Bolivia! La Paz and Uyuni...

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After the Inca Trail, James and I took a well deserved couple of days to rest back in Cusco! Then it was time once again to move on, so we climbed aboard yet another bus, this time in the direction of the Bolivian border. Nine hours later and we were in Puno, which is a small town on the edge of Lake Titicaca. We then caught another bus (exciting, we know) to Copacabana, which is again on Lake Titicaca but in Bolivia! The border crossing was fairly uneventful, stamping of passports, people looking at James like he’s a criminal, the normal…

We only spent a day in Copacabana as it was quite a sleepy town. During that day we booked on to a half day tour of Isla Sol, which is supposedly one of the original settlements of the Inca Empire, and we were promised there would be some amazing ruins to explore. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to expectation. It could have been that after Machu Picchu, we weren’t going to be easily impressed; but to be honest there were a few steps and a crumbly building that looked like it had been cemented back together. Not very exciting.

Needless to say we wasted no time in getting on a bus to La Paz which, as we have learned, is not the official capital of Bolivia but in fact solely the seat of government (for all you geeks out there). But basically it is the main city in Bolivia, and the best place to book tours etc from. The bus ride to La Paz was quite eventful, as it included a river crossing. It can’t really be explained, but you’ll see by the photos that when we say they put the bus on a ferry across the river, it was really more like a plank of floating wood. And we were very glad we weren’t inside it!

Anyway, a few hours later and we reached La Paz! It was here that we were to spend four lazy days, enjoying walking around and going to the markets etc. The markets were probably one of the highlights of the city, with lots of crafted clothes, jewellery and bags (you can see what I mean when I bring home all the unnecessary things I bought!) as well as the witches market. The speciality at the witches market, amongst all the other potions and lotions, is a dried llama fetus. It’s as nice as it sounds, really. Apparently it’s good luck to bury one under your new house, but it has to be said they looked pretty scary, smelt really bad, and we can’t imagine anyone wanting to take one home!

While we were in La Paz we booked onto a three-day tour down at the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt lake. We took a bus down to Uyuni and then it was into a jeep with five other tourists, the driver and his wife and across the salt flats! Our first day started off by visiting the ¨train cemetery¨ where there are lots of disused trains, and then on to driving across the salt lake. The lake is a huge white expanse that basically looks like a desert unless you examine it closely and see that it isn’t sand, but salt. Probably one of the most surreal things we’ve done on this trip was playing a game of football with the other guys in our jeep… on the salt. In fact, we found out the hard way that if you kick the ball hard, the ground is so level that it just keeps going…. We also learnt that running after a ball at high altitude is hard work!
James would like to add that the funniest comment he´s heard on this trip was from an American guy who wanted to join in our ´soccer´game, at which point he asked "Do you wanna play offence or defence" (he was laughed at for about ten minutes by all the english men)

The first night on our tour we stayed in a salt hotel, which was pretty cool. Actually, it was very cold, but you know what I mean. Luckily we had a group of three English guys in our group that were our age, as well as an American woman in her twenties and a French guy, so we had some fun joking around with them and playing cards to pass the time!

Our second day was pretty jam-packed, visiting lots of lagoons, seeing flamingos, going to a burial ground and driving right up to the Chilean border. (photos coming soon!) At this point things started to get really cold, down to about minus 10 the second night! Unfortunately our accommodation that night was pretty basic too, so it was a case of all huddling together to keep warm!

The third day we had to get up at 5am to begin the long trip back to Uyuni in the jeep. That morning we drove to see some geysers that were pretty impressive, as well as to hot springs (although we were too cold to brave the swimming that some people did). Then we dropped the three young guys off at the border to go to Chile, and it was a nice twenty-six hour journey for James and I back to La Paz. Phew.

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Photos

Isla Sol
view outwards

floating buses
how they didn´t sink, I´ll never know

Tracks
leading to no where

Salt....
it goes on forever...

Salt flat plus 4x4
our transport

rest stop
the only other thing other than salt is cactus