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Published: September 3rd 2011
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When I broke my leg 5 1/2 years ago and I ended up getting a "proper job" it put my plans to travel to South America on the back burner. To focus my mind though, and to keep my dreams of travelling to South America alive, I bought a book entitled, "The Trail to Titicaca" by Rupert Atlee. Atlee tells of how he, and two fellow merchant bankers in London, gave up their jobs and embarked upon a year-long charity cycle from the southernmost tip of South America to Lake Titicaca. The stories they tell along the way are gripping and the kindness and hospitality afforded them en route was heartwarming. For them Lake Titicaca, straddling the Peru / Bolivian border at some 3000m above sea level, always seemed like a mystical objective that, at some points along their trip (not least when they nearly died of food poisoning on day 2!) they thought they would never reach. After reading the book, Lake Titicaca also took on a similar significance for me in that, in my mind, my South American plans were always just on hold as opposed to being dead in the water and that, one day, I would reach
Lake Titicaca
Waiting for sunset on the hill above Copacabana my destination. So as I watched the sun go down over Titicaca from the shore in Copacabana, Bolivia, so closed a defining 5 1/2 year chapter in my life.
I wish I could say that my Titicaca experience was all romance and fond memories, although my trip was to mirror that of Rupert and the chaps yet further as I succumbed to my own bout of food poisoning - though thankfully it wasn't quite the near death experience they had had! After a 17km stroll along the peninsula from Copacabana and the subsequent 1 hour row to the Isla del Sol (or Island of the Sun) I sat myself down in a local woman's living room for a well earned beverage and a bite to eat. An omlette adorned with rice and chips - all fairly inoffensive I'm sure you'd agree! Yet, little more than 45 minutes later I was curled up in bed, projecticle vomiting my way through the night (and just for the record, I was projecting from the other end as well!) And so went my long awaited trip to Titicaca...in a word - shortlived! This doesn't take away from the fact that the lake was
as beautiful as I'd imagined and as the sun went down over the islands and the 6000m mountains on the Bolivian side, the scenery was breathtaking! According to Inca legend, Lake Titicaca is the birthplace of the sun and, watching the sun being swallowed up by the vastness of the lake, it was easy to see why!
From Copacabana I travelled southeast to La Paz, Bolivia's capital and, at 3,660m above sea level, the world's highest capital city. I arrived in La Paz 2 days before Bolivian Independance Day and the celebrations were well and truly under way with sepctacular street parades and an endless flow of children, dressed to the nines, and playing traditional music on their trumpets, trombones, xylophones and drums. Every minute of every day I spent in Bolivia, there seemed to be a street parade...and they certainly passed off in a much more jovial atmosphere than the July offering in Kilwinning! The street parades aside, I found La Paz to be a colourful, vibrant city laced with steep, narrow streets with interesting shops and street vendors, not least at the Witches' Market where the sights and smells were definitley unique!
Two hours north of
La Paz is the road from La Cumbre to Coroico or, as it's more commonly referred to, "The World's Most Dangerous Road" The "road" is perched on a cliff face, 1000m above a ravine and, in some parts, is only just wide enough for one vehicle to pass...needless to say you wouldn't want to meet a bus coming in the other direction! Until a new road was built a few years ago, the old road had claimed thousands of lives mostly from buses that had simply toppled over the edge of the cliff. Nowadays, the road is a tourist attraction where adrenaline seeking gringos mountain bike down the route and, since it had been a few months since my last adrenaline fix (though I could argue that plugging in a power tool into any power point in Pisco was dicing with death on a daily basis!) I decided to give it a go. The ride was great fun though probably the most dangerous aspect was the scenery - so beautiful that if you let it catch your eye for too long, you might not see the next hairpin bend until it was too late...it's a long way down!
From
la Paz I headed south to the city of Potosi, the world's highest city and at one point, one of the world's richest by virtue of the vast silver deposits in the surrounding mountains. The wealth which Potosi once enjoyed is still evident in much of the beautiful colonial architecture. However, Potosi's main attraction is the tour of the silver mine at Cerro Rico (The Rich Peak!) I had a fairly unique experience as my tour coincided with the Independance Day holiday and the mine was eerily empty of workers. We did stumble across one dedicated worker, Julio, who had been working down the mine for 27 years and had only just saved up the 2000 Bolivianos (about 200 pounds) to buy his own patch in the cooperative mine. Even having his own patch, Julio's take home pay was equivalent to just more than a dollar a day. Most of the 15,000 workers in the mine earn a similar amount working endless hours in dangerous conditions, where temperatures can reach 70 degrees celcius... all in the hope that they strike gold (or silver!) We left Julio with gifts of cocoa leaves, which the miners chew all day long in order
Lake Titicaca
It was easy to see why the Inca's believed that the Lake gave rise to the sun! to stave off hunger and fatigue, and dynamite which is essential to the workers' productivity. Much to our delight, Julio detonated the dynamite once we were at a safe distance...of no more than 30 metres!!
My last stop in Bolivia was the southern town of Uyuni where I randomly bumped into two friends, John and Lucy, whom I had volunteered with in Pisco. Uyuni sits on the edge of a pre-historic lake which dried up and left vast salt deposits which span some 12,000 sq km. It is an absolutely incredible landscape which just doesn't look of this world. The salt flats made for some spectacular scenery, some spectacular (and cheesy!) photographs, one of the most spectacular sunsets I have ever seen and a night's stay in a hotel made from the region's most plentiful commodity...salt!
From Uyuni, I had hoped to cross the border into northern Chile, however the border was closed due to heavy snow. The beauty of travelling alone is that you can change your plans at the drop of a hat so I hopped onto a bus bound for Argentina. Problem solved...or so I thought! The bus journey was going swimmingly until 5am and
Lake Titicaca
On the trail from Copacabana to Isla del Sol a mere 5km shy of the Argentine border when we were woken by the driver ordering everyone off the bus. Now this was a rather rude awakening to say the least at such an ungodly hour, so imagine my delight when he explained that the road had been blocked by striking taxi drivers, and that we would have to walk the rest of the way! And so, at 6am on a cold winter morning with the best part of 30kg strapped to my back, a weary Scotsman walked across the border from Bolivia into Argentina...never a dull moment!
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Laura Smith
non-member comment
Wow, looks incredible!
Wow, Gordon, that looks incredible, such amazing places. I want to go. You'll need to bring us back one of those wee blanky things to strap the baby on our back and we'll be off :-)