http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from South America , Bolivia en-us Thu, 23 May 2013 19:01:45 +0000 Thu, 23 May 2013 19:01:45 +0000 We spent three weeks in Bolivia. Starting and ending in La Paz. We travelled to Sucre Trupiza a four day tour to the Salar de Uyani then back to La Paz. From there we did the death road moon valley and golfed the worlds highest golf course. The altitude was high the entire time and nights were cold one night on our tour was at 4400 meters and 20 with no heat. There was a transit and labour http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-786841.html Loved loved loved Sucre The white city really is beautiful with gorgeous buildings and suspiciously well kept gardens everywhere The 5 nights we spent there flew by arriving at the hostel at around 6.30am on Monday only to be told that reception doesn39t open until 8 and there might be beds for us right away. Luckily we were able to crawl into bed by 9 oh after climbing a ladder up to t http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Potosi/blog-786562.html I am writing this in a bus around an hours drive east of Santa Cruz. It is 9am 12 hours after we left the city. We were due in Quijarro on the Brazilian border at 6am. Instead we are in the middle of a blockade that stretches for kilometres on either side for us. There are hundreds of buses and many more trucks parked at various angles on the side and across the road with most of the occupant http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Santa-Cruz-Department/Santa-Cruz/blog-786558.html I failed miserably at writing any sortof blog whilst in Whistler so a quick recap. Lots snowboarding lots of drinking lots of spending and so far the best 6 months of my life Met some of the most amazing friends ever and plan to keep in touch with lots of them for years to come so I do apologise to anyone in advance if you ever get stuck with a group of us listening to endless Whistler stori http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Chuquisaca-Department/Sucre/blog-785790.html Hi everyone Sorry for being so slack lately ltbr stylemsospecialcharacter linebreak gt So we did the Salt Flats through Bolivia which where amazing We started the drive in Uyni a small town which at the time of our stay had no electricity which was interesting. Also when they said they hadnt had electricity for three days choosing what would be safe to eat at Bolivian res http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Salar-de-Uyuni/blog-785650.html Highs Sunset over the valley of the moon. Perfectly mirrored lakes. Moonset over the Salar de UyuniLows Our tour group changing plans in Spanish and not telling us despite speaking perfect English. Mild altitude sickness. Having to spend 2 nights in Uyuni.Food 2x steak chips salad and rice with 2L of coke for less than 4 quid. EMPANADA WATCH Probably the best empanadas of the trip so far w http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Salar-de-Uyuni/blog-785637.html Hi allLong time... so here is the story of the Choro trek... After renting all our camping equipment from La Paz we set off on a 71Kms journey over 3 days. Choro starts from near La Cumbre at 4800 to end up at 1800 making its way through Cordillera Real from dramatic altiplanos sceneries to quickly descent into immense valleys with dense vegetation. Although it sounds like a straight walk down http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/Coroico/blog-785528.html Santa CruzAfter our rather long bus journey across the Chaco we pulled into Santa Cruz huge and chaotic bus station where Chris tried to get some money out of an ATM whilst hoards of small children clung onto the back of his rucksack seeing if they could persuade him to part with a few dollars before we took a very cheap taxi across town in search of a hostel and some dinner. Finding a fairly http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/blog-785515.html ltbr stylecolor 000000 fontfamily Helvetica fontsize medium lineheight normal webkittaphighlightcolor rgba26 26 26 0.296875 webkitcompositionfillcolor rgba175 192 227 0.230469 webkitcompositionframecolor rgba77 128 180 0.230469 webkittextsizeadjust auto gtltbr stylecolor 000000 fontfamily Helvetica fontsize medium lineheight http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-785435.html As i mentioned in the last post Uyuni is full of rubbish but there is one area where there is cool rubbish the train cemetery. It39s about two kilometres out of town and is home to 10039s of old bits of locomotive39s rusting away. We got into Uyuni around 2pm and seeing as there is sfa to do in town we decided to head out to the graveyard late afternoon after a well needed shower http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Uyuni/blog-785109.html Vo heisse 35 jamaikanische Grad isches wieder zrugg uf Bolivie gnauer uf La Paz 3 800mM..M. de inoffizielle Hauptstadt gange. Han die Hchi dnn schnll gmerkt jedesmal wohni wieder zrugg is Hostel gloffe bi bini wines Ross am schnufe gsi Und sBierli nacher stiigt eim au no schnll in Chopf i dere HchiLa Paz isch eigentli kei schni Stadtwie vili anderi bolivianischi Stdt wo http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-784875.html The last blog was a long one so i will keep this one brief and beef it up with photo39s...We are granted a sleep in until 6.30 on day 3 but it is still bitterly cold when we leave the homestay. Shortly after leaving we arrive at the Arbol de Piedra the petrified forest. It is not a petrified forest but a cluster of large volcanic rocks in the middle of the desert that had been spewed out b http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Salar-de-Uyuni/blog-784396.html We depart Salta on the Saturday catching a bus at 7am to get to the border town of La Quiaca from where we hope to cross into Bolivia. It is a 7.5 hour ride initially through the area that we did a tour a few days ago and then further into really arid and harsh landscapes. We have the two front seats on the top level of the bus and it provides a great view but also means copping a pounding fro http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Tupiza/blog-784346.html Back for some more After finishing our tour in Uyuni we made our way to the beautiful city of Potosi commonly referred to as the highest city on the planet at 4070m.During our stay in Potosi we learnt a lot about how much it played in the history of Bolivia but to the whole of south america and the kingdom of Spain itself. The abundance of Silver in the nearby mountain Cerro Rico indeed shaped http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Potosi/blog-783452.html Muy buenos diasAfter making it to Tupiza in Bolivia it only took us the afternoon to book our trip to Uyuni the biggest salt lake on the planet in a 4x4 Jeep. Our friends for the trip would be Alpe and Lisana from Turkey and Holland with whom we would share the 4 available seats.The pictures will speak for themselves better than I can describe our adventure throughout dry deserts amazing rock http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Salar-de-Uyuni/blog-783307.html My son Vladimir is on Isla del Sol on Titicaca. staying there for a few days. Then he goes to Cusco. He needs my help to look for flight tickets to Galapagos islands. I am wondering whether to purchase boat or plane tickets to Galapagos. The reason is acomodation price while on Galapagos. Flying ticket price is 400 while boat is 800. http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Cochabamba-Department/Cochabamba/blog-783184.html Arriving into La Paz at 5 in the morning is not fun. We had barely had a wink of sleep the whole journey and the prospect of getting into a bed as soon as possible was all we wanted. We went back to the Adventure Brew Hostel and picked up our bags managed to slyly have ourselves a free breakfast and then walked on down the street to their other establishment the BB. If we would have checked in http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-783015.html A very dry day in La Paz doing no more than looking around the city and booking a bus to Rurrenabaque later we were on that bus the one that would take us into the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. We had heard many stories about the bus ride from the capital into the jungle being a nightmare but we were both surprisingly looking forward to it.It was due to set off at 11.30am and we didn39t le http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Beni-Department/Rurrenabaque/blog-782447.html After our unexpectedly long bus ride into Uyuni we were in no rush to wake up in the morning. In the end into was 10amwhen we unhappily surfaced still shattered from yesterday. We were awake though showered short after and fed shortly after that. Now our task was to book a tour of the Salar de Uyuni better known as the Bolivian salt flats the place where land speed records are smashed and many http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Uyuni/blog-782445.html After finishing the salt flat tour and staying in the middle of nowhere Uyuni me and Jon were looking forward to heading to a big city for a few days. We arrived in Sucre the constitutional capital of Bolivia late in the afternoon after passing through Potosi the highest city in the world. We had our own private room in our hostel called Wasi Masi. The room was really cute and we had our own http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Chuquisaca-Department/Sucre/blog-782087.html