To Peru

With a heavy heart and heavier pockets (Bolivia, Slat Flats aside, is very cheap) we had our last meal in Copacabana and settled to sleep.

Last sunset on Titcaca

Up in the early morning (what is it with travelling and early mornings - why doesn't anybody schedule buses at a decent hour - 11:00am, for example?) This bus was full - so it was a good job we got to it early and bagged our seats. Some people weren't so lucky and had to sit on boxes in the aisle.

Packing them in

Upon arriving at the Bolivia/Peru border, we were assaulted by advertising for toilets. Quite bizarre. Perhaps Bolivia and Peru are trying to outdo each other in some kind of toilet race.

Advertising

Once past the border (and the dire warnings about the poor state of Peruvian counterfeit money) we ambled on to Puno - where we were to stay for the night before catching the train to Cuzco.

Copacabana - Bolivia

So, we set off for Copacabana, on the shores of lake Titicaca, early in the morning. Both Lake Titicaca and the town of Copacabana are important places in this part of South America.

Lake Titicaca is the spiritual home of the Incas and the Sun Island is the centre of their creation myth. Copacabana had been an important Inca site and was adopted (after being looted, of course) by the Spanish and Catholic church during colonial times. The church houses an idol, "The Virgin of Copacabana" which is an important pilgrimage site for Bolivia and Peru.

On the way to Copacbana we had to get off our bus and pay 50p to cross the lake (Copacabana sits on the end of a peninsular. The peninsular is owned by Bolivia, the land it is attached to is Peru, the only way to get to Copacabana from La Paz and stay in Bolivia is to cross the lake.) Meanwhile our bus was sent on a precarious looking barge. The separation of passengers from vehicles was in response to an accident some time ago, when one barge sank and some passengers were unable to escape. I have no doubt that the local economy, now having two revenue streams - plus a bunch of tourists waiting in limbo by food stalls for their slower bus - doesn't complain too much.

Bus crossing

The church in town is pretty impressive. It is huge and the whole of the end behind the altar is covered in gold plate (apart from the immediate vicinity of the idol, which is silver). In fact, there's so much stuff that some of it has to be kept outside.

External, extra crosses

One, rather curious, ability of the idol appears to be to bless new cars. Each day at noon, people with new (to them) cars queue up outside the church to get them blessed and then they buy gaudy paper decorations to cover their cars with and, for reasons that I'm not too clear upon, throw beer over them. In August, we are told, there are so many cars, mostly from Peru, that they have to park them down on the shoreline.

Get your car decorations here

Whilst the pilgrims are busy buying beer to throw over their cars (and buying trout to eat) they also seem to have taken to pedalo-ing. I'm not sure if the pedalos are blessed or not, but the people certainly seem to enjoy them. Even the Bolivia navy (yes, land-locked Bolivia does have a Navy - for the lake) has four or five - shaped like ducks for some bizarre reason.

Pedalo paradise

Altogether Copacabana and Lake Titicaca are quite special places. Away from the money changers and the tour touts at is amazingly tranquil and, therefore, we seem to have spent 5 nights in the Hotel Rosario del Lago.

Moonlit sunset

Tomorrow we depart for Peru (10 mins away) and Machu Pichu. T's main aim since we said we were going to S. America!

La Paz

So, we lurched into La Paz at 6am and were read the riot act by the driver's assistant. Thieves are operating in this area; only use a radio taxi - the usual stuff. We got a taxi and went to the 5 star Radisson. at 50 quid a night it's a bargain. And they didn't bat an eyelid at two unwashed, scruffy layabouts trolling in at 6:30. Straight into a room. Straight into the bath. Ahhh.

We had a very lazy day. Washing and eating were the sole accomplishments. We ate early enough to have a magnificent view of the city.

La Paz from the restaurant

Day two and we headed down town. The guide book tells us which is the best bookshop in town. If you are looking for books published before I was born, they are correct. I bought a Zane Grey western. 20 years ago a friend of mine liked (or knew - I forget) a band called "The Zane Grey Incident" - that's the sole reason I bought it.

We walked a bit up the hills and down the dales. Had some Coca tea and decided that it was a bit busy and bustle-y for us. Our sole tourist effort was to visit the Coca Museum. Which was very interesting.

La Paz street

Back to the hotel to book our passage onwards. Tomorrow we leave at 7:30 am for Copacbana (Bolivia, not Rio).

Let's hope it's warm.

Bolivia Tour (iv)

Our last day with JC and Pocho dawned in relative warmth. We got up for breakfast and then headed out to the golf course outside. JC had never played before, neither had Jose - the hotel manager. I was to teach them.

As you can see - the fairway leaves something to be desired.

The first tee

We played four holes and had great fun. Modesty prevents me saying who the victor was.

The players

On the way to Uyuni we stopped to see how the salt gets processed in small family run sheds. We also stopped at the handicraft market - I bought a pretty colourful flag that represents one of the various indigenous tribes.

JC then informed us that we could get a bus at 8pm instead of the train at 2:30am. I was a bit sad that we'd miss out on the train - but the timings for the bus were much better. He duly bought two tickets for us.

We had a happy, chatty lunch and then parted. It had been a great 5 days and we were sad to see them go.

We passed the time before the bus by visiting the train cemetery (after nearly being shot for walking into the army barracks by mistake).

Dead trains

It was a nice walk, marred only slightly by the rubbish strewn everywhere.

Dead bolier

When we got back to town, we went to the bus company to ask what time the bus got to La Paz. Lucky that we did, as they appeared to have overbooked our tickets. We were re-assigned our seats and went off for a nice pizza.

The bus trip was a bit annoying. For the bit where we had a good driver, the roads were rubbish. For the bit where the roads were tarmac, we had a rubbish driver. Hey-ho.

Bolivia Tour (iii)

We were on the home stretch now, not long before we got some warmth. And we had the jewel in the crown left. The salt flats (Salar).

It is quite amazing. Like snow, but flat and stretching as far as the eye can see. Pictures can't do it justice.

On the salt

In the middle of the flat is a set of islands. One of them (fish island - because it looks like a fish) has been set up as a place to harbour tourists. We had lunch and then climbed to to top. It was very hard work. On the way down, we passed a cactus.

1203 year old cactus

We then went to look at some mummies. It was quite weird really, dead bodies, over a thousand years old, naturally mummified - just sitting in a cave, halfway up a hill overlooking to salt flats. T thought it a bit morbid - so no pics I'm afraid.

We then went to see some salt mining in progress. These piles are left to dry in the sun, then taken by truck to the processing places in the nearby town.

Salt mining

From there we went to the Palace of Salt.

Inside the palace of salt

Since arriving at altitude (five days now) we haven't had any alcohol. T decided that tonight was Hot Rum Toddy night. Two large glasses; one enforced shower; several games of pool and some yummy food (llama) later - she was poured into bed.

Bolivia Tour (ii)

Our next tour day was quite quiet. A cold morning followed by a long drive. We saw some interesting things. First up was some thermal springs. I got in trouble for wandering off behind a cloud of steam - oops. Then to the Green Lake. It is pretty. Before that we were in the Dali Valley. The colours and shapes of the rocks are quite amazing.

Laguna Verde

There are no petrol stations around here. You need to carry all your juice with you. This is our driver, Pocho, filling the car up.

Fuel stop

We had lunch next to a thermal bath. I went for a dip - it was lovely. T decided against it on the grounds that it would be cold when you got out. It was.

Kicking back

The red lake was where the Flamingoes were. Or not. We saw a few, but probably more dead ones than alive. A shame really - but there you go. Given our luck seeing all the other animals, I guess we can survive without the flamingoes. Only problem was that T had been promised them and the whole trip was partially sold on the promise of flocks of pretty flamingoes. She put a very brave face on her disappointment.

Laguna Colorada

So, back to the freezer, which was, this time, a little warmer. At the hotel we were joined by a Spanish couple who couldn't believe the shower or heating choice. We sympathised like the seasoned professionals that we are.

After dinner we were treated to some local music performed by the local school. Villa Mar has a school of 93 kids up to the age of 11. There are 6 teachers and the kids need to go to Uyuni (4hrs away) for school after 11. The teachers looked more nervous than the kids. The son of the couple who ran the hotel sat in rapt attention, mouthing all the words to the songs. When he gets a bit older, I bet he'll be the star of the troupe.

Technology update

Remember I mentioned the cold? Our first night in Villa Mar wa so cold that T and I watched a DVD to keep our minds occupied. When we went to bed, the laptop was OK. When we got up, it had a problem. I presume that the cold at night froze some dodgy LCD pixels:

Oops

It is getting better though - four days later:

Bad, but better

Bolivia Tour (i)

Waking up in Uyuni was very cold. (Have you noticed that we keep using the 'c' word. Trust us - you just don't understand how bloody cold it is. Of course, the locals just say "come back next month, it's really cold then." Great. I don't care that it could be colder. It's absolute brass monkeys now.) T was very brave and showered.

After breakfast, we set off in the scorching sun (oh yes, cold at night bloody boiling in the day) for our jaunt South.

We stopped at a place called San Cristobal. Apparently some foreigners (USA, Australia and Canada) discovered massive Silver deposits below a village. So they negotiated with the government to allow them rights to mine and they negotiated with the villagers to move their town. So far they have spent one billion dollars (US, a thousand million) and not got a single bit of silver. They will have 15 years to get all they can out (with the Bolivian government getting 15%) and then all the tools and equipment revert to Bolivia. It's an extraordinary gamble in a country known for corruption at the highest levels.

We then moved on to our hotel in Villa Mar. It was warm outside and bloody cold inside. Of course, they have central heating, they just don't put it on (and, to be fair, it was pretty useless when they did put it on.) I'm not sure if they are saving money or if it simply doesn't occur to them that other, normal, people like to be warm.

Hotel(?) Villa Mar

We went for a walk in the afternoon to a canyon. Much of the landscape down there is covered with these canyons. They are amazing. Kids must love playing in them.

We saw some Andean Rabbits (ugly sods), to add to the Andean fox, Andean Ostrich and some other, white bird which was quite rare which we had already seen. We were lucky, apparently.

Canyon

Just beside the canyon was some painted rocks. Only about 300 years old - but interesting nonetheless.

Painted rocks

Back to the ranch to have goat for tea (it was llama the night before - I prefer llama). T was given the option of heating or shower. To her (and my) amazement, she chose the former.

Given the lack of light pollution, the low surrounding hills and the late rise of the moon - the night's sky was probably the most amazing I have ever seen.

Still bloody cold though.

Potosi

We got in our taxi to go to Potosi and then started a tour of Sucre. It turned out that we had booked a shared taxi and not a private one. Never mind. As one rather short but wide (as the local ladies seem to be) lady tried to get in between T and I, we quickly asked to top up our fare with another 40Bs (2 and a half quid) to ensure that we could breathe for the next two hours or so. As they say in Bolivia - anything is possible.

After negotiating the busiest streets in South America (and forcing our driver to take us to the hotel and not just near the hotel, by the simple expedient of pretending not to understand him) we checked into the place we had booked and paid for - as recommended by the Travel Agent in Sucre.

It was weird. Apparently it was new. Nobody thought to tell the furniture that it was new. My bed was ancient. In the end we had to snuggle up in a single bed (presumably the Travel Agent thought we needed a twin room - having different surnames and all) for warmth and comfort.

Realising that the day after we arrived was a bank holiday, we went straight out after arriving and went to a Travel Agency recommended in the guide book. "Expensive but relatively luxurious" was the direct quote. Luckily Expensive in Bolivia; isn't.

We should have taken more note of the relatively though.

In our efforts to extract cash to pay for the trip, one of my cash cards was eaten by the machine. And we were due to leave town the next day. And it was 7:00pm. Oh, and don't forget the Bank Holiday.

Luckily, the owner of the Travel Agency seemed to have a hotline to the Bank Manager who duly appeared (suited and booted) 15 mins later and, after taking the requisite number of photocopies, duly returned my card. I haven't dared use it since.

Whilst this was happening, a nice chap wandered in and greeted us. It turned out that he would be our guide for the next 5 days. Juan Carlos - Or JC - Or King Of Spain. All in all, we thought we'd done rather well. Shame about the cold hotel - but at least we'd got on a trip that would end in enough time to get the train.

And they threw a mine tour in for free.

On leaving, we asked for a recommendation of somewhere to eat. "El Meson" was the reply. (Sure - we found out later - the guy owned it!) And Manuel served us - he was from Barcelona you know.

After a fitful night of (some) sleep, we awoke to go on our mine tour. JC was in reception waiting for us and we set off in a rickety old cab up to the mine.

Before we got there, we had to buy presents for the miners: Coca leaves (to chew on); Cigarettes (to smoke); 96% neat alcohol (to drink); Dynamite (to blow stuff up); Blasting caps (to help the dynamite) and a fuse (to give you enough time to be far away from the dynamite.) All in one neat tourist bundle for 20Bs (£1.25). Apparently this is the cheapest dynamite in the world. And they sell it to anyone. Including dumb brits who blow stuff up when drunk, apparently. (Mind you, selling narcotics; neat alcohol and dynamite in one tourist sized, low priced bundle is asking for trouble if you ask me.)

JC as Wile E Cayote

We were sold traditional mine stuff at the mine market by a traditional Bolivian.

Mine shop

We had to get kitted out to go down the mine. Boots, hats, overalls and a lamp. T was a little bit timid, and, to be fair, it was a bit cramped and dirty.

Mine Explorer Wiseman and friend

One of the problems was avoiding the trucks full of ore being hauled out of the mine. It looked very hard work. However, miners (and even the lowly humpers shown here) are very well paid for Bolivia. They are set up as a cooperative and they are, at least, no longer exploited in the ways they were of old. (Though that doesn't stop them dying of all sorts of horrible mine-related diseases).

Man hauling rocks out of the mine

We were glad to be out in daylight once more.

Back to town and a meal in "El Meson" (or El Deja Vu one might say) Followed by a four hour drive to Uyuni to stay in the coldest hotel so far.

relatively, remember.

Sucre

**Warning - this post contains one out and out lie**

"The bus goes at 8:30 pm. Get there a bit early just in case."

That was our advice. We got there at 7:00. Standing by the road in the freezing cold, waiting for the bus. Only there wasn't a the bus. There we hundreds of them. And it didn't turn up until 9:45 - after we'd decided that one of the thirty that had passed us so far must have been ours. Did I mention that it was cold?

Light relief (if you want to call it that) was provided by the travelling threesome. One of them had fallen over with her rucksack on (running for the wrong bus, poor thing) and hit her head. One was trying to get everyone on the bus (which was still over an hour away) and one was calling a doctor to find out what to do.

Docs advice was to take the two hour taxi ride back to Santa Cruz (in the dark - I hope they made it) and not get on a 12 hour bus trip on to Sucre.

If only we'd have joined them.

Chilly bus stop

When the bus did arrive it was full apart from our two seats (so who knows where the three amigos were supposed to go). It was freezing cold (luckily, I had insisted on packing the sleeping bag - so at least we had a chance of keeping warm). The two lads in front of us were periodically opening the window to smoke a joint, managing to make it just a little bit more frozen that we thought possible. We were two very happy bunnies when we crawled into Sucre and, thanks to a lovely Tourist Poilicewoman (who gave us no less than three leaflets about the different ways that we were going to be robbed in Sucre) got a taxi to a hotel.

We then got out of that hotel (after a 60p breakfast) and went to another - which was lovely. Just below the Recoleta.

Pretty Sucre

Sucre centre is very pretty. The outskirts look pretty rough, but the tourist bit is nice. And we weren't robbed once - which was nice.

It was, however, cold. So we decided not to stay for long and booked ourselves a hotel and transfer to Potosi.

On our free morning, we went to see the dinosaur footprints. I'm not sure that the plastic dinosaur replicas added to the experience. Nor the rather steep entrance fee (on top of the bus cost). And it was a shame that they didn't explain how they were preserved or how they know what they are (T is still not convinced).

But, when in Sucre, visit the footprints. That's what the book says.

Dinosaur footprints

We also went to the ethnic artisan museum that explained the different traditional garbs and weaving of the indigenous population. It was way more interesting than the footprints. And T believed them. And we got free coca tea.

Back to the hotel for our taxi to Potosi.

El Fuerte

After a lazy breakfast we (the five of us) were picked up by Frank to go on a trip to the local place to visit. It is called El Fuerte because the Spanish thought it was a fort. However, current thinking is that it was a place of high worship. Eric von Daniken claims it is an alien landing site - go figure.

The real shame isn't that some nutter made a mint out of stupid stories - it is that the soft sandstone is being worn away before your very eyes. No real effort at preservation and no-one seems to have taken impressions of the carvings. Many have already disappeared since records began.

El Fuerte

We had to walk around a bit here and it got a bit hot. At one point we stopped to look at a woodpecker only to discover that T and I had stepped on an ant nest. By the time we realised they were up our trousers and everywhere - yuck. It wasn't funny.

Stop laughing.

On the drive back down, we stopped to look at the rock face. T instantly spotted the face in the rock. Frank (our guide) had to point out the second one for us though. Can you spot it?

See the face(s)?

Our vehicle was a very old, but still workable, Toyota Land Cruiser. We have seen many of them here in Bolivia.

Toyota Land Cruiser

By common consent we decided to eat lunch together in a German/Hungarian restaurant. I had Goulash made with pork, T had the special of the day: Mexican beef. Many beers were sunk and Frank's girlfriend came to join us. It was a lovely day.

Hungarian Lunch

On the way beck to the hotel we stopped at a hostel to buy the bus tickets to Sucre. We had been advised (by real travellers) that one place sold them for 90 Bs (6 quid) and the other for 120 Bs (9 quid). So we went to the cheapest place. Of Course.

Silly us.

Samaipata

We left Santa Cruz for a two hour taxi ride to Samaipata. This taxi cost us 100 Bolivianos - that's about 7 quid. After a while we noticed that the taxi wasn't conventional:

There is something wrong here

Apparently this is quite common. Bolivia gets cheap second hand Japanese cars and converts them for local use. Obviously only the important things get moved. On those sort of roads, the speedo is only of academic interest anyway.

We stayed in a lovely place just outside town. Our room was very expensive (15 quid a night) and had a real fire in it. Although it was quite chilly outside, we were nice and toasty in beside the fire.

We met a French photographer and a South African couple (ex Manchester) and had lovely evenings by the fire chatting.

Build a Fire

Samaipata isn't a big place.

Middle of nowhere

The place we stayed at also had a magnificent cafe. Only open until 6pm, but very fresh tasty food. I was somewhat taken aback one lunchtime when my toastie arrived!

The smallest toastie in the world

All in all, we liked Samaipata. We ended up spending three nights there.

Santa Cruz

We were up at the crack of dawn (before the breakfast we had paid for!) and off to the airport for our around the world (Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia anyway) trip to Santa Cruz. We stopped at Sao Paulo (change planes); Asuncion (change planes) and Cochabamba before arriving at the airport in Santa Cruz. Amazingly, our luggage got there with us.

Santa Cruz was cold. It was unseasonably cold, but it was a taste of things to come. The reception guy at the hotel spoke excellent English and helped us in every way he could. We had a heater for our room.

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz is an interesting city. It rapidly expanded on drugs money and, although that has mostly stopped or gone underground, the city has an air of wealth and sophistication that wasn't expected in Bolivia (and hasn't been seen elsewhere).

For the first time since Panama airport we saw electronic goods that would be at home on the UK high street.

We took the opportunity to get T's phone unlocked and both of us chips - for less than 7 quid.

By accident, we walked down the hairdresser's street. T pushed me in; sat me down and laughed at me, oh - and took pictures. The chap thought we were nuts. One haircut - two quid.

Anything for the weekend sir?

We had a set lunch in the cafe opposite the hotel. Four courses for a quid.

We did have a bit of fun at the post office. They decided to tell us what we needed, one thing at a time. I had quite a good rapport with the chap outside who sold brown paper; sellotape and all the other stuff we needed. That's our third box back home - I wonder how many will get there :-)

Too busy to blog

Sorry all, we have been quite poor in our blogging duties recently. You can expect full updates (with pix) sometime in about a week or so. However, this is a quick view of what you're waiting for ...

• Another day in Rio - football and Samba
  
• Paraty
  
• Ilha Grande and a meeting
  
• Back to Rio and a Favela
  
• Flight to Bolivia
  
• Santa Cruz
  
• Samaipata and an alien landing site
  
• Nightmare bus
  
• Sucre and the dinosaurs
  
• Potosi and the trip booking
  

And for the next week or so, we have ...

• Mines
  
• Uyuni
  
• High lakes
  
• Flamingoes
  
• Salt Flats
  
• Salt Hotels
  
• Train
  
• La Paz
  

Hasta Luego