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Published: September 17th 2009
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Photo 1
The scenic start to the "Death Road".Buenos Dias Amigos y Amigas,
Our travels took us to La Paz, Bolivia. At 3,660m above sea level it is the World's highest capital city. It is frequently described as breath taking. And it certainly is... in more ways than one. It is certainly breath taking from the altitude perspective - you are forever taking an extra breath or a deeper than usual breath. It is also breath taking due to the amazing layout of the city.
La Paz is built on the walls of a giant canyon. Its buildings appear to struggle to stay in place as they pile atop one another all the way from the flat dry plains above to the deepest parts at the bottom. The lower suburbs of La Paz where the wealthier folk live, are something like 500m lower in altitude than the poorer suburbs which boast some of the city's best views (seems arse about to me but they say that the lower altitude brings a better climate and therefore better lifestyle). In typical Bolivian fashion, most buildings are constructed of red clay bricks with rooves of teracotta tiling and of course, most are incomplete. The majorty of the streets are of
Photo 2
View of the "Death Road" that lays ahead of us. large cobble stones which makes walking difficult but it all adds to the character of the place.
La Paz brings a whole new meaning to the word traffic. It would seem that ownership of a van or a car simply means it's bus or taxi time! The city swarms with public transport. Road rules are non-existant for both vehicles and pedestrians alike. The bravest or most daring generally wins even if an intersection is controlled by police officers. Crossing a main road is an absolute nightmare. You just have to go for it as noone will stop for you even if you are on a pedestrian crossing. The existance of people dressed in zebra outfits holding stop signs sometimes makes road crossings for pedestrians easier but in all honesty it's a bigger joke than the overcrowded mini buses.
The highlight of La Paz for us was a day tour where we cycled the "Death Road". The road basically gets its name from the number of people that have died traversing it over many years. Since tour groups started cycling down it some 15 years ago, 29 or so have died - most of which were trying to break
Photo 3
Death Road tour group with crazy Aussie on the left! the downhill speed record or were simply being stupid. The road is still open to cars but a new road nearby has removed most vehicles. We did not pass any vehicles during our descent.
So the deal is this, the tour company gears you up with full padding (see photos) and a bike with front and rear suspension and disc breaks and you start at 4,700masl and after only 65 kilometers (25 by ashphelt and the balance on dirt/gravel) you arrive at an altitude of 1,500m - that´s a very quick 3,300m vertical drop for those that need maths assistance! At some stages the road narrows to just 3.2m and has vertical drops over the edges of several hundred metres (see photo). Whilst we felt safe at all times, things could very easily go wrong.....I did manage to be the only person to fall off though. Following the guides tracks, he went off-road and over a mound of dirt roadside. The part of the mound I traversed didn’t have a rear side to it and I braked and went “head over turkey” (straight over the handle bars). Apart from a few scratches to my shoulder I think the only
Photo 4
Death Road conqueror. damage done was to my ego! We had a blast though!
Other than walking and walking and walking around La Paz we really didn´t do much worth noting so I think I tell you about our trip to the jungle!
We took a flight from La Paz to Rurrenabaque. 3660masl to 150masl in just 45mins! I think they turned the engines off just after take off! Landing at "Rurre" was a welcomed relief. The weather was around 30 degs and humid. Nice. We beat the queue of passengers waiting for the bus into town by jumping on the back of motorcycle taxis (big back-packs and all!). 5 mins later and $1.20 poorer each, we checked into our hotel.
We loved Rurre immediately and decided to put our flights back a couple of days. It seemed the relaxing thing to do. Chris´Spanish was challenged but we had quickly changed our flights which cost $0 - can you imagine that in Australia? Something for nothing?
The thing to do in Rurre is a "pampus tour" which we booked with an “eco-friendly” tour operator (now they all claim to be eco but ours actually turned out to be which
Photo 5
Our plane to the jungle - on the dusty runway. was nice as we had paid considerably more money to use them). So the next morning we headed off with 3 French guys in our group and our tour guide in a 4wd for 2.5hrs. The company’s eco-lodge was great. Timber cabins with mosquito netting on all beds (see photo), hammocks to laze about in and it was smack bang on the river (see photo). And the river was what it is all about.
Everything we did revolved around the river. But don’t think for one minute that the 30+ temperatures meant we were swimming, the river is seriously infested with alligators and piranhas! Throughout the three days we would have seen over 1,000 alligators - no kidding! We went fishing for piranhas (see photo) - I caught a cat fish and the Frenchies managed 2 small piranhas. We also went searching for anacondas in marshlands (see photo) - but were unsuccessful, saw 100’s turtles sunbaking on river logs (see photo), saw 50+ capybara including a small family playing (see photo), saw 1,000’s birds - they are just everywhere in all shapes and sizes, saw 4 different species of monkeys - our favourite were the small squirrel monkeys (see
Photo 6
Our comfy jungle bed - complete with mosquito netting. photo) and to top it all off we saw river dolphins. We actually saw river dolphins attack and kill an alligator which was kind of nice! On our way home our guide even spotted a sloth in a tree - not very exciting the sloth.... but certainly a rare sighting.
Our time in Rurre ended with 1.5 days beside a pool overlooking the town (see photos) ... basically just relaxing and taking it easy with other travellers (not the Frenchies though - they were weird) and having the odd ale. It was a great holiday from our holiday. We paid our departure tax (you pay this for leaving anywhere in Bolivia!) and headed back to La Paz for one more night.
From La Paz we ventured to Copacabana (disappointingly Barry Mannilo was not sighted) on the shores of Lake Titicaca. It’s a quiet lakeside town that in our opinion offered very little. It was friendly enough but the Bolivians just don’t really get tourism yet. They have this amazing lake with awesome views but again the place was dirty, rubbish was everywhere and the lakeside shops could best be described as shanties. The place could so easily be
Photo 7
Chris with the low riding river boats. beautified but alas that’s not apparently the Bolivian way.
We took a day trip to Isla del Sol (Sun Island) which was basically a 2 hour boat ride each way and a 4 hour trek from the north end of the island to the south with views of barren land and little else. The backdrop did include snow capped mountains but they were too far away for us to get excited. The trip only cost 30bs each ($5) for the whole day so I suppose it was worthwhile. Maybe I’m too harsh but having lived in Sydney all of my life, foreign water views can be hard to find impressive. I’ve been spoilt by Sydney Harbour all my life.
Leaving Copacabana meant leaving Bolivia for Peru. Sounds easy right? Well not so. Our bus stops at the border and all passengers file off to the immigration office. We didn’t have our immigration card with us as we had it in our travel wallet and not with our passports but no problems we are told, just fill out another one. We did this but by the time we were done, we were the only tourists left in the immigration
Photo 8
Cruising the alligator and pirahna infested river - with a smile! office. The officer saw this as a great opportunity and decided we should each pay him 20bs ($3.50) before leaving. Other tourists that had also filled out a new form did not have to pay so we knew we were being had. I had only 10bs left (as we had intentionally spent our Bolivianos) and Chris only had 10 Peruvian soles with her but that seemed close enough to him. I’m sure it bought the pr*ck a drink that night. I hope he choked on his ice cubes!
Bolivia had left a foul taste in our mouths so we were happy to hit the road en route to Cusco, Peru. Straight away it felt cleaner and more organised until we hit the bus terminal in Puno for a change over. I’ll let you in on that little secret next time around.
For now though I will leave you with my final Bolivian observations:
• You get a steak knife with EVERY meal - even with breakfast...makes buttering bread really easy...not!
• Buying cooked fish is as easy as sitting in traffic...someone will just walk up to you car and try to sell you some!
•
Photo 9
On the Pampas tour - very close to the water! All micro buses have dash board covers complete with tassels
• There seem to be more French tourists in Bolivia than Bolivians
• We are now used to requesting a “matrimonial” room
• If you want to get you house cement rendered in Bolivia it seems that you can get a mobile phone company to do it for you (presumable for free). The catch though is that you house will then be painted with the company’s corporate colours, name and slogan. Wouldn’t it be great to have a purple house with “Tigo” written on it or a lime green one sign written with “Vivo” or a blue and orange one with “Entel” all over it? Well no not really!
Adios.
Ryan
P.S. Here’s some vital ongoing travel statistics to enlighten you further:
• No. of countries visited since leaving Aus: 7
• Cheapest beer to date (calculated on 100mL conversion): $1.30
• No. of hours spent on public transport (inc. taxis) in SA: 30.5
• Cheapest room (double room shared bathroom, breakfast included): $8.33 each per night
• Cheapest dinner meal: $3.00 (meat, salad, fresh OJ, bottle water, coconut
Photo 10
Scared alligator. and toffy coated strawberries on a stick)
• Cheapest meal: $1.00 - 2 saltenas (pastry thing with meat in it similar to a pie)
• Highest altitude reached: 5,000m
• Distance travelled in SA: 2,965kms
• No. modes on transport used: 14 (foot, plane, bicycle, boat, motorcycle taxi, taxi, taxi-bus, coach, ute back, car, 4wd, mini-bus, crawling, ferry)
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Karolina (Mrs V) and Mark Romesh Gooma
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To the Matrimonials
Hello Cliffy and Chris! Great to recieve the long awaited 3rd installment of your awesome adventures!!! Love how your'e having to book into a "matrimonial" bed/room....... :) As this has been a very active episode you are making us feel very lazy. Though Gooma has got me into tennis and is teaching me on the weekends. (Did you guys hear that Kim Clisters won the US open, 18 months after giving birth?!!!!) what the???? No pressure on me whatsoever! You both look so relaxed in all the photos and look to trully be in holiday mode! Love the pool overlooking the city! Must have been a nice change from the jungle and mosquitos. You guys seem to have seen and fished for every dangerous creature/animal /rodent in Rurre! That thing, the "Capybara" looks like a hugely inflated rat family! Freaky but very interesting! Our sausage is half a foot long now... Yes Baby V is becoming more human like with every passing day and has finally given me some reprieve from the daily sick..ness. Thinking of you guys as you head to peru. Love Mrs V and Mr V and Baby V:) xo