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Published: October 25th 2009
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Been a while since the last blog, we have been super busy travelling the length of Bolivia and loving every minute of it!
After we left Potosi behind we headed further north to Sucre on a fairly pleasant but bumpy six hour bus ride, a little sceptical about going to another big city but we were very pleasantly surprised.
We spent a good day or so just pottering about the city tasting the local market foods and of course the local beer! We decided that it was about time we did a bit of exercise so we hired a couple mountain bikes and a guide and set off into the hills. It was hard going with far too much uphill riding but it was a good morning getting out of the city.
On 9th October we hopped on the overnight bus to La Paz, once again opting for 'full cama' with a nice comfortable bed. It was an OK bus ride, however we did upset the conductor by asking to use the bathroom - apparently the loo is only for emergencies (eleven hours with no stops!!!). We checked in to the Loki hostel, which is a fairly new
and small chain run by travellers - and was quite possibly the cleanest and most well run hostel we have stayed in! A bit noisy as we were sleeping just above the bar, but they had a very reasonably priced happy hour!
On the 10th we set off on a trip to Rurrenabaque in the Amazon basin. We had a choice of a 45 minute aeroplane flight or an 18 hour 4 wheel drive bus ride on dirt roads. We opted for the flight! The plane was a tiny one with about twenty seats and a view into the cockpit which was quite fun. We flew from an altitude in La Paz of 3800m to 100m in Rurre, so we had a shock when we got off the plane - it was very hot and humid! We met two couples at the airport who we hooked up with in the town and booked our Pampas (wetlands) tour together. We set off all cramped in to a rickety old 4x4 for a three hour dirt road ride to the river where we met a canoe which took us down the river for a more leisurely three hours. The scenery was
out of this world with literally hundreds of alligators, Capybaras, birds of loads of varieties and some very cute monkeys! Our accommodation was basic to say the least, cold showers and electricity powered by generator until 9pm. We took the canoe down to a little bar on the river in the middle of nowhere and had a couple of beers and watched the sunset. After this we had dinner and went off canoeing into the darkness in search of caymen crocs - we saw a couple, they were BIG and we all felt that the guide took us a little too close!
The following morning we went for a long walk with our guide to search for Anacondas - we found one in a tree and left it well alone! It was very hot and humid and hard work but good all the same. After a well earned siesta and lunch, we took a trip up the river to search for and swim with the pink dolphins, we found them and had a dip which was lovely as it had started to rain and was actually very cold outside. The river however was beautifully warm - we swam for
half hour or so whilst being nibbled by sardines! The skies opened whilst we were motoring back down the river so we arrived back freezing cold and soaking wet. We then spent the evening playing Uno with our mates on the tour.
On our last day of the trip we spent the morning fishing for Piranhas (some more successfully than others). Our guide Yori caught lots and cooked them for our lunch - not a lot of meat on them though! After lunch we headed back to Rurre on the boat and 4x4 again and spent a day recovering before we flew back to La Paz where we spent a bit more time taking advantage of the happy hour at Loki hostel before taking the bus to Copacabana.
On 17th, we arrived in Copacabana (not THE Copacabana - another one one the shores of Lake Titicaca), a little bit more touristy than we were expecting but a really nice little town all the same. Lake Titicaca is unbelievably massive, in fact it looks more like the sea as it disappears over the horizon. We took a boat trip to the Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun), which
the Incas believe is where the sun was born - not sure we really believe that but it was a lovely island. We took the boat to the north end, and spent about four hours strolling across the top of the island to the south to a village called Yumani where we spent the night in a nice little guest house before sailing back to Copa the following morning. We checked back into the same guest house who didn't have the same room for us, only one with cable TV - so we spent the next couple of days watching CSI, Friends etc which was quite a nice change!
On our last day in Copa we decided we would take a packed lunch and hired a canoe for a couple of hours and to paddle around to a beach along the coast, however after paddling flat out for 40 minutes we really hadn't got that far, so we cut our losses stopped for lunch a little closer to home and then paddled back. It was quite a valuable piece of exercise in anticipation of our trek in Peru next week.
On Friday we head to Peru, first stop
Cusco - apparently there's an old abandoned city called Macchu Picchu that's quite nice to visit! We will be very sorry to leave Bolivia behind, we have absolutely loved everything about it.
P.S. Thanks to everyone who has sent us comments and emails to our Blog, nice to know people are reading it!
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Bob Ward
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What a sunset over Lake Titicaca that looked fantastic.