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Published: February 8th 2010
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After the mix up / stalling at the borders due to my Cypriot passport we got a bus to Tupiza. I loved this country from the beginning - the endless outdoor markets, the traditional cholitas (indigenous women dressed in their colourful dresses) which carry everything in their blankets e.g. babies, fruit, boxes, you name it, the street food. And the landscapes are breathtaking!
The route from Villazon to Tupiza was spectacular, a perfect introduction to what awaited us in the rest of Bolivia. Unfortunately we only stayed for one night at Tupiza and did not see much...but the countryside is meant to be beautiful. We did this tour of the Lagunas and the Salar de Uyuni for 4 days and it was really something...geysers at 5000 metres, amazing lakes full with flamingos, hotels made of salts, mummies, the salt lake Uyuni, the cactus island, the endless desert and the huge rocks in the middle of it...the tour was really worth.
We reached Uyuni...the town is shit, to be honest. Full of rubbish and nothing much to see...at least our guide had warned us of what to expect, nothing! Here we left our crazy Thalia as she was heading off to La
Paz directly while we 3 had a few more days than her...next stop was Potosi, the highest city in the world they say, standing at 4100m. We arrived early morning, maybe 3-4 am and got a taxi to our hostal which was a bit like these old colonial mansions with a huge courtyard inside. I got to tell, walking around at this altitude is not an easy job. Here we tried our first saltenas (among other things) from a street vendor and we loved them. Potosi (and so is Sucre) is full of churches, every corner there is a colonial church reminding you of the Spanish times. And of course there is the dominating Cerro Rico which hosts the famous silver mines of Potosi...in these mines the Spanish empire had fueled a lot of its wealth that was shipped back to Spain at the expense of indigenous labour. Now there are still a lot of mines in the mountain but most of the silver has been extracted from the Spanish.
In Potosi we visited the Museum and Convent of Santa Teresa. I am not usually that keen on tours in such places but I have to admit that the lady
tour guide was really good and kept us interested, about the convent life, everyday tasks...I got to say being nun was not the easiest thing back then.
Most people come to Potosi to visit the mines, and so we did. But first you buy some goodies for the miners: coca leaves to chew, soft drinks and pure 95%+ alcohol and dynamite. Yes, dynamite! You just show up at the corner shop and were selling dynamite....people can start blowing up each other at any time there. The tour in the mine was really something: claustrophobic, out of breath at 4000m, breathing in God knows what and walking down into the mountain about 100m. In our 3-4 hours walk in the mine we would bump into miners working and we would give them the coca leaves and the other goodies we had bought. It particularly struck me when I asked this 50 yr old miner if he liked his job and if he had other options for jobs: ''Yes I like it here and I have other options for work but I prefer here'', was his answer. To me that place was the representation of hell but the miners seemed to be
alright to a certain extent. Of course your life is in danger at any time, rocks collapsing, inhaling dangerous toxic gases etc.
We got to La Paz where we stayed at Monica's mother house (thank you Monica!!). If you ask me La Paz is amazing: relatively clean for a South American city and the city is built in this valley surrounded by mountains and rock pillars that have been eroded from rainfall over the years. A lot of the buildings are just crazy where they have built them; next to the cliff edge, it looks a matter of time before these buildings collapse. And the Valley de Luna is surely worth a visit for the lunar looking rock formations.
After La Paz we got to Copacabana...what a landscape this town has, located by Lake Titicaca. For Bolivians Copacabana is their way out to a seaside place, in this case lakeside since they have no sea now (Chile took their only exit to the sea back in the 1890s, hence they do not like Chileans in particular). In Lake Titicaca there is lots of trout that was introduced by Europeans, so we went with the flow and had lots of trout
basically for the next 2 days. From here our plan was a bit messed up...we wanted to go to Isla del Sol, do some walking and stay one night there but we woke up and it was raining...not good when you intent to do some all day trekking on that day. Change of plan and decided to leave out Isla de Sol (a shame really!) and cross into Peru that afternoon. At the bus office the lady informed us that there were demonstrations happening between Puno and Cuzco (we wanted to go to Cuzco) and the roads were closed. Change of plan again and decided to go to Arequipa instead. Oh yeap I like Arequipa and definitely not much rain there for sure!
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