Bolivia

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Esther and I left Puno, Peru, to go explore the other side of Lake Titikaka in Cochacabamba, Bolivia. The lake was beautiful from both the Peruvian and the Bolivian side. We checked into a great little guesthouse called Wendy del Mar, which worked out to be only about $4 USD each for a private room with a TV (which, as I will explain later, proved to come in very handy!). Had lunch in the town, and the next day headed out to Isla del Sol. We took a beautiful boat ride over to the island, and then went on a guided tour for about an hour, before doing the three hour hike from the north to the south of the island. The views were breathtaking! We originally had planned to stay the night on the island, however, I was suffering from a case of food poisoning that's just part of the Bolivian experience, so we decided to go back to Cochacabamba to relax in front of the TV in a comfortable room.

The next day, we caught a bus to La Paz. The views coming into the city were spectacular. We checked into Wild Rover Hostel, which we would spend five nights at. Explored the city and caught up on some much needed sleep. In La Paz, we kept on finding ourselves being so tired because of the elevation - sleeping 10 hour days plus taking naps! A couple of days later, Esther's friends Lyndsey and Carol arrived from Holland to see Bolivia with Esther. We picked them up at the airport late at night, warned them of the cold, and gave them a couple of much needed Alpaca hats - welcome to Bolivia!

A couple of days later we caught a flight to Rurrenbeque, which is where the Amazon basin in Bolivia is. We went on a three day pampas tour, and saw pink dolphins, giant guineau pigs, caymans, turtles, monkeys and lots of different kinds of birds. It was an amazing tour!

After returning to La Paz, we headed to Uyani to explore the salt flats of Bolivia. The salt flats were stunningly beautiful, I would say that this has been the highlight of my South American trip, gorgeous landscape, nothing like I've ever seen before. Our first night, we stayed at a hotel made out of salt. Great group of people on our tour. We also took lots of funny pics on the salt flats.

Our tour was routed so we could head straight to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Stay tuned for that entry!

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Photos

Bus on a boat ride . . .
Not sketchy at all

Alpaca Hats!
On the boat to Isla de Sol

Hanging out with Augustino
Before the salt flat tour