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Hi All,
After 5 weeks of travelling, we are now in Bolivia. We arrived by bus from Puno to the little village of Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca. There we had a couple of relaxing days in a very nice hotel and ate lots of fresh trout.By the way the famous Copacabana beach (here at the Copa…) is named after this little village in Bolivia.
Next stop: La Paz, highest capital in the world, and also one of the strangest (they have fancy dress parties with their neighbors and you can buy dried lama fetus at the witch market, well that is weird all right!). The city covers a huge valley and the mountains of the Cordillera Real are stunning in the background. After 2 days of La Paz, it was time for our next adventure … the Jungle and Pampas tour in Rurrenabaque (40 minutes North of La Paz by plane).
After a bumpy landing on the dirt road, we took our luggage to the hostel and started to check out the different tour agencies, which is easy as almost half of the village consists of tour agencies. Anyway we booked a 2 day Jungle (more vegetation/less animals/more insects) / 2 day Pampas (less vegetation/more animals/more mosquitoes) tour.The first day in the Jungle was … very interesting. After having walked for 3 hours and seeing not more than a few wild pigs and some birds (apart from the enormous variety of vegetation and insects), our guide said "Watch out for the wasp nest."But that wazzzzzz too late. Final score; H&S vs Wasps0 - 28. It has to be said that the wasps played at home, so they did have the advantage.Lucky enough we both were not allergic, so after a couple of hours of sore pain, we were ready for diner and the night walk. The next day we had a good day, no attacks and nice walks. Fortunately the Pampas tour came afterwards and that was amazing. We had a 4 hour boat trip up the river where we saw animals like the capybara (biggest rodent in the world), alligators, caiman, turtles, pink river dolphins, monkeys, lots of birds and … an anaconda of almost 3 meters. Normally you have to search for them, but that one was just waiting for us in the sun. The next day we went piranha fishing and had them for lunch, which is better than the other way around.
As our flight back to La Paz was cancelled, we had to stay another night in Rurre.We changed hotel and had a little surprise in our room when we came back early from diner. The receptionist was in our room, lights off, just checking something he said… A couple of minutes later he admitted he was looking for our money. We were extremely lucky to have been back in time but didn't sleep very well that night though. The next day we had a memorable flight in the small plane with a little hailstorm before landing in La Paz. The next flight to Sucre was much better.
As we heard roadblocks were being planned, we only stayed one day in Sucre and decided to quickly take the bus to Potosi. Potosi is a beautiful place with lots of colonial buildings and a big mountain called the Cerro Rico, or 'rich mountain' because it is filled with silver and other minerals. We had a tour into the mines, that made us realize that labor conditions are not equal around the world. Even young kids of 13 years old are working in extremely harsh conditions (the heat/dust/fumes are terrible) to earn a lousy salary. The coca leaves apparently help them put up with it, because they chew masses of it.
We will leave tomorrow for Uyuni to visit the salt flats before heading to Chili and Argentina.
So see you at the next blog from Buenos Aires!
Harald & Sylvie
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Aiki the Lord will not give you more than you can handle and that He will alayws provide a way out for you. I am also reminded of something my old Anthropology prof. told me after I found out he was retiring and I expressed how much I hated goodbyes He said, Oh, no you don't ever have to say good-bye. The people who have left the greatest impression on your life will stay in your soul forever! .comfort and peace to you.