Blogs from Bolivia, South America - page 513

I arrived in Copacabana rather late, found a cheap hotel, booked my tour to the Isle del Sol (supposedly the first Inca settlement) for the morning, and found a restaurant that specialized in the local dish, lake trout. Copacabana marks my first sight of real water since Buenos Aires, back in early July, and I am amazed by the size and similarity Lake Titicaca has to an ocean. This is the worlds highest navigable body of water, which I think means that it is a huge and high lake, and the little town sits right on the shore. The tour to the island was beautiful, rather touristy, but I met some lovely people and ate an excellent sandwich. I saw no hint of an Inca ruin, simply beautiful terraced hillsides and spectacular views of the lake. ... read more

After a freezing train ride we pulled into Uyuni Station at 2am, we were met by a barrage of hostel touts who wanted to charge silly money for rooms. Allthough it was about minus 10 we opted to sleep in the station with the locals, tight us Yorkshire folk!! A day was spent in the town arranging our 3 day tour and a slightly better nights sleep was had in our unheated hostel, mainly due to the mountain of blankets. We set off at 7.30 am with 5 Irish folk we met the day before. Our Charriot was a 1980s Toyota Landcruiser that looked a little worse for wear. Leo was the driver and his wife Barbra came along to do the cooking. Our first port of call was the train Graveyard. There were about 30 ... read more

hey there!! So all in all we spent about a week tootling around lake Titicaca ( highest navigable lake in world) on the peruvian and bolivian side. From Puno on the bolivian side we took an overnight trip which visited the floating islands of Uroros. The floating islands are large rafts built of reeds, the largest accomadating about 1000 people. Most of the islands had about 10 families living on them and in these communities most aspects of life revolve around the reeds; boat and house building, food and crafts. A 3 hour boat journey across the lake to Amanti island where we stayed in a beautiful lilliputian house that belonged to our host family. For sunset we walked to the highest hill and watched the sun go down behind the lake and mountains. Marie -luz ... read more

O.K. Yeah ok, it seemed like a good idea at the time yup this will be a breeze, it wont take any time at all and I wont have to worry bout a thing. Ya right! two weeks before we head back to shitty Ireland I make my fifth entry, I´m soo crap ya ya I know, I know. Right wotever. Here we go. So when we finally go to Uyuni, which as an effort in itself I nearly collapsed at the prospect of having to stay there let alone travel across this country (Bolivia). Not that it was a bad place it was just a combination of being tired, sore, hungry and seeing a completely different aspect of South America staring us in the face. It was like entering the twilight zone and I mean ... read more

We took the decision to spend more time in Bolivia than we originally planned. With our travels in South America coming to an end, it seemed a big shame not to see something of the rainforests and wetlands that cover a large portion of this continent. After several weeks of dry high altitude living, the thought of mosquitos, creepy crawlies and drowning in our own sweat somehow seemed rather appealing all of a sudden. We booked three days in the Madidi rainforest national park, followed by three days in the Pampas, through America Tours in La Paz, who were a slick and super-professional organisation. We had to fly to the small jungle town of Rurrenabaque, which would be our base for the trip. The flight on the little 12 seater plane was all part of the ... read more