Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Satin Shoes Go Camping
Off to Bolivia then - comedy border crossing involving having to get the truck onto what looked like a floating bit of reinforced cardboard. Evil border official also laughed at my passport photo. Arrived at the Copacabana, also on the edge of Lake Titicaca, which is nothing like its counterpart in Brazil (which I will be visiting). Lovely, chilled little place, mostly just watched football, got hammered, ate fresh fish and shopped (not in that order)...ooh, and put the finishing touches to my World Cup wallplanner (I never said I was cool).
Onwards from the Copacabana, we pressed towards La Paz, the capital, for the end of the first part of the trip, where we lost many quality people. But not before we had a massive piss-up for Alex's birthday and ended up dancing on tables in a Dutch pub. Excellent. Had great city tour of la Paz as well, there is so much to Bolivia that gets missed out since countries like Peru and Argentina have the tourist thing so much more sorted. We went to the Valley of the Moon and saw the incredible rock formations that make it resemble the surface of the moon - v strange how any noise just dies in there...sort of sucked in by the rock. Spooky.
Back in town did a lot of shopping trying to buy a new camera. La Paz is basically a huge street market (something like 90 per cent of La Paz's population are involved in vendoring of some kind), but busting crowds of people also mean pickpockets as I discovered when a little Bolivian she-devil SPAT ON MY HEAD in an attempt to distract and rob me (unsuccessfully). Ew. But overall, really enjoyed La Paz; the people are poor, the traffic is insane (no one actually has a legit license....saw one car with a photocopy of a registration plate) but it's cheap and cheerful. And we managed to get a bar to sell us Agua Tonica, which is apparently rarer than an English World Cup win around here.
Striding on at a Durhamesque pace, we picked up our new recruits (a Yank, a girl from Barbados, an English girl and two more Icelandics...they're on honeymoon: it's nuts) and hopped back on Tortuga bound for Potosi, the highest town "of its size" in the world. Obviously, no day on Tortuga passes quietly - Gunnar got bitten by a dog in a servo and we spent a while deciding if he wouldfoam at the mouth and die of rabies (he didn't) before encountering a slightly worrying diesel shortage (we eventually bribed someone). Potosi is famous for having once been the source of much of Bolivia's wealth when silver was discovered there. But the bottom fell out of the silver market and the tin market in succession, leaving Potosi a poor little place. But it's still gorgeous - stunning, well maintained colonial architecture, and a huge mint museum (no polos involved: mint of the cash variety) that has been a prison in the past. Declined the highly dangerous mine tour (the Rough Guide talks of claustrophobia, poisoning dust particles and injury by falling rocks and speeding trolleys as "real threats") which the boys went on and opted for the volcanic hot springs instead...lovely jubbly floating about in a crater in the middle of nowhere. Sampled llama steak (rather like alpaca) and then we were off again...
From Potosi we were bound for Uyuni. Tres excited at this point as the Salt Flats of Uyuni (pics to follow shortly) were possibly the thing was most looking forward to on the whole trip. Arrived in this one-horse town expecting a late-ish start the next morig and a ly-in but was woken by raps on the door and a gaggle of Espanol. Emerged that the electricity was going off, we were leaving an hour early and wouldn't be able to stay another night because there were striles going on and they were blocking all roads off. Cripes. Twas all rather unexpected but hey ho, off we went onto the flats, which did not disappoint: acres and acres (the biggest salt lake in the world) of pure, blidingly white salt. The Inca story goes that a Princess fell in love with an "Unsuitable Boy" and ran off with him against her father's wishes. She got pregnant and the rogue left her, after which she goes running back to Daddy the King, who's having none of it and banishes her to a solitary mountain. Here she weeps, and also begins to breastfeed hr child, and her tears mixed with her milk and created the salt lake. Geologically speaking, the story's rather different and I can't remember all the details, but there is water under the crust of salt. We were show a few places where the water bubbles up to the surface, and all over the lake the surface is textured by tessalated hexagons created by the evaporation of moisture from underneath the crust.
Visited a salt 'Hotel' (no longer in use) on the lake, and also to 'Fish Isand': a random little fish-shaped, cactus-addled mound of earth and rock where we had lunch and climbed to a peak to view the lake from above. A truly wonderful day which I will never forget - one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Visited a random, oddly macabre, train graveyard on the way home (perhaps what they threaten naughty trains with on Thomas the Tank Engine?) but we had to scarper sharpish because of the road blocks. Loaded the truck with takeaway pizza and headed off to have a night in a refuge en route to San Pedro. Had random banos break that involved trudging through someone's dormroom (complete with sleeping people) on the way to the loo. But the next day we were on the way to Chile!
- comments