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Well, we are loving Bolivia, especially since it´s pretty much half the price of Peru so mega cheap!
After crossing the border we spent a couple of days chilling out at Copacabana, a hippy town on the shores of Lake Titicaca with plenty of bars, resturants and hammocks to keep you relaxed for a few days..
It´s also the jumping off point for the ferry over to Isla de Sol, a beautiful island on the lake.. Unfortunately Lou missed out on the trip over there as was layed up in bed ill but was prob glad to miss yet more hiking over hills.
After recharging our batteries and Lou sort of recovering from sickness it was time to jump on the bus again and make the short trip to the city of La Paz - a truly crazy place. The city is pretty much one big market with stalls everywhere selling anything you can imagine from fake levis to Llama foetuses! It´s also at an altitude of 3,400m (they call it the highest capital in the world although another city, Sucre is the official capital.) so the steep hills in which the city is set soon leave you breathless.
As we are going to be in La Paz again before we fly out of Bolivia we took it pretty easy for the couple of days we were there, but aside from taking in the sights and sounds and managing not to get hit by the mad drivers, we did make it to see some Cholita wrestling which was pretty entertaining (if you´ve seen the film Nacho Libre you´ll know what it´s about). If you haven´t, think the usual WWF wrestling pantomine but a bit more violent.. anyhow it seemed to be the main family sunday night out for the locals!
Next it was time to jump on a small plane and head into the Amazon Basin and the small town of Rurrenebaque. After being at high altitude for a few weeks it was certainly a shock to the system arriving in the hot and v.humid jungle but it made a welcome change. As we wanted to watch the champions league final we had a couple of days to kill in Rurre before the big match. There is not too much to do there aside from enjoy the few bars (especially the half price cocktails during happy hour) and
Waiting for the River Dolphins
and kicking legs rather violently to ward off the piranas!avoid the mid day heat so it gave us yet more time to relax on the hammocks. After watching the final and then watching the Man U fans (incl Lou) drown their sorrows we then headed off for a few days on a tour into the Pampas (the Amazon wetlands). It was a great, if not slightly wet few days filled with plenty of wildlife spotting, pirana fishing and an attempt at swimming with some pink river dolphins, in an area which looked worringly close to where we had caught the pirana the day before!
We then headed back to Rurre only to find out that due to rain the grass airstrip would be out of action for the best part of a week! Luckily that evening we bumped into some friends who had been stranded since we had left for the Pampas so with them we hatched a plan to escape.. not fancying a 20-30hr bus journey back to La Paz we decided to charter a Jeep which apparently would only take 10 hours although cost just as much as a 50min flight! In the end we found a jeep and a few other people so 7 of
us and the driver headed off in an ancient Toyota land cruiser on the very cramped journey through the jungle and over the narrow mountains passes back to La Paz - arriving 14 hours later! It was quite a hairy journey through the mountains made even more scary by the wet weather, sheer drops and the driver that nearly fell asleep (he did drive the 14 hours pretty much non-stop so not ideal).
No rest for the wicked mind - we arrived back in La Paz shortly after midnight and were off on our next bus down to the salt flats by 8.30am the next morning!
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Rachel
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Yeah capybera! Neil looks like he's desperately trying to get out of the river on that photo! Looks like you're having a brilliant time - see you in August!