06. Llamas farmers & Peeps in Jeeps!

South America » Bolivia » Chuquisaca Department » Sucre
March 19th 2008

Published: March 19th 2008

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jackandmae

Jack and Jordi waiting to board

... The train in southern Bolivia... what a treat to get on a train!!

Lots of pics in this one!... make sure you look at the second page!
J: Bolivia..... Crossing the border at the crack of dawn (as soon as it opened), still feeling a little worse for ware after an over night bus ride, me still looking like I´d gone a few rounds with a heavy weight and feeling like it too. Our Arrival was like a breath of fresh air, unbelievably! After only a few minutes in Bolivia you could see the immediate change in the people and thier surroundings. It felt like we had actually arrived to were we were supposed to be travelling... For those of you reading this who are Argentinan or have a big affection towards Argentina, don´t get me wrong! ..Argentina was a fantastic, beautiful (and huge) country with very friendly inhabitants to boot. But it is not a third world country like here in Bolivia and, at times, with its european infuences, didn´t feel actually too far from home....

But crossing into Villazon the change and the impact on us was immediate. The people were for the most part at least a foot smaller than me, their facial features we much more indiginous

The train ahead...

It was the most amazing train journey.... incredible scenery...

to the continent and the fact that Bolivia is a very poor country compared to its nieghbours (bar Paraguay) was very evident...
We strolled up to the towns train station through the marketeers setting up for the day. The bright vibrant colours reminded us a lot of india and the occasional whiff of something so eye wateringly pungent that you´d rather not know what it was, reinforced this comparison.

We were the first of a long troop of back packers to arrive at the station who all obiously had the same idea of where to go next. This is the problem when everyone reads the same guide book. (It has its uses but I´m beginn ing to not want to use it for alot of things). More waiting until the station opened and then more waiting until were actually permitted to appraoch the window to buy a ticket. By now there were probably around fifteen or so in our jolly group and as we (Mae and I) were first in line, questions seemed to roll up the line and stop at us. Mae at this point became our glorious leader and thus persuaded most of the group

Jack with his horse Bronco...

Before we set off on our wild west style horseride in Tupiza, Bolivia.

not to go on to Uyuni, nine hours further up the line. Becuase the only train left at three in the afternoon that meant arriving in a strange place at midnight. *See page ONE of stupid things to do when travelling! And its there pretty high the list up I reckon. This appealed to the tired masses. Follow us and get off at Tupiza (was the slogan) a mere three hours further up and take a tour through the salt flats to arrive at Uyuni. Everybody was going to see the salt flats and the surrounding national parks and mountain ranges. Those arriving in Uyuni would have to do a big circle and come back to Uyuni as opposed to what our candidate was suggesting and actually using the tour to take us/you the thousand kilometres through the parks and avoid going in a circle literally for days. Opposition crushed. Landslide victory won. All bought tickets to Tupiza then the masses dispersed to reconviene and board the train some seven hours later...

Very spectacular train ride, clean and comfortable too- such a refreshing change from buses. The views were awe-inspiring over the altiplano (high plain) - one side was

Jack in the canyons..

.. We really felt like we were in the Wild West, riding our horses through country like this... amazing!

green mountains as far as the eye could see, and the other side resembled true cowboy country with huge rivines, circling birds of prey and brush bush. We hung out the windows like excited children, waving at excited children on the ground!

Whilst we were in Tupiza, we did a few hours horse riding. Mae and I got polar opposites of the horse spectrum. Introduced to my black steed, it was anounced he was called Bronco... Great! Whilst our fifteen year old guide trotted along Mae´s pretty white pony, Bronco just wanted to let fly and seemed intent on dissapearing over the horizon, with me or not it really didn´t matter to him. I don´t like being horrible to animals but after a while of screaming back to get directions to make sure I was headed in the right direction, Bronco and I had a moment. On the way back we worked like more of a team. We had visited the Valley of the Machos and been cowboy and cowgirl for the afternoon. Great fun...

We then set off from Tupiza for our 4 day tour to Uyuni. We had asked for 4 people in our jeep

Llama-tastic...

Llamas everywhere... they really are the funniest looking animals! And they all had pink ribbons in their ears!

(us and two others) plus our cook and driver. On the morning, ten minutes before our departure we found out there was a fifth person which pissed us off a bit as we´d been very very specific. If you´re going to spend four days travelling over very rough terrian, you need to be comfortable. But we got fifty dollars back and alot of apologies, plus our new passenger was very friendly and spoke fluent spanish. So off we went....

I hope the pictures say it all because my words can´t really justify what a fantastic trip this was. We were our own little unit, with all our provisions and gear we needed to survive in a naturally hostile climate for four days. It was incredible country where the Llama is king and the toyota land cruiser his not so humble queen. The first day we got a puncture, it was discovered whilst having lunch (which was a Bolivian speciality wrapped in a corn leaf with maize and llama meat... which we ate whilst sitting in a field surrounded by llamas...it felt a bit mean really!) Santos our driver was amazing. He had the wheel off, tyre off and

Flamingos..!!

... my (mae) new favourite animal... so elegant and so pink! and so beautiful against the perfect mirror image lagoons....

had fixed the problem by the time our cook Vivianna was tidying away our little picnic. We were impressed.

M: The tour was incredible. Day one was leaving cowboy country... driving up narrow uneven dirt roads on the steep sides of incredible red mountains and ravines... we soon got into llama farming country, llamas everywhere! They are the funniest animals.. their expressions just brilliant! And they all had bright pink ribbons in their ears for identification! We spent our first night at 4200m altidud.. the highest we ever had. A small glass of wine went straight to our heads and we all slept badly and woke still feeling dizzy from the altitude.
Day 2 took us into the national park were the terrain gradually turned into desert. There were lagoons which relected perfectly the adjacent mountains and the sky.. and were filled with pale pink flamingos... now my favourite animal! They are so elegant and beautiful... and pink! I sat and drew them and could have carried on forever. But instead went and had a very welcome dip in a hot (and I mean bath temp) spring! We slept at 4600m but had by now begun to aclimatise. (we

The Arbol de Piedra...

´the tree of rock´... this was the most amazing desert landscape of golden sand dunes and strange rock formations. that combined with blue blue sky and white clouds so close you feel like you could touch them (this is almost 5000m altitude) gives this place the name of ´Dali landscape´.

had been up to 5000m during the day!)
Day 3 was golden desert sands with incredible rocks, which combined with the blue sky and low clouds had given the area the name of ´Dali landscape´, and it really did look like a Dali painting... so surreal. We had our lunch at the foot of a smoking volcano, sitting on rocks which was actually the petrified lava from the last explosion! We also saw incredible smoking geisers - holes in the ground full of bubbling sulphur.. very smelly!
Day 4 was the trips´namesake... the Salar (salt lake) de Uyuni. It used to be a sea and you can see the old sea level carved into the surrounding mountains. It is now a flat bed of pure white salt, several feet deep and 1200sq m in area. When you are in the middle you can see nothing but flat white ground in all directions... so bizarre and surreal it is hard to put into words. out into the salt lake was an island of petrified rocks which would have been coral and housed many sea animals... (you could imagine diving round it) and was now covered (and I mean covered) in ENORMOUS

On the dry salt lake...

... there is no perspective as there is just white salt flat as far as you can see to the horizon!!

cacti!! Like the stereotype ones you see in cartoons!

Anyway, this blog is getting on a bit. Since leaving Uyuni we have been to Potosi.. a beautiful crumbling city and the highest city in the world sitting at 4060m. It has a sad history of mining which now brings it much tourism. We couldn´t bring ourselves to do the mine tour... it just didn´t seem right to go down and take pictures of 12 year old boys working at a job that gives them a life expectancy of not much more than Jack is now.

Now we are in Sucre, which is a stunning city of whitewashed buildings with terracotta rooves. We like it so much we decided to stay a week and brush up on our spanish, doing classes in the morning. We are staying with a lovely family and we feel very comfortable here. Unfortunately we will have to push on at the end of the week.

The final pictures in this set are of a festival called Phujillay (which means ´play´in Quechua the native language) which happens once a year in a nearby village called Tarabuco. The tribes people come down from the surrounding

Pujillay festival...

The festival of Pujillay happens once a year in Tarabuco.. all the tribes come down from the hills and dance around the town in their fantastic costumes... It was very like Jack in the Green Bolivian style! There were definite similarities with morris dancing!

hills, dressed beautifully in their costumes, and dance round the town. It reminded us very much of Jack in the Green in Hastings!!.. similar to the morris dancing and just as silly! I hope the pictures give you an idea of just how stunning the woven fabrics and colours are here. Although these pictures are of native tribes dress, Bolivia is full of beautiful weaving in stunning colours that they all wear. It makes western clothing seem so boring!

If you hadn´t gathered yet, we love Bolivia: the people, the colours, the language (much easier than Argentine Spanish), and unexpectedly, the food.

Hope you all kept awake to the end... until next time!

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