Advertisement
Published: January 26th 2008
Bonito Snorkeling
Sarah had leak in her mouth Apologies for not updating our blog for a while….3 weeks in fact. You may think we are just being slack but we have been a bit disheartened because we lost all our photos. Around 1000 photos gone….so upset. But we have grieved now and are moving on with our lives….thanking our lucky stars that we are still on the tour so we have been able to get copies of other peoples photos for all the places we have been. Not quite the same as having the photos of us…our new year’s kiss, us together at Machu Picchu, me holding Ben in my hand on the salt plains….but at least we have photos of those places and us within the group. But moving on. The last update we did was the jungle (last year!!) so what the plan is for this blog is just to bring you to where we are now….it may be slightly long winded so sorry!
Following the jungle we went to Lake Titicaca, where we spent the night with a family on one of the islands. This was our new years eve!! Was brilliant actually, they dressed us up in their traditional dress and we danced the
Bonito Snorkeling
crystal clear waters... night away…well till about 1am anyway. We also visited the floating islands which are amazing…they are made of reeds and they actually float!! Obvious really, considering they are called the floating islands. They constantly need to add layers of reeds to the islands so that they stay thick enough, and every 10 years they replace them completely as they rot away. They use these reeds for everything…houses, boats, food, furniture…pretty cool actually.
From Lake Titicaca we entered Bolivia. Ahhh Bolivia. The start should have been a sign of things to come. We arrived in Copacabana (on the border) to be told that our bus was not able to leave because there were road blocks. Apparently this happens quite a lot in Bolivia and the people can sometimes get quite violent. Our amazing tour guide Corina managed to get us a bus and held back everyone else so we could all get on! They had decided it was worth the risk to try and get through as they didn’t believe that this group would get violent, but we were informed we may have to pay some bribes! Even though this added a bit of excitement to the trip, we ended
Minuteman Pizza
what a challenge hey.. up having no problems at all. When we got to the road block, they were all sitting around eating lunch! We just drove straight through. Bit of an anticlimax really.
We arrived at La Paz which is one of the largest cities in Bolivia. We didn’t have a lot of time here…with the only full day we had we decided to mountain bike the ‘world’s most dangerous road’ which is just outside the city. Thankfully the road is mostly downhill starting at 4900m above sea level and finishing at 1200m, so not much uphill peddling - perfect! The road stretches 67km winding down steep valleys and passing 1000ft drop offs most of the way down. It narrows to just a couple of metres in some sections and you even ride beneath a some waterfalls… it is very picturesque! Although let us not forget its reputation, which it has attained by taking the lives of many riders. The most recent death was early last year when two Israelis were skylarking about by pushing and shoving each other on the track (stupid really), one got shoved a little too hard and got off balanced and went right over the edge some
Potosi - Bolivia
ready to blow some stuff up.. 300m to his end. We did have a really good picture of the cross but alas, no more. There are crosses all the way down the road where people have fallen… it’s a good reminder to use your brakes. Anyway, we made it down free of any injuries.. and we have the T-shirt’s to prove it!
We gained some new traveling companions and a new tour leader the next day before heading to Uyuni and the salt plains. The town of Uyuni is not much chop, just a launch pad for the salt plain tours, although, we did visit an extremely good pizza place called Minuteman Pizza which was run by an American. As well as having impressive 40cm pizzas they also had what they called ‘death by chocolate’ which was an extremely chocolaty cake, Sarah’s heaven.
We started a 3 day 4WD tour of the salt plains and other landscapes including deserts, mud plains, lagoons and volcanoes… was beautiful scenery but not beautiful enough for 3 long days stuck on a bumpy road. We managed to play a lot of ‘who am I’ and think we went through every famous person alive, and dead for that matter.
Iguassu Falls
yes hon, they are the falls.. Again, we lost some awesome photos here.
We left Uyuni for Potosi which was a long drive, about 7 hours and we managed to play ‘who am I’ all the way to the hotel.. yes we like that game. Potosi is a mining town, there is one main mine here which has been mined for 500 years, achieving record status of the longest running. Here they mined for mainly zinc, but gold and copper as well. The working conditions of the mines are pretty bad, actually they are very bad… to give you a couple of examples, the workers simply don’t get paid unless they find some minerals, they get paid for what they find, if they don’t find anything they don’t get paid. They start working in the mines at about 12 years old and the average life span of a worker is about 45 years. There are 3 deaths every month caused by accidents…and then there are those that die of sickness as well…the workers prefer not to wear breathing masks and are not forced too. We took a tour of the mine taking us down some deep holes and crawling along some tight spots… we also
Iguassu Falls
it's a giant washing machine.. got to blow up some dynamite inside and outside of the mine - cool hey! You can actually roll up at a miners store down the road and simply buy as much dynamite as you like… giving you an insight to how things are done in Bolivia!
Next stop Sucre… just a few hours drive from Potosi on a nice smooth road. Sucre is a pretty colonial town known for its silver and chocolate. We stayed in 4 star hotel which was awesome, moving up from our hotel in Potosi which was still pretty much a building site. We decided here that we would have a separate girl and boys night out, well almost, we went out for separate dinners and drinks and then met at a bar later in the night. It was the first time we all had proper drinking session and let loose, we did some crazy dancing and let all our inhibitions fly out the window. The next morning most people were suffering from hangovers, Sarah and I were no exception… we managed to phone a local pizza restaurant and order to our room in the hotel.. not bad hey, we’re picking up some Spanish…
Iguassu Falls
rafting at the falls enough for critical survival which was food without leaving our room that morning. We impressed even ourselves. Sarah stayed in bed for most of the day but I had a 4 hour dirt bike tour booked with the other lads… I was a reluctant rider at first but soon got the hang of it and felt like a natural… learning to ride with a crashing hangover is not recommended though.
We left Sucre not really having enough time to enjoy it.. But we are getting used to that, it is typical of being on a tour and having limited time. Our next stop was Santa Cruz, we flew on a local airline… it was a really bad flight, I didn’t enjoy it all.. My palms were so sweaty I couldn’t hold on to the arm rest. And to make it worse we all (our entire tour, minus our tour guide) got off the plane at the wrong airport, not realizing there were any stops on the way, and not understanding their terrible English saying whatever stop it was.. Anyway we all got off the plane and only worked out what we had done on the tarmac when we saw
Iguassu Falls
just before we go soaked underneath the name of the airport on the front of the building. Luckily ,Sarah had been reading her lonely planet and noticed something was amiss and even though the name was in a different language, looked different to what she had just read. They wouldn’t let us back on without checking through security again, really annoying, and the whole time out tour leader didn’t even realise that we had got off the plane!! I was pretty annoyed, mainly at the fact of having to board this shitty plane again and go through the same nervous paranoia that I had getting there… bugger.
Santa Cruz is a big city… maybe the largest in Bolivia, I can’t remember. We had one night there only, the day we arrived it was quite hot so a few of us went to a water park not far away, Sarah stayed back and looked about the city… the water park was a few hours worth of fun. That evening Sarah and I went out for dinner to a pizza restaurant in the main square, we finished dinner and timed it nicely for a carvanal parade going past, we watched it for about an hour or so…it
Iguassu Falls
randy little racoons.. was awesome and a nice little taster for Rio!
From Santa Cruz we took an overnight train to a small town near the Bolivia/Brasil border… we had a transfer waiting for us that took us through immigration, we were told to have 10 bolivianas ready for the officer who may decide to charge us to get through… even though there is no charge applied they sometimes demand it and you cannot get through without paying… anyway they didn’t ask us, damn, still haven’t paid any bribes! We had a black market currency changer that got on our bus to change all our money at good rates.. Better than you would get from a licensed exchanger.
Our transfer took us all the way to the Pantanal, about another 5 hours until we arrived at our lodge. It was extremely hot and sticky here, so much that we didn’t feel like doing anything but laying back on our hammocks and sipping on ice cold drinks. We spent two nights here, there were a few tours that we did to check out the local wildlife, but not much that we hadn’t done in the jungle already… except for seeing loads of
Cayman, which are similar to Crocodiles but are not anywhere near as big or aggressive. We also saw some pretty cool birds like the toucan, wood peckers and falcons. And capybara’s! They are the largest rodents in the world and get up to 60kg in weight. We slept in a large dorm room together on our hammocks, it took a little getting used to but managed to get full nights sleep both nights, despite being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Sarah struggled with it a little more. Anyway, there wasn’t a lot to do here, I managed to get through a lot of my book…Shantaram, I recommend it. We were all happy to be leaving this sticky place after two nights.
We caught a bus to our next stop which was Bonito.. A small tourist town known for its incredibly clear waterways due to limestone that’s found in the area, it also has arguably some of the best caving in the world. We had two nights here and the first day we booked ourselves on a snorkeling tour that took us down a small river for a couple of km’s. It is a massive attraction here and they take 150
Uyuni - salt plains
frisbee in the clouds.. people on this tour every day, they could book a lot more but as it is a nature reserve the government has put a cap on it. The water is incredibly clear, much more than I have ever experienced diving anywhere in the ocean…they say it is the only place in the world like it. There are loads of different kinds of fish swimming around, similar to what you get in a tropical fish tank… but much, much bigger, some of the fish grow to over 1m in length and are very colorful.. See some photos attached. We all had an awesome day here, the tour finished with a buffet of amazing food!
The next day we hired a motorcycle and rode out to a local swimming hole… It similar conditions of the river on the tour we did but had a larger area for swimming and is much closer to the town… they had a good set up of facilities including some nice cafes. Unfortunately it was showering a little so we didn’t stay too long… but when we tried to leave our bike had a flat tire and a flat battery! Luckily we found someone who spoke English and managed to call our hire co. for us, so we had help shortly after and managed to make the repairs in about an hour or so.
We caught an overnight bus again to our next stopFoz de Iguassu, famous for the Iguassu falls which makes the border between Brasil, Argentina and Paraguay.. We stayed for two nights here and toured the falls from both Brazil and Argentina over two days… they have a lot of walkways which allow you to get right close up to the falls which was amazing. We also did some white water rafting which was fun and a speed boat tour which took us up the river and right under the falls, literally, so we got drenched… also some great photos here see attached. A few of us lads also went go-karting late afternoon on an outdoor track which was good fun, we all managed to cross the line before our tour leader who claimed to race when he was younger. That night we went to dinner and a show, which was amazing. It was a huge buffet dinner and the show was all traditional dances from around South America…was really good and a lot of fun. On the final day here we went shopping in Paraguay (which we entered illegally as Ausralians are supposed to have visas) before heading to Paraty.
Paraty is a gorgeous little town on the coast surrounded by something like 65 islands and 300 odd beaches. We didn’t really get to spend a lot of time here so we are going to head back when we leave Rio. We are currently on Ilha Grande, spending 3 nights here….a really beautiful island with no cars and lovely beaches. Again, we are heading back here ourselves so will go into detail then and show you lots of photos!! For now we just want to bring you up to date so that we can start blogging about what we are actually doing at the time rather than 2 weeks previously!!
Well that’s it!! We are off to Rio tomorrow and the end of the tour. Very excited….can’t wait for Rio and really looking forward to travelling ourselves and being able to spend time in places we like!!
Love to you all and will update again soon when we have been in Rio for a while! Oooh…one final note from Sarah….Brazil is amazing!!! Loving it, loving it, loving it!!!
Ben and Sarah x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.051s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 14; qc: 17; dbt: 0.0247s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Bev & Rob
non-member comment
You guys are classic!!
Loved reading your latest installment .. don't mind waiting 3 weeks at all. So sorry to hear about your photo's, I won't harp on about it, cos as you say the grieving has been done. Just had to comment on your pizza ordering skills! We had a bit of laugh out loud moment there where you guys managed to order pizza in spanish AND get it delivered to your door! You guys are impressive and nice to know you haven't changed one bit since going on your travels ... we miss the pizza man on Sundays since you guys left!! :) Have a fabulous time in Rio .. how many necklaces you planning on getting Sarah??? Bev & Rob P.S. Ben, you got Shantaram ... told you it was really good! :) You'll see India through different eyes now! P.P.S. Rob and I are sadly leaving Englewood Rd. While we're sad to be going we're pretty excited as we'll be moving into our own place (the 2nd property we bought in Forest Hill). It is still not let and so we decided that we would move out there. When you guys get back to London, you'll have to come round and visit!