la paz

Next stop: La Paz

I really liked La Paz, but unfortunately, we only had two days there. And even that was cut

short as our bus from Copacabana was road-blocked for a couple hours due to protests by fishermen. There was a local festival with dancing and intricate costumes going on, so we checked that out. And on our bus there was a very funny Peruvian hippie with a crooked didgeridoo who kept the whole bus entertained.

The roadblock left us with one evening and a day in La Paz. We didn’t get to do much, we went out to dinner (I had tempura, yum). The next day we just wandered around a bit and did postcard and bus-supplies shopping. We also bought coca leaves to chew on. Chewing coca is not as exciting as it sounds: tasted like grass and filled my mouth with leaf bits, ugh. And the effect was not very noticeable, like that of drinking too much coffee. But I felt cool anyway. We tried to chew as much as possible before we had to dump our baggy at the Chilean border. (you can’t bring any organic products into Chile - Chile is sort of island-like due to the mountain chain, and super strict about avoiding bacteria and viruses and stuff.)

La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, at almost 4000m, It is located in a valley surrounded by mountains, kind of like a giant bowl. The city has expanded to creep us the sides of the hills, from above it looks insane. I couldn’t get any decent pictures from the bus window so I've posted some I found online. We were going to go to a lookout point, but at the hostel they told us that is too dangerous to go there at 9 in the morning and we should forget it.

I imagine that La Paz is hellish in the summer.

There were tons of shoeshine boys and they all wear masks…no one really knows why, there are various theories;…to protect themselves from the social embarrassment of shining shoes, to protect themselves from the fumes, to protect themselves from being recognized by the cops…In any case, they are also camera-shy, so I only got fotos of them from farther away.

La Paz fotos are here: http://chile.marahtyler.com/#23.1

copacabana

Okay, back to Bolivia. It is around 6 am:

We arrived at the bus terminal in La Paz and continued directly on with a different bus to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca! One of the highest navigable lakes in the world, and the largest lake (by volume) in South America. (source: wikipedia)

In order to get to Copacabana we had to cross the narrow strait of Tiquina. Everyone had to get off and take a boat across.

Our bus went across on one of these ferries.

This poor sheep rode on the roof of the bus for 4 hours.

 

We had already picked out of my guidebook which hotel we wanted to stay at, “El Mirador”, because we wanted a view of the lake, but once we saw it, we started to have doubts about whether we could afford it:

However it turned out to only cost 5 Euros per person per night. We even had a private bath and there was a terrace right outside. (The shower turned out to be a catastrophe though, it flooded the whole bathroom.)

We had fried trout from the lake for lunch and that night we watched the sun set over Lake Titicaca.

The famous Titicaca lake trout have an interesting story, turns out they were native to the American great lakes and introduced in various south American lakes. Meanwhile, they have become extinct in the American lakes due to the introduction of the lamprey…and in Lake Titicaca, they probably contributed to the extinction of the Orestia, which was native to and only present in Lake Titicaca.  

My throat felt weird, by the next day I had lost my voice and didn’t feel so good. We took a boat to the Isla del Sol, an island on the lake. The island was revered by the Incas as the birthplace of Incan civilization/the sun…or something like that. There was zero information about anything there, so that’s about all I can tell you. There are lots of Incan ruins on the island, including a labyrinth, a temple, and a sacrificial table. It’s a 4 hour walk from the north end of the island to the south end, where the return boat leaves. It’s tough, the sun is out and the path is steep at times, we are panting at every little incline. But it is amazing.

Along the way we have to pay several times; each community apparently levies its own fines. There are people along the way sitting by the path, selling drinks, handicrafts. Also there are kids asking if we want to take pictures of them with their sheep, llamas or donkeys. There was one woman with her kid and a llama. We walked by and the llama was not looking too happy…then it spat on the guy walking behind us!

Incan staircase

There was a little girl who asked me to take a picture of her and her little sister…I thought aw, that’s cute…but then after the picture the older one said “Now pay us! One boliviano for me and one for her!” In retrospect, I can’t believe I fell for it…
I was like, “Wow, you drive a hard bargain. Would you prefer 2 bolivianos or 1 boliviano and the rest of our chocolate to share between the two of you?” They ended up going for the chocolate bar.

In Copacabana, there is a large church (pretty large for such a small town) and pilgrims come from all over to visit the Virgen of Copacabana, who is a big deal: "Our Lady of Copacabana" is the patron saint of Bolivia and known for working several miracles. And I just found out online that Copacabana beach in Rio is actually named after her, too. On the weekends, they bless cars in front of the church, with garlands of flowers and stuff.

The rest of the photos are here: http://chile.marahtyler.com/#25.0

uyuni fotos

i almost forgot, here are the rest of the photos from uyuni:

http://chile.marahtyler.com/#24.0

uyuni continued

Our tour of the Salar started the next morning, beginning with the train graveyard. Supposedly, the last train that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed, which led to their untimely demise here in Bolivia, is here in the graveyard. 

Yeah, it’s probably this one.

I could have spent hours climbing around (although very short of breath due to altitude), but we have a lot left to do and the other tourists in our jeep are not so into it.

We drove on to Colchani, a town at the edge of the Salar, where the salt is processed. The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world, at 10,582 km² (4,085 square miles). It is at about 3,600 m above sea level and used to be part of a giant lake.

The salt is scraped together into little mounds, then transported to the “processing facility.” First it is dried, by spreading it out on a big table over these 3 furnaces;

 then put through this machine which grinds it up fine;

 Then it is hand-filled into plastic bags of about 1 kilo, which are sealed with a blow torch.

Because Bolivia has so much salt, (they have another salt flat too), it is worth practically nothing: 50 kilos of salt are sold for 9 Bolivianos! (~1 Euro! $1.50!) They can’t export it either, because all of their neighbors have their own salt flats! They should export it, unprocessed, coarse and “organic”, to Europe and the US and make a killing.

Anyway.

Because of the endless white plain, the tourists all hop around making weird pictures and playing with perspective:

 

There is a hotel in the middle of the salar, built entirely out of blocks of salt. There we engaged with other tourists in taking silly pictures. The tour compay serves us lunch in the salt hotel: llama and mashed potatoes.

As I said, the Salar used to be a huge lake….in the middle of the salt flat is an island out of coral, and covered by cacti. It is called  Isla de Pesca because of its fish shape.

 Back in Uyuni in the evening, we went to an internet café (where I received the emailed news that Michael Jackson is dead) and buy souvenirs and blankets, alpaca shawls, etc. We found a great greasy spoon to eat at: chicken and fries.

Boarded another bus, to La Paz. We had asked 3 times in the office if the bus had heating, we were told “yes.” Turns out the bus did not have heating. Which is really a problem at night, at these altitudes. It was another rough night. The “road” was so bad that I did not sleep. Eventually, I couldn’t hold out any longer and had to go to the bathroom. First I had to clamber over all the people sleeping in the aisle, then discovered that the light in the bathroom was broken. Which was probably not such a bad thing…

Eventually, closer to La Paz, the roads got better and I dozed off.

uyuni (part 1)

We got up at 5:00 and took yet another very long bus ride, to Bolivia. The bus this time is pretty rudimentary, and the road is quite bad, we get pretty shaken up. Sleeping is not really possible for me. We drive to Ollagüe, the last town on the Chilean side of the border, where we have to get out and wait around for customs for about an hour. It is quite cold, we are high up. There are volcanoes all around us, and a lake with flamingos. It was too dark for me to get a good picture of them though.

Bus switch in no-man’s-land.

Then on to Avaroa, the first town on the Bolivian border. Right away we discover that Bolivians aren’t as friendly as Chileans…the border control dudes were rude and demanding.

It is light by  now and the scenery in the altiplano is spectacular. However, it is freezing and the bus doesn’t have heating or a bathroom. The Bolivian buses aren’t nearly as comfy as the Chilean ones. This is our first taste of Bolivian buses, but unfortunately, not the last.

 High in the Andes, the altiplano.

We continued on to Uyuni (population ~10,000, elevation ~3600 m), and also immediately see that Bolivia is completely and utterly different from Chile. Not just the buildings, general look of the place, and dirt streets, but also the people look completely different.

The women wear bowler hats, layered skirts, woolen knee socks, sandals, and shawls or blankets wrapped around their shoulders. They carry things in colorful blankets on their backs. Some of the women are laden like pack mules….and I don’t see the men carrying anything.

After the bus ride, we realize that we should seriously consider getting canvas bags for our backpacks…they are completely covered in dust. Not for the last time, either. We are met at the bus station by a woman who says she got a call from our friend Freddy at the Calama bus station. (We had a long conversation with Freddy about busses, schedules, prices, tours, etc.) She is from a tour agency and wants to give us a tour of the Salar. But all I want to do is go to a hostel and sleep off the migraine from the jolting bus ride. We end up declining and later going with a different company.

We were lucky, it happened to be market day when we arrived so there a bunch of stands on the main drag. We bought textiles that all the women here use to carry stuff around in, and also, in preparation for going to the salt flat the next day,

cheap sunglasses!

Bolivia is much poorer than Chile, and definitely a “developing country”, which means it’s very cheap for tourists. For example, our tour company is family-run out of their home: at the back of the storefront is a curtain, behind which is luggage storage and their sleeping area. The reception area with the desk and some couches is their living room. Every time we enter, the family is huddled around the gas heater, watching tv. The tour, which took a full day, cost less than 20 Euros, and included lunch.

part two about the Salar coming up laterzz....