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Published: April 3rd 2010
Lama!
Think this may have actually been at Uyuni, but a picture of a Lama is always worth including i think :)So I´m starting work on Monday, just for a month or so to save a bit of money, so thought I´d fill you in on my travelling prior to working!
I will be working in a town called Sucre in the South West of Bolivia, in a not-for-profit organisation which has a school attached for locals, so will be teaching English. I have not even actually visited the town yet, but I have heard it´s small but beautiful so hopefully I will like. I have a few contacts there too so will hopefully be able to meet some nice ppl while I am there...!
When I last wrote I was in the capital of Bolivia, La Paz and since, as ever, have taken a fairly random route going from the very west in the highlands of the Bolivia, to the very east lowlands, crossing into Brazil (another passport stamp, woohooo!), so that was not SUCH an efficient route but I´m clearly a genius like that! Coming back into Bolivia I have visited a couple of cities around the centre waiting to start work next week.
La Paz was an amazing city, I really enjoyed my time there. At first
La Paz
La Paz is at an altitude of 3660m so climbing a hill to take a pic was a fairly long process for me. Especially after the massive ice cream I´d just eaten I wasnt so convinced, probably because it rained and I slipped over on my flipflops and my bag broke...! But the more I explored the markets the more I liked it. There are millions of stalls and markets you can get lost in for hours, which are just so interesting with the random (very cheap, PERFECT) things they are selling. The locals are mostly in indiginous dress which involves massive brightly coloured pink stripy bags filled with food, things to sell and/or children! I embraced my last couple of days with Andrew by accompanying him on a trip to the Most Dangerous Road in The World... and how could you resist a trip like that?! It´s a pretty popular tourist attraction which seems like a bit of a contradiction, but you can go and hire mountain bikes to cycle down the road. Which we did. And we didnt die which is a bonus!
If anyone has seen Top Gear Bolivia Special, it´s the road on that which is locally named Death Road.
Starting high in the Bolivian Andes, the steep and bumpy La Paz-to-Coroico road drops down almost 3,600 meters. The narrow - occasionally very narrow - track hugs
La Paz
The city is in a canyon and so all the houses cling to the sides in each direction up steep and irregular shaped streets the walls of the cliffs as it snakes beneath waterfalls and rocky overhangs. Unfortunately the day we went was pretty cloudy so we didnt get as great a view as we could, it was also raining which meant that it was probably even more dangerous! in the past few years there have been hundreds of deaths from buses toppling over the edge to tourists and guides on the mountain bikes, which you are somberly reminded of when you pass white crosses at the side of the road...
Was a great day and really good fun, i was quite proud of my cycling skills, Andrew even said he was impressed by me not going at a snails pace!lol. The guides were hilarious though and had a penchant for Mayli Cyrus, Britney and Backstreet Boys which wasnt quite the manly tough end of a day on Death Road (quote andrew, tutting and shaking his head in despair... ´íts a f*cking disgrace, 2 grown men...´. Was a bit of a reminder of our Salt Flats trip where Boney M was the band of choice and whenever we laughed with the hideousness of it, he would repeat the song thining we were massive
fans. One was repeated 5 times in a row... amazing.
So ANYWAY! Left Andrew in La Paz where he headed off to Peru. I had heard about the Bolivian Pantanal and seeing as I had 3 weeks prior to working I thought I would check it out, see some wildlife and get me another passport stamp. First stop was Santa Cruz which is in the lowlands of Bolivia so much much hideously warmer! Word on the street was you can find sloths in the trees in the central plaza, but i was to be bitterly disappointed 😞 after hours of walking around looking in the trees like an idiot I admitted defeat and the search must continue. I only stopped in Santa Cruz one night before heading off on my Death Train experience to the Bolivian border!
This was my first train in South America so that was quite exciting for me... at least for the first 3 hours out of 22!lol. Its called the Death Train party due to the bumps on the long journey I think, and partly because back in the day the locals used to crowd onto the roof of the train and sometimes it
Me and Andrew on Death Road
Lovely weather :)
Really helped with the safety aspect when you weren´t too sure where the edge was! would fall over. Which is never ideal really! However despite all I had heard I didnt think it was that bad! I opted for the cheapest train (naturally) and found it really interesting. At every stop there are people selling all sorts of things- food, drinks, games, DVDs... think the woman in front of me invested in most of these! At one point it got fairly irritating at 11pm when I´m trying to sleep and there are tons of 10yr old kids running through the train sellin stuff loudly. The shouts of ´EMPANADA CALIENTE, EMPANADA, EMPANADA POLLO, EMPANADA QUESO.... LIMONADA, LIMONADA FRIO!!!´ still haunt me slightly!
Arriving at the border town though I crossed through to Brazil fairly painlessly (fortunately, most people speak spanish as its so close to Bolivia, which is a bonus as my Portugese is non-existant!) and managed to find a bus to the Pantanal that day, and would get accomodation in hammocks, food and activities included. The Pantanal is a tropical wetland, and the worlds largest wetland of any kind and according to Wikipedia is home to 1000 bird species, 400 fish species, 300 mammalian species, 480 reptile species and over 9000 different subspecies of
Cliff on Death Road
Thats me and Andrew! I think the fact that the weather was bad was actually q2uite helpful cos didnt quite realise the extent of some of the drops until after! invertebrates, which has got to be impressive! My hostel-type-place was right next to a river bank and consisted of a shed with hammocks on the top floor and a place to eat and a pool table at the bottom, with various hammocks distributed around the grounds. Was perfect for chilling out and I discovered that hammocks are amazingly comfortable to sleep in 😊. As I arrived I found a Caimon sitting at the bank right next to the hammock shed and so that was amazing. Over the next couple of days I went horseriding (never again, I´ll just say Ticks and leave it at that!) a safari, a trek, Piranha fishing,tubing and a boat ride. Didnt manage to spot me a Jaguar unfortunately but did see loads of amazing birds (LOVE Tucans!), Capybara (which came to eat the grass by the shed each night!), Wild Pig, foxes, deer, loads of monkeys, and caimen etc. Was apparently not the best time of year for spotting animals so didnt see any anteaters either, but I had a great couple of days! Apart from the millions of monquitos anyway (77 bites on ONE FOOT!)
I headed back to the border town of
Cycling under a waterfall
I like waterfalls and everything but i was already soaked by this point from the rain! The waterfall just added to it! Corumba with a couple of argentinian girls and an Italian guy (Fonze, think Happy Days) who I was friends with in the Pantanal, whereby we crossed over to Bolivia that night (with no visas, needed to return in the morning!) and spent a fairly random night in Quijarra. The basic gist is that the common language for everyone is spanish, of which I am NOT GOOD. I can hold a very very very basic conversation and get by when i need to, but whene everyone is chatting i get a bit lost, so when they led me to this accomodation I was fairly confused! Turns out the argentinians bolivian mate had a room which he wasnt using so the 4 of us ended up in 1 double bed in one room in a backstreet behind an internet cafe, with a toilet for the whole street, it was all fairly bizarre!
Headed off back on Death Train Number 2 back to Santa Cruz with the Italian, and we picked up a Peruvian, 2 more Argentinians and a Morrocan! Again everyone only spoke Spanish so these past couple of weeks have been amazing for my practice (although actually think I may
Cycling in action
Note in this one, i am beating Andrew and not trailing behind :) !! be getting worse...!). Santa Cruz was more fun this time as we found some venezualan, chilean and italian jewellry sellers and monopolised a local bar (actually more like a stall with beer) and danced the night away in the middle of the cordoned off road with the locals. Santa Cruz as a city is fairly random though, its pretty enough with a nice central plaza, but its very hot and doesnt feel very ´Bolivian´. In fact I think the locals think they are in Brazil instead!
Headed to Cochabamba afterwards and this is far more Bolivian. I had been told there was not much here, and its true its not entirely the centre of the universe, but I really like it! Wheras a lot of La Paz´markets are very tourist orientated, Cochabamba is not really geared up for the tourists which is nice to be able to wander round and explore. There is also a Christo de la Concordier statue to climb to which gives lovely views. Its well hard to climb though, I was convinced I was just really unfit but then I remembered the altitude.. I love being able to blame altitude whenever I am out of
Finished!
Looking pretty damn hot in our cycling outfits :) breath! It´s not the overkill of empanadas and cervezas at all!
I´m back in Cochabamba now waiting for my bus through to Sucre (where I will be working). I have said goodbye to argentinians and italian now. Me and the Italian (we all kinda just goit used to calling each other by nationality rather than name?!) had just been to a village called Villa Tunari, which is pretty much the Coca capital of Bolivia and involves police stops on the way through the road to check for suggling! Very exciting. Its surrounded by beautiful hills which is lovely to drive to, but the reason I went was to research a bity of potential volunteering for later. The animal rescue park Inti Wara Yassi is very close to Villa Tunari and I´m considering going back there later. They look after, and attempt to rerelease, animals that have been rescued from animal trafficking or from people who have been trying to keep them as pets. It looks like a really worthwhile organisation and while I was there I got to play with some of the rescued monkeys who were climbing on me and holding my hand- cute! No pics tough as
Finished Death Road and ready for food
So...
1) The sun came out just as we finished
2) I wore a white top and jeans for muddy cycling... genius apparently monkeys steal cameras, lol. Apparently there used to be a sloth there, but it has (very slowly) moved away!
So now killing some time and hoping that Sucre turns out to be nice, I will let you know when I´ve finished working there, I´m hoping to be able to do some exploring of the nearby countryside near Sucre too which will be nice 😊 Lets hope I can handle staying in one place longer that 2 days!
xx
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Trish Green
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Love hearing about all your escapades Bec - what an INCREDIBLE time you're having!!!! It all sounds SO amazing and a far cry from our ho hum lives here! Keep on having a ball. Hope you've managed to get an Easter egg somewhere along the way? Ellie is now in Paris and having a ball herself, lucky thing! We're just catching up on stuff around the house, nothing exciting compared to you lucky traveller's. Lots and lots of love and safe happy travelling, hope you enjoy the job.:-) Lots of love us:-) xxxxx