noch diverse Tiere zu bestaunen, so unter anderem Flamingos, Lamas und auch sogenannte Vikunja, welche eine Art von Kamel sind. Wir hatten total 4 verschiedene Jeeps welche in Reihe hintereinander durch die Hochebene fuhren. Gross war dann die Überraschung als ... read more

Late pick-up today at 09:30, so after a good 7.5 hours sleep I woke up at 06:00 to catch up on this blog but couldn’t publish it because the hotel’s internet is too slow. Today was basically a driving day to get to our last stop before four nights in the Atacama Desert. Soon after leaving the hotel. We went to the same spot where we watched the sunset and Issac showed us how to do some funny trick photos, which was a lot of fun. We then drove for about 90 minutes to Julaca which is a tiny town almost like a ghost town although Issac told us that a year ago there were no shops providing a public toilet but now there are two. After that we drove on with a couple of stops ... read more

Up earlier than expected this morning considering there was no deadline for a change. However Daisy went to shower first and it took about 15 minutes for the water to get warm enough and not the most volume of water either. A bit disappointing for such a nice looking hotel. Finally we got ourselves down for breakfast around 8:45 and after that I asked at the desk if they had any suggestions for just one day in La Paz and he offered a taxi to drive us around to the main spots including the Valle de la Lunar (Valley of the Moon) which is 13kms out of the city centre for 800BOB (Bolivian Bolivianos) which is $AU80. It would be much cheaper to go to each spot by taxi but this was so much more convenient ... read more