Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
I'M IN COPACOBANA! But La Paz is easier to find on a world map so yeah...
Picking up where I left off... SUCRE. Once Bolivia's capital, it still holds that regal air of self-importance. By far the prettiest city I've seen so far in Bolivia, the centre is full of huge white colonial buildings. In fact, it's called 'The White City'. Lovely. Reminded me of some sort of bizarre mixture of Vietnam, Italy and France. They even have a mini Eiffel Tower replica which we dutifully climbed whilst drinking our watery yoghurt-in-a-bag that they love so much round here. We took the exciting DINO-TOUR bus to a sort out dinosaur theme-park. You can see a huge wall covered in dinosaur footprints that they uncovered in the cement works. It's quite far away but I found it impressive. Also lots of very life-like models of Dinos. Quaint. It's a fun half-day out if you've not got much to do. We also walked up the hill to the beautiful barrio of La Recoleta. They were filming a movie there, which is understandable - the location is straight out of Zorro. We were all told to "SILENCIO!" while shooting started, but one cheeky old Helado (ice cream) lady kept honking her ice-cream-here horn. Fits of giggles as the production team tried to reason with her, but she was having none of it. She would bloody well honk her helado-horn if she pleased!
We caught yet another nightbus to Cochabamba. At the bus station they had a strange system of making you check in your bags upstairs, only to chuck them off the balcony on a rope to put on the bus. Bolivia amuses me greatly at times. At times it horrifies me too. You regularly see people (men, women and children) going to the toilet in the street, needless to say hygene standards can be lacking... but I'll get to that later. Bolivia has a grimey charm to it, but it is not an easy place to travel. Cheap yes, easy no. Cochabamba was alright, nothing to write home about, so I won't! Our Brazilian friend did a disappearing act, which upset me and Cris, so we rode up the Telerifico to the big Cristo statue. We even got to go inside him. Scary. It smelt bad. HA. The weather was nice though...
Then it was time for LA PAZ. Oh La Paz, La Paz, how you don't live up to your name. 'The Peace' is not a city where you can find much peace, in my experience. It should be called The Crazy or The Noisy or somthing. Anything you want to do - you can do it in La Paz. It is a city of extremes. Altitude, temperature, pace... Perced on two oppossing cliff-sides it completely defies belief at times. You can buy anything on the streets, and hundreds of La Pazians make their money just sitting there all-day, everyday selling stuffed potatoes or superglue or shoe shining. Brightly coloured buses zoom past, as do the 'micros' mini-buses with their conducters screaming out the open doors/windows "CEMETARIO! PRADO! ALTO!" If you're not careful they WILL run you down. I swear they actual speed up when they see me, the gringa attempting in vain to cross safely. The "Honk and Go" technique is widely used - come to a blind cross roads? Just Honk and Go! Downtown bustles with business and The Alto literally clinges to life on the cliff faces. Everywhere you go you see out of breath gringos struggling up the hills (it's a nealy 4000m) and bolivian ladies zipping up them in their huge traditional and colourful skirts, tiny bowler hat balanced precariously, HUGE package of god-knows-what strapped to their backs with their bright cloth-bags, sometimes a kid perched ontop. They are an incredible resiliant and hardworking people. To me it seems like life in Bolivia is hard. Yesterday we saw a man carrying a huge family-sized chest of drawers on his back, held in place with one rope, up a near vertical hill at 4000m elevation. He didn't even look out of breath. Unbelievable. I swear I also saw an 80 plus year-old woman run up a cliff to where she lived. Stoicism may be an understatement. The attitude towards foreigners is somewhat... aloof. Albeit at times unfriendly. This is a odds with the usual South American 'caliente' (warm) stereotype. I honestly believe I have found the answer to why this is... Travel in Bolivia can be a NIGHTMARE, therefore the why, the people of Bolivia wonder, would anyone choose to do this? I mean its a real problem - dreadful roads, accidents, long long delays. They must think we are all completely insane to actually want to do this just because. They travel when they have to, and we take this for granted, like so many other things. But back to La Paz... it snowed up on the top when we arrived, we couldn't get anywhere to stay, but eventually landed a nice hostel. I finally succumbed to my obsession with cheap street-food by getting a stomach bug or something. It was bad timing too - the night before we were supposed to be mountain biking down The Death Road...
THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS ROAD (WMDR)
YES! As seen on Topgear! Although it is now closed to traffic except for crazy tourists like us who want to mountain bike down it. It starts from an elevation of about 4500m and drops to 1500m (roughly, i think) and is an absolute must-do if you're anything like me (bit of an adrenaline fiend...). There are heaps of different companies, different prices and standards. It's important that you have double suspension if your a nutter (again, like me) and good helmets etc. Obviously check this before you hand over your bolivianos. We went with Adrenalina Bolivia (no not just because of the name!) and they were okay. Could have been better, could have been worse. The bike was good and that was the main thing for me. So, after a night of throwing up and constantly running up and down the stairs between the dorm and the toilets... I had a coca-leaf tea and dragged my sorry ass out there. It was FREEZING fog at the top, got throughly soaked and miserable in the first tarmac stages - but then we got onto The Road itself and I was loving every minute... the faster the better! Lots of people get scared, they go too slow, they fall off. Just have a bit of faith, let go of that brake and let the bike do what it was designed to do - take you downhill on rough terrian very, very fast. As the clouds cleared the sun came out and the epic scenery was unveiled. Beautiful. Finished the ride down at a hotel with a pool and buffet (which I could not enjoy, I hate when I can't participate in free food...). Great day.
LAKE TITICACA AND ISLA DEL SOL
Finished my time up in La Paz partying with the Gap-year crowd and trying to recover, generally feel a little bit like I'm falling apart at the seams these days... It feels like the rest I had in Santiago was a temporary (and rather shoddliy put up) dam against the river that is my endless exhaustion. Cracks and leaks are starting to appear. Still can't get over this cold I've had, sleep in never enough. Getting ill when travelling is one of the worst parts of it. You long for comfort, rest and privacy, none of which are to be had in any significant amounts. Anyhoo... enough whinging. The golden glow of the blog will continue! Got another mad bus to Copacabana on the coast of Lake Titicaca. This bus was packed. It always breaks my heart that its the gorgeous little kids sitting on standing on the floor. We had to get off the bus, while it went on a barge (a plank of wood, honestly) and we crossed in a little boat. Copacabana sounds like I should be sipping cocktails under a palm tree right? It's actually not so bad, small port town. It's so quiet compared to La Paz. We caught an infuriatingly slow boat to the Isla Del Sol on the lake. I mean serisouly, this is the slowest boat in the whole of Bolivia. We watched others zoomed by, as we slowly turned in a circle to collect a ball a little boy had dropped in the water. Sweet... but really?! Eventually arriving at the north end of the island, it really was like another world. Pigs wandered on the beach, beautiful snow-capped mountains on the horizon. The sound of donkeys and cows in the pre-colombian fields. Very nice! This is the island that the Incas believe is The Cradle of Life. That's right, where life began. You can believe it, it has a mystically calm quality to it, and at the night eerie silent electrical storms lit up the sky. Its cold, then hot, then cold. It's HIGH. So everywhere I go I am out of breath. By day I feel like a 90 year-old who's smoked 40 a day for her entire life, by night my heart races like I've been guzzling thai-strength Redbull. Great. On the second day we walked to the south (painful) and failed to see more ruins. But we shard a campfire with some nice Argentinians. Accom is super cheap, but food expensive. I liked it, I wasn't blown away, it looked to me like a mixture between Greece and Scotland. Pleasant, no doubt about that.
And now my time in Bolivia is up, and I have bored you to death once again with a massive blog. Sigh. Tonight I night bus to Cusco, Peru. Let's see what happens next shall we?
Love from the shore of Lake Titicaca
EJT
- comments