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Published: April 24th 2007
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Sorata is a beautiful place hidden in a massive valley that takes about two hours just to get into by bus!!! Not surprisingly where we stayed was a hippies paradise - Altai OIasis was the name of our place, owned by a hippy who followed his dream and settled here to build his home...sweet!!
But not so sweet was the bus journey to and from....first off it was the smell, it was a great experience though...a real Bolivian one!! Me n sal were the only Gringo´s that boarded the bus at La Paz and were the only ones not carrying corn or chickens!!! It was pretty hot and as the bus filled up it was pretty sweaty, the bus would stop every half hour or so and someone would have to pump something at the front to start it again - comedy!! The bus back was an even greater experience....it was full again and thi stime I got a man sat next to me in the aisle on top of someones bag of corn....he stood up to get off and not only had he peed himself (stunk) but it had gone through onto the persons corn....gutted!!!
Anyway...back to
the beauty of the valley....it was an amazing place so removed from the rest of the world, it was great to eat breakfast on the veranda of Johnnys house/restaurant and have the mountains of Illampa in the distance, it was so hot in the valley and to see the snow capped mountains in teh distance was amazing!
We wanted to do a couple of hikes when we were there to prepare me for my looming 6008m mountain climb...nothing too strenuous but some good exercise...so we chose ´San Pedro Caves´. We set out thinking it would be a leisurely walk along the river in the lovely sunshine....it turned out to be a 24km /6 hour hike in blistering heat!!ha ha!! I even acquired a blister!! It was an awesome walk though with beautiful changing scenery...accompanied by two dogs from Johnnys place (so cute - little conga and Pepe who reminded me of Sash!!)...we were even going to scale a pip at one point cos we couldnt see an alternative and it looked like the only way for the path to go...luckily some amigos came along and showed us the way. These amigos soon appeared to be enemies as we lost
them in what appeared to be the outback.....paranoid that they might be following us and that our good luck might be up we hurried along and saw some people working on their land whom we approached.....we were then confronted by a man with a maschetti!!!! I was looking around for anything to fend him off....not even a twig.....but he wasnt after us, he was just tending to his land...we carried on in our paranoid state..defnded one of our dogs from the attack of two big dogs and were pretty happy to find the town (if you could call it that...deserted) of San Pedro and we felt somewhat happier!!
We made it up to the caves where we had to tie the dogs up...they didnt like it and were strangling themselves and we didnt know how to comfort them as we didnt even know their proper names it this point...we knew them as flossy and dogtanian - our choices of course!!! So we let them off and whilst we went into the caves we closed the big gates behind us and wentin with our spanish guide....two minues later Pepe/Dogtanian was in hot pursuit down the sweaty cave!!! He was allowed
to come and even scaled a ladder!!! The cave was nice and we saw a few bats but were a bit limited cos of having the dog with us ha ha!! Think we were the only visitors of the day, not the busiest place!!
We chose to walk by the road on the way back and made it in one piece...was a bit embarrassed to say how hard we found it cos think that is one of the easiest things to do in Sorata....please help me on my mountain climb!!
We decided to do another walk the next day and went up to Laripata.....not quite as easyas he made it out to be but was fun...got covered in mud and only took two hours...we were hurrying so we could get back for ice cream....you know me, I love the stuff!! I was amazed by all the pigs tied up by the road, one even wagged its tail like a dog!! Nearly had a heart attack climbing the hill into town...heard what i thought was a growl from the bushes and thought i was going to getfloored by a dog but instead it was a massive pink pig...phew!!! A
massive brass band piped up in town when we were there..all very random and then the geese tried to attack us on the way back too...that was even scarier!! I tried to help some locals with a cart full of soda that they were trying to get down a hill...how funny, I felt so weak and was less help than any of the kids that were helping...the cart seemed to run away more when I was helping...but they thanked me all the same!!
We had to say be to Johnny and head back to La Paz for my big day...gulp!!! Goodbye Johnny ´Urwelcome´ as he would always say!!
Would deffo come back to Sorata again and spend longer and actually do some decent few day treks up to the Laguna´s!! Lovely town, random pigs, hens and cows in the street!! It reminded me of a mini Switzerland just a bit cheaper!! I will miss the donkey that woke us up every morning at 7am....what a beautiful sound ....not eyore!!! The things were blessed when they were given that noise to shout with ha ha!!
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Serena
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wicked
Shane - it all looks so wicked!!! Wish i was there except for the walking bits (which sounds like quite a bit of it) are you sure it wasnt eyore! you looked nice and tanned to!