Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Late again, I can blame the French.
Entering Bolivia, we had the most relaxed border crossing we've experienced, with some cheeky Bolivian agents cracking jokes and clearly not too interested in what we were taking into the country. Our brief employment as drug money mules was a fruitful success.
We had intended to head back onto Lake Titicaca from the Bolivian side, which is supposed to be nicer, but from our trip around the lake we figured it looked kind of similar, and so quickly changed our plans and extended our trip on the same bus through to La Paz. La Paz is the highest Capital city in the world, and many people who fly there directly experience problems with the altitude, as we'd been working our way up slowly we were ok, though we still had to deal with the many slopes that the city is built on. La Paz is was kind of dirty and crowded, with not many touristy sights in the city, and I got pickpocketed in a market by a large gang of people working together, but for some reason I liked the place.
I struggle to remember what we did apart from to bike down the death road. In the past the road was more dangerous, as it was used by a lot of traffic, but I think because of that generally the rides were slower. Now there's only traffic going one way you are free to go as fast as you think you can go. It was thrilling, and I had at least 2 near death experiences where I lost control for a moment and ended up far too close to the edge of the road for comfort. After those I stopped trying to keep pace with the lead guide. We got to the bottom without any injuries, then our tour guide told us about each of the deaths over the last year. There were a few good quality musical instrument crafters in the city, and after plenty of testing I left with a half sized acoustic guitar, which impresses everyone who I show it too. I was expecting to find a lot more guitars lying around to practice on in south america, and I was missing it.
From La Paz we took a night bus down to Uyuni and experienced how bad some of the Bolivian roads can be. We arrived without having managed to get any sleep and were both extremely short tempered with the touts for the huge number of different tour agencies in the town. Uyuni is the main jumping off point for the tours to the salt flats and surrounding natural wonders, these are the features that the majority of the tourists come to Bolivia to see. I was intent on shopping around for the best tour, but a quick "let's just fu@#ing pick one" from Shiv ended that. We ended up with a French couple, two Australian girls, and our Bolivian driver/guide, all very friendly.
The tour included a visit to a train graveyard, the huge main salt flat including a nice island covered in cactii in the middle, and various other landscapes with brightly coloured lakes, wierd rock forms, volcanoes, coloured mountains, geysers, hot springs, and asteroid impacts. Some of the areas looked exactly like some of the photos I've seen from the Mars rovers. The wildlife was also interesting, with llamas, vicunias, foxes, wild cats and flamingoes amongst others. Our driver served us up some good food, with plenty of hot drinks during the cold evenings and mornings. We were out for 3 days, our first night was in a quite nice cosy hostel built using blocks of salt. To add to the experience, thirty minutes before arriving back in Uyuni one of the back wheels fell off the car, and bounced away into the distance as we skidded to a halt. As I went to fetch the really heavy wheel, the driver went to work on the hub trying to bend it back into a usable shape. He had no luck, and as none of our phones worked out there we ended up relying on a passing car to send for help. Aside from the long periods of time spent in the car, i really enjoyed the trip.
Shiv had been wanting to spend some time settled somewhere and volunteer for a period, and had contacted a language school in a beautiful and relaxed city called Sucre. They offered a place to live with a family while learning spanish and teaching english to underpriveleged kids. A worthy cause, but as I'm not the charitable type, and in no rush to stop travelling around, we agreed to spend some time apart and meet up later in Buenos Aires after I'd made the trip of thousands of miles to the south of Argentina and back. We spent a few very pleasant days together before I left, going cycling, hiking and rowing in the surrounding area, exploring the city, and going with her to meet her temporary family.
Moving on by myself I headed to Potosi, previously the richest city in the world before the Spanish thoroughly exploited the silver mines there. Now a large number of people work in a co-operative to mine the remaining silver and other mineral ores from the mountain in conditions no better than in the past. Miners generally die very early due to rock falls, explosions, or the presence of large quantities of toxic dust in the air they breathe. Always up for trying new things - I donned my overalls, hard hat with torch, wellies and thin paper breathing mask, made a quick stop at a shop to buy dynamite, fuses, coca leaves, 96% alcohol, and cigarettes, and headed into the mine.
The first 10 minutes were extremely uncomfortable for me, it was hot inside and getting hotter, and we were walking quite quickly and the mask was making breathing difficult. I would have taken the mask off if the air in the tunnel hadn't been filled with dust, and even with the mask I could taste it in my mouth. Being tall I was walking crouched over a lot, or crawling through tight holes between levels in the mine. After I while I started to relax and breathe more naturally, I was quite keen to leave, but pushed on anyway. While down there we talked to some of the miners to hear about their lives, and gave them useful gifts, a section of the tunnels we were going to use had collapsed recently, so many miners were working there trying to clear the rubble, luckily no-one had been hurt.
After 2 hours it was a massive relief to be out in the fresh air again, I couldn't imagine having to be down there for 8 odd hours a day for 6 or 7 days a week. The guides then used a few sticks of the spare dynamite we had bought to make a demonstration. They were lit then passed around for photos, before the guides ran off with them to throw them in a field before they blew up. I don't think tours of mines in the UK would be able to get away with that sort of thing.
I spent a while planning my route into Argentina, and opted to go through a city called Tarija, where the better Bolivian wines are produced. I teamed up with a French girl called Sarah from my hostel in Potosi, and headed down on the bus on another shocking bolivian road, I planned to spend one day there and then move on. We asked around about wine tasting during the morning, then headed out in a collectivo (a shared taxi) to a valley nearby that contained a large number of vineyards. Arriving at the small village, the driver asked us about our plans, he then pointed to the back seat and told us that the large guy sat back there had a small organic vineyard and small museum. The guy turned out to be called Don Jesus Romero, and had a beautiful place, still in development. He showed us around and afterwards told us that he had work to be done, and that if we wanted to do some light work, we could stay and be fed, and enjoy the place. Sarah jumped on the opportunity straight away, I thought a little about the ever reducing number of weeks I had left but went for it anyway.
That afternoon we headed back to the hostel in Tarija for the night we had paid for and to collect our stuff, and met an Argentinian guy called Ignacio. I struggled to understand his strange accent and fast talking, but Sarah had no problems, judging him to be a sound guy we invited him out to the vineyard as he didn't have anything else planned. The following day, after an impromtue guitar session in the middle of the main square with 3 Uraguian travelling musicians, we headed back out to the valley.
The 3 of us spent a week at the vineyard, working maybe 3 or 4 hours a day doing a variety of jobs such as fixing the irrigation system, filling and corking bottles of wine, moving the giant glass 30 litre demijohns, and working with wire to create hangers. The rest of our time during the days was spent relaxing in the sun, playing music, playing football and basketball with the locals, cooking, and just generally enjoying ourselves. A number of times during the week there were wine making processes taking place, which were good excuses for celebrations involving drinking a lot of wine, playing music, and dancing with all the other non-slacker Bolivian workers. We all had a great time there, but we had to leave for various reasons, we spent a final night together in Tarija, during which me and Ignacio explored the bars and clubs, including a packed and strangely entertaining Karaoke bar and a school party (accidentally and briefly), and then sadly parted ways.
The next day I headed to Argentina.
Bolivia was dirt-cheap, although it's very hard to avoid getting some illness or another due to food. I've been lucky and avoided anything major, just a few days of discomfort at a time. Again, (aside from the pickpocket gang) the Bolivian people have been friendly, and I've had some great experiences.
- comments