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Published: December 16th 2006
This time yesterday we were twiddling our thumbs whilst sweating to the sounds of the jungle and watching the rain pour down; seemingly dashing hopes for an exit from the Amazon basin. Now 22 hours, a miniature plane and a bumpy bus ride later we´re 3000 metres higher and in the southern deserts of Bolivia.
We´ve been in Bolivia two weeks now and although not sure what to expect from a country whose number one industry is still cocaine and the national pastime appears to be demonstrating, so far it´s been good (despite a few organisational question marks!)
We crossed the border on the shores of Lake Titicaca (the highest major lake in the world) on an overnight bus from Peru. Well I say this, but our expectations of our “direct” service to Copacabana actually going to Copacabana were dashed as we were deposited at a junction nowhere near a town. Fortunately we were bundled into a very cramped little minibus/taxi thing full of locals and we crossed the easiest border so far (the guard seemingly more interested in waking up than checking any paper work). We were then put on another little bus on the Bolivian side and
left to it by our escort with a quick hint of ´in 15 minutes get off´ (welcome to Bolivia; better get used it!).
We didn´t have to wait long for our second Bolivian hiccup: during our visit to the Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca. We were on a day trip to the sacred inca island where we started with a brief guided tour of some points of interest... Due to our lacking Spanish and slight inca snobbery (after Peru the inca ruins here are not up to much) we made the tour even briefer (i.e. we left it) and headed for a walk over the island. It has a mediterranean feel, but when the backdrop is snow covered mountains and you start struggling for breath after 5 minutes (it´s at 4000 m above sea level) you quickly realise you´re not in Greece! We made our way down to the jetty at 3:40 where we were due to meet our boat at 4 for our return. When walking down the inca steps a worrying "isn´t that our boat heading off around the island?" passed between us. As we got to the harbour sure enough there was no sign of
the boat, bu**er. We tried in vain to get another tour boat back but despite us offering to buy another ticket with a separate company the absolute **** on board wouldn´t let us on because we came with the ¨competition¨. In the end we had to charter our own boat all the way back for 4 times the price of the original return tickets! Having the one and a half hour boat journey back to slightly mellow out was not enough as we saw our boat driver and fortunately (unfortunately for him) company owner in the harbour: cue a couple of very annoyed people using some very interesting Spanglish to show their displeasure (Sarah´s contained more Spanish than mine but I think they got the gist - some words and some raised voices are universal). After a bit of denial, "it´s not my problem, it´s his", "the weather was bad", " I have no money on me" etc. we eventually got our money back. A victory for Spanglish, not for idiot tour companies.
Having said all this we liked Copacabana. It has a nice chilled out attitude, nice enough food (fantastic fish from the lake) and no hassle (if
Floating Bus - Copacabana to La Paz
We were praying this wasn´t going to sink with all our bags!you ignore the boat companies).
Our next stop was La Paz, only 4 hours away by bus. La Paz has the claim as the highest capital city in the world and you can certainly feel it lugging backpacks up some of the many hills to a hostal. You arrive from Copacabana over one of the many hills and from here La Paz sits impressively in the valley. Although not a lot to see we like the city: lively street markets, street vendors selling absolutely everything (telephone cords to goldfish you´ve got it), nice little streets and just a fairly chilled attitude. Already we prefer Bolivia to Peru where it felt people were out to get your tourist dollar at every opportunity, here they just ignore you, kinda nice really.
Anyway our next activity (and i´m still not sure why Sarah agreed) was to cycle the World´s Most Dangerous Road or its more catchy title: ¨Death Road¨. We decided on one of the better companies (we thought it better the bikes actually worked) and headed off on our 6 hour, 65km cycle 3500m down this ¨road¨. The first section was conveniently on tarmac, the second section on the mud
World´s Most Dangerous Road
Don´t look down and erm don´t fall off! and gravel section of the death road. You can see why there have been hundreds of accidents and deaths here (something like 1 vehicle every 2 weeks falls off). Hanging over the cliff edge is the "road" (mud and dirt track) which is as thin as 3m in places. A bike down here is ok, 2 lorries or buses passing each other is a different matter! With the new road just open (it´s taken 10 years to build) there was less traffic on the road but still a few big lorries and buses that we had to pass! This wasn´t Sarah´s favourite thing we´ve done :-), but at least i managed to enjoy the impressive scenery. Only after did our guide tell us the statistic that 8 bikers in 5 years have fallen and died. No wonder there are a few turkey vultures circling above the road...
We´d wanted to go to the jungle in South America and to avoid a 20 hour bus journey and a slighly more dangerous trip down death road (in a bus) we decided to fly. We were due to fly to Rurrenabaque and the Bolivian section of the Amazon basin the next day,
however all flights were cancelled due to the weather and we had a wander around La Paz instead. With the rainy season in full flow and talks of a few days of cancellations we had contingeny plans made and we were a bit surprised to find ourselves at the airport awaiting the flight the next day. A 40 minute flight versus a 20 hour bus journey is no contest, but the flight is not without its adventure too. Basically the plane is no bigger than one of Churchill´s cigars, holds 20 people maximum and everyone has a clear view of exactly what the pilots are doing. Then you wobble your way down 3500m to the jungle where you land at the local airport (aka a patch of grass), fun.
We booked ourselves onto a 3 day Pampas tour (the grassland) and a 2 day jungle tour from Rurrenabaque. To save you guys the pain, i´m going to give a brief outline, cut some of the waffle here and let some of the pictures do the talking. The 5 days here though really were one of the highlights of the trip.
The Pampas is the place to see the
wildlife and the tour saw us on a 3 hour jeep ride and a 2 hour boat ride through the Pampas to our camp. Day one of the Pampas tour started in the pouring rain but for the rest of the 5 days we actually had some great weather. The weather on the first day did present some problems for the jeep driver who upon finding 2 jeeps stuck in the mud in front decided to join them (cue 20 minutes of digging out the jeep!). Not that he could blame the weather for his falling asleep at the wheel on the way. As we went trundling off the road we were fortunate we were on a wide patch and nowhere near any ditches! For the rest of the trip he had 7 pairs of eyes fixed firmly on the rear view mirrror and his sagging eyes! (Bolivia hey?). Day one also saw Sarah´s birthday and following a spot of alligator spotting we found a sort of bar (?!) where we managed to find some drinkable red wine to celebrate! The next day we were out hunting anacondas - which we didn´t find but did find a cobra instead! We
Stuck in the Mud
Our driver stayed awake just about long enough to dig us out! also went swimming with the pink dolphins. Now i thought pink dolphins were a load of balony before we got there but sure enough there are dolphins here and guess what, they´re pink! The final day saw us fishing for piranhas, which although a little frustrating eventually paid off as i caught one of the little flesh eaters! Now i´ve managed to go this far without mentioning mosquitoes... let´s just say there are a lot of them and they enjoyed some good English blood on our trip. I think Sarah won the competition with about 50 odd bites to my 25: when they see the boat arrive they must lick their lips (or whatever they have) in anticipation!
The Jungle was a different proposition. A lot fewer animals to see (unless you can see through trees) but interesting all the same. The guides showed us medicine plants and the odd animal (although you can´t see them you can hear them all the time). The highlight was the tarantula which for some reason I volunteered to have crawl up my arm (it was huge!). Another trek took us to see parrots, across 2 streams and about 500m of mud i
might add. Now Sarah doesn´t like going to bathrooms without flipflops on so walking through ankle deep mud in the jungle with nothing on her feet was interesting (and quite amusing)! But we made it back in one piece save for a few more mossie bites.
We weren´t expecting to fly yesterday at all - with stories of people being stuck for 3 days odd and the rain looking fairly settled we weren´t optimistic. But amazingly it cleared and we got out on our mini plane - a bit more bumpy than the other flight but we made it out alive!
We´re now in Uyuni down in the South of Bolivia after a 10 hour bus journey from La Paz. 6 hours of which were over some fairly bumpy ground, a perfect way to make Bond´s martini, shaken not stirred... We´re here to do the salt flats and we hope to be in Sucre for Christmas... but who knows.
Hope you´re having a very festive time back wherever you are.
Jonny and Sarah
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shaggy
non-member comment
call that a spider!!
mate we all know how punny your arms are, i've seen bigger daddy long legs"