Bolivia

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Copacabana y Isla del Sol

We arrived in pleasant but touristy Copacabana in the early afternoon and found a great hostel with a beautiful lake facing room for under $10 before treating ourselves to a decent meal and a delicious glass of vino tinto to celebrate our arrival into wine country at long last.

We were awoken with a knock at the door the following day and it wasn’t until we’d leisurely got ourselves up and ready for breakfast that we discovered that Bolivia is an hour ahead of Peru and thus we were about to miss our boat to Isla del Sol. Hurriedly we shoved our belongings into various bags leaving most at the hostel, only taking our disorganised day packs with us to the island for our overnight stay, and ran to the dock where we boarded a surprisingly empty boat for the south of the island. We spent a pleasant day slowly making our way from the south to the north of the spectacularly beautiful emerald bordered island taking the intrepid route in an attempt to avoid paying at the various ‘paying posts’. We had already paid 15 bolivianos to enter the island and were reluctant to pay more simply to walk. This was fruitless, however, as we were stopped just after scrambling down some mountainous terrain into a little village and were told we had to pay 5 bolivianos to enter the northern part of the island and a further 10 to see the ruins. Given that we had spent the last week or so viewing Inca ruins we had already decided to give the ruins a miss. An animated argument ensued in which we managed to convince the lovely old villager that it was indeed ridiculous to pay for a ticket to see the ruins if we didn’t want to visit them but, nonetheless, if we wanted to go to the northern part of the island (where we planned to sleep) then we would have to buy both tickets, because that is what everyone has to do. After about half an hour of deliberation and debate we gave in and paid the 15 pesos and received two tickets, one for entrance to the north and one (the more expensive) for entrance to the ruins which we never saw. At our final destination we found a remarkably cheap hostel (less than $3 between us), had a great meal with wine and, with lack of anything to entertain us, took ourselves to bed while it was still light.

When dawn at last emerged (the night was very cold and we were sharing a very small and very uncomfortable bed and thus hardly slept) we gratefully got up and had breakfast in a small cafe overlooking the plank of wood our boat was due to arrive at. By 8.30 we were on the boat and on our way back to the mainland.

La Paz

A fascinating bus journey took us to La Paz, the capital. Half way there we were all told to alight at the side of the lake and leave all bags etc on the bus. We then boarded a little ferry (similar to the Salcombe ferry) and our bus boarded another. The busses ferry looked particularly precarious. Not much more than a floating motorised plank of wood. Happily, however, 20 minutes later we were reunited with bus and bags and were suitably refreshed for the remaining couple of hours on the bus.

In La Paz we found a nice hostel recommended by two Spanish girls we had met on the bus and spent the next few days checking out the numerous artisan shops and markets, trying to learn how to distinguish real alpaca from the fake stuff. I think we are just as clueless now as we were before we started but it made for an interesting few days and we both ended up with largely fake mezclar jumpers. We also took the opportunity to enquire about skiing in the nearby mountain range but sadly, due to climate change, the area is no longer skiable.

Oruro

Oruro was the next destination chosen largely to break up the journey. There was not much to see in Oruro and our choice of hotel by the bus station didn’t improve our chances of inspiration; just a lot of cars, a lot of meat (nearly impossible to find vegetarian food), a lot of hot sun, cold winds and swirling dust during the day, and cold winds and dust at night. We attempted to go to the nearby hot springs by collectivo but after waiting on the road for a couple of hours and seeing two pass by us completely full and unwilling to stop we gave up,

Potosi

It was a great relief to arrive in the surprisingly well equipped and picturesque miners’ town of Potosi. On our first night we treated ourselves to a dinner in a local place which boasted vegetarian food and I had a fabulous curry, of course accompanied by a glass of red. James had a burger which he wasn’t quite so impressed with but filled the hole. Our meal was particularly educational however, as the managers son took us through his A-Z book of animales and we thus learnt all the animals’ names and were sternly reprimanded for our mispronunciation. We then warmed our bones with a cup of chocolate caliente and took ourselves to bed.

Next day, largely due to my insistence, we took part in a tour of the silver mines. These mines, formally government run, are now worked on by cooperatives due to the lack of money the industry was bringing to the country. To me the term cooperative usually conjures up images of fairness, equality and good working conditions. I was thus very surprised to find the opposite. Due to the general poverty and each man, or at least cooperative, to its own attitude, safety and comfort take low priority as the miners want to take as much as they can home to their families (and there isn’t much). Each group works in their own section of the mine which they rent and all minerals they extract are sold to a nearby company which sort and separate the minerals and sell them on. The life expectancy of a miner after beginning work in the mines (usually at the age of 18) is 20 years.

After an initial briefing, overalls, boots, helmets and headlamps were distributed and we went to buy gifts for the miners, namely dynamite, coca leaves and gaseosas. We were then shown around the plant where the minerals are sorted and then driven to the mine itself. We stopped for a quick chat with the miners at the entrance and were shown the llama blood on the walls from the llama they had sacrificed the Sunday before. Some cooperatives were still celebrating and the stench of alcohol was strong. The stuff they drink is nearly 100% and thus mixed with water and presumably just drunk for effect. The drinking miners, we were assured, would not enter the mine. It is far too dangerous.

Soon we were running along the airless, dark, dank, low and narrow passages of the mine. We were running to avoid the miners’ carts which come hurtling down the rails at high speed. The carts are heavy and difficult to get going and thus we really didn’t want to get in the miners way. After all, this was a working mine and, other than the gifts, the miners were not really benefitting from our tourism. After about fifteen minutes we were hunched up in a very narrow cave and the air had got considerably thinner. I had been trying to shake the panicky shaky sick feeling that I often have on busy tubes or cable cars and as the guide began to take people down into a deep shaft I had to accept that I was indeed a claustrophobic and had to get out... NOW. To the guides relative annoyance, he escorted me back to the entrance where I waited, terrified for James and the others in there, for nearly 3 hours. Luckily an Australian guy in our group gave in to his vertigo (there were deep holes) soon after and was also escorted out and thus we kept each other company.

When the guide arrived back to the group the group began to joke that they too wanted to go back and were told in no uncertain terms that no one else was going back. From James’ account I can tell you that they went quite a lot deeper into the mines, gave their gifts to the miners and sat around talking to them about life in the mines. Apparently, one of the men in the cooperatives had his 12 year old son working down in the mines as a punishment for doing badly in school. James also recounted the very macho attitude of the men in the mines. Those unmarried or without children are teased mercilessly for being gay and for ‘not being real men.’ Life for them sounded unbearable. I suppose a macho attitude is very necessary when a man’s only real option in life, as it is for most men in Potosi, is to go down the mines and thus a ‘weak’ man will struggle. In addition to talking James also pushed one of the miners’ carts down the tracks and reported this to be very hard work indeed.

Tupiza

We took an early bus to Tupiza which was surprisingly 2 hours shorter than we had anticipated. Very unusual. Although the journey was very bumpy and dusty, it was spectacularly beautiful and reminded us somewhat of what we had expected Mexico to look like with its canyons and cactus strewn baron lands.
We explored the surrounding canyons on foot the next day, at times climbing up perilously unstable rocks for better views. We also took a tour around the canyons on horses resulting in very painful behinds but a great deal of fun pretending to be cowboys and girls at the time.
We left Tupiza early the next morning for the 4 day tour to Uyuni.

Tupiza to Uyuni

We were accompanied by two Uruguayans, Vanessa and Federico, on our 4 day jeep tour to Uyuni which was great for our Spanish comprehension although very tiring and disheartening at times (although I think we’ll put that down to unfamiliar accents and very rapid speaking). On our first day we got a puncture which was dealt with very quickly and efficiently. We saw similar terrain as we saw on the journey to Tupiza and lots of llamas, alpacas, sheep, goats and even an ostrich. The first night was spent in a pleasant simple hostel-cum-family compound and we spent the first hour or so playing football with the local kids to keep warm.

Day two began at 5am. We were served a great breakfast and then spent 4 hours or so shivering in the jeep until the sun embraced us. Again the scenery was spectacular, reds, browns, greys, whites and yellows swirling into one another in the mountainous distance. We stopped at some natural thermal baths before lunch and had a great soak in there before feasting on an enormous lunch. In the afternoon we stopped at Laguna Verde, a vast lake, supposedly green although it was ice covered and thus difficult to make out the colour, backed by a huge volcano 5950 metres high. The volcano is said to have similar properties to Mars and thus NASA are conducting experiments and training for their impending trip. After a 12 hour day driving, we got to a larger hostel and drank mate and played dominos with our Uruguayan friends until dinner.

The next day, after a slightly more reasonable start, we toured the lakes. Unfortunately we got to Laguna Colarado too early and thus were unable to see its startling red hue it is famous for. We were lucky enough to see a few flamingos though, although the cold had pretty much drained our camera battery and thus the image is better in our minds than of the one photo we managed to take. We spent the rest of the day seeing more lakes, climbing rocks including the ‘Arbol de Piedra’ and of course, driving. We stayed in a hotel made entirely of salt just outside the salt flats.

The day on the salt flats was spectacular with huge expanses of white in every direction bordered by hazy mountains far into the horizon. We ate breakfast on an island in the middle covered in very old cactuses and interesting rock formations. One of the cactuses was supposedly 1200 years old. We then drove to the salt hotel, refusing to buy anything as it doesn’t dispose of its waste properly and is reputably illegal due to the damage it is doing to the environment. After lunch on the outskirts of the salt flats we drove to some old rail tracks and clamoured around the ghost trains.

In Uyuni we found a hostel, ate some dinner and had freezing cold showers which we had been assured would be hot and had been looking forward to for days, before hitting the sack. The next morning we embarked on the beginning of our nightmare journey to Argentina, although the Bolivian part of it went smoothly enough. We took an early and thus freezing bus to Villazon, the border town. The bus first stopped in a remote village at about 7am where we all drank hot sweet black coffee accompanied by rather stale bread. Then it was back on the bus until around 8am where we stopped at a slightly larger town and were informed that we had to wait until 10am until we were leaving. Unfortunately no cafes or restaurants were open, so we sat on the side of the railway tracks and drank ‘api’ a delicious purple hot maize drink and ate some fried dough snacks and waited for the sun to warm us.

Once in Villazon we decided to continue our journey to Argentina. We had dinner with some Irish guys we met on the bus and then decided to cross the border to Argentina where the main bus terminal was. The crossing was easy but that is where our unpleasant adventure began.

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Photos

dark, narrow, claustrophobic and terrifying
For the record James took these... I was playig in a cart outside