Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Tom and Sarah's Travel Journal
We{re in bolivia at the mo, which is a really cool place! The whole place is above 3000m altitude (ski resorts are about 2500) so you get really puffed out walking around. We came to bolivia over the desert from chile in a jeep (for 3 days) which was pretty crazy. First night we stayed in an unheated place at 4800m (as high as the top of Mont Blanc) - it was freezing and at that altitude impossible to sleep as your heart is beating like you've been running, but it was a cool adventure (although I wouldn{t have said that at the time). The next night we even went to a crazy party (their anual village fiesta) in the driver's uncles's remote village which was amazing - bout 30 (the whole village) traditionally dressed bolivians (the women wear crazy big skirts, huge shawls and bowler hats!) in a tiny hall drinking homebrew booze out of teapots. They were very friendly though, and made us dance to their crazy jerky music which was distorting out of an ancient pa. The scenery was totally amazing - check out the photos at http://www.statraveljournals.com/tomandsarah in the bolivia photo gallery. After 3 days we got to Uyuni, then set off the next night in a bus to La Paz (the de-facto capital) in a bus that was meant to take 11 hours but quickly turned into the journey from hell. Any hope we had of making it to La Paz in time to watch the england match faded as first we stopped to help a bus that had fallen off the side of the dirt track into the desert and got half tipped up and stuck, then about an hour later got roadblocked by some angry hill people (who weren't at all as friendly as the ones at the party!) who were blocking the roads in protest about something, and effectively held hostage in our bus for 8 1/2 hours freezing till morning while the drivers (who apparently knew all about it before we set off) tried to negotiate our release. By the time we set off there was a centimeter of ice on the inside of the windows, and we'd paid them 3 bolivianos (about 20p) each to get out. If i'd have known our ransom was so ludicrously low i{d have told the drivers not to bother with the negotiations and given them 20quid when we first arrived - anything but the night of shivering uncertainty in the bus! Sadly that woulld not have been the bolivian way! Having finally made it through all the blockades after another 1 1/2 hours (6.30am) we were feeling positive as we were making some sort of progress down the ludirously bumpy dirt tracks and nodded off to sleep. We awoke to find the bus driver arguing with some hill people he'd had to pick up as a condition of getting through the last roadblock. Eventually he gave in and we drove off towards a frozen river crossing - it didn{t look too bad until about half way when the front right wheel bus suddenly hit a deep patch and the bus stopped dead and tipped forwards and rightwards till it was leaning dangerously close to falling over. It took another 3 hours to find a tractor to tow it out, so 12 hours into the journey we'd only managed to go about 40 miles. Anyhow, unbelievably, considering the potential damage to the bus from effectively sinking in a river, we set off again and finally arrived in la paz 23 hours after we started!
We're taking a rest now for a few days before setting off to lake titicaca and peru!
- comments