Bolivia contd

So after a few days back in La Paz, I caught a night bus to Uyuni, which is in the southwest of Bolivia. It's meant to be an 11 hour bus ride, but because of getting stopped NUMEROUS times by either our bus or ones ahead being bogged in mud, it ended up taking more than 21 hours. Which wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that no one brought enough food or water, and strangely, whenever we got stuck somewhere it was inconveniently located miles from any store or town. One of the girls I was with, Carolyn, it was her birthday that second day, so while it wasn't ideal I did manage to scrounge around and find a snickers bar that i put all of the birthday candles in, and some argentinians on the bus had a guitar and we all sang happy birthday on the side of the road. It was actually kind of fun. Very memorable anyway. Mind you, the crossing of the river in the middle of the night barefoot because the bus would probably get stuck if passengers were on board, after 3 hours or unsticking busses ahead, not so fun.

But we arrived in Uyuni eventually, at like 4pm, to a very pooey smelling town, and booked a 3 day jeep tour of the nearby salt flats, the atacama and salvador dali deserts, flamingo lagoons and geysers. Since my luck was going that way, our jeep definitely got bogged within the first half hour, right up to the undercarriage in quicksandish mud. Eventually got pulled out by a passing tractor, after like an hour and a half of rocking it back and forth, tires spinning mud all over everyone, with an approaching thunderstorm on its way. (in a few minutes we passed a small stream which in the course of an hour turned into a raging river due to farther off rain. craziest flash flood i have ever seen, and even when we were standing there the water was coming with more intensity all the time, like continuous small tsunamis)

Managed to get to the salt flats though, and they were absolutely indescribable. 12000 square km of salt flats that look like ice, with a bit of water on top. You can't see the horizon, so it feels like you're floating, and you can see your own reflection so clearly that it's hard to tell which way is up. Very very strange. I think the pictures are going to be awesome. There's even a hotel out there with everything made and carved out of salt. From there we drove further out, and the next day entered the desert, and passed through some really cool rock formations, made by volcanic eruptions happening on top of glaciers only like 50 000 years ago. The lava cooled immediately, so the "droplets" ie enormous boulders, are all these crazy shapes just blobbed around the desert (which is not sandy at ALL. the driest desert in the world, and it's all pebbly. Really weird landscape). You can climb up them really easily with all of the air bubbles and uneven faces.

From there it was on to some huge lagoons that day and the next that were absolutely teeming with flamingos, and while it was a little cloudy sometimes, the reflections of the snowcapped mountains in the water filled with thousands of pink birds was breathtaking. Also really cool was that we got up early on the last day and drove to some areas with natural volcanic activity (ie geysers), and they're way different from what i pictured, with bubbly mud pits spraying hot steam that smelled like wet egg. Really gross odor, but it was really cool. Actually literally freezing up there, since it was like 5500m.

And then it was back to Uyuni to catch the bus to Potosi, which had no major problems, although it still required several disembarkings to cross rivers. (9 or 10 hours to go 208 km. Which is apparently like the fastest bus time in the past several weeks). And then spent the day going down into the potosi mines, where they have 700 different mines, 15000 workers (2000 of which are under 16) and many of them have been operating since the 1500s. Our guide told us afterwards that 11 years ago experts said that due to the swiss cheese effect it was ready to fall down in 7 years. Very comforting. Went down to the third level, which really didn't feel all that claustrophobic but definitely hard to breathe, the asbestos and cyanide burning your throat. Can't imagine doing that every day.

And then it was another bus to Sucre, where I spent the night partying with some australians on australia day, and getting attacked with shaving cream by pre-carnavalers. And then due to more rain related transportation problems, decided to fly to santa cruz for my brasil flight, and so spent an entire day in the airport on standby before heading off to lapaz and then here. Back in tropical heat here now so am feeling rested and ready for my flight to brasil at 4am tomorrow!!

That's all for now, but hope you're all doing well! xo

part 4 La Paz and the jungle

So we got to La Paz on the 9th of January at like 11pm, and our bus was immediately swarmed by tourist police who ushered all gringoish looking people into taxis and even negotiated fares with the drivers for us- like nothing I have ever witnessed that is for sure! After a few days exploring, LaPaz, and bolivia in general, feels very similar to Peru, although the weather is pretty shitty most of the time in the city and there is a LOT of garbage everywhere (possibly due to the high incidence of strikes and demonstrations recently??), just piled up in the steets sometimes, although not so much in the centre where my hostel Loki is. It is a HUGE place, around 200 beds, and people are fighting for a place pretty much every day if they don't have reservations. Met a couple cool Danish girls and their Australian friend on our first night here and they told us about how they were taking a boat/jungle tour up to Rurrenbaque instead of bussing it or flying, so we sort of jumped on board with them on the Saturday as well.

It actually ended up being a 7 or 8 hour bus ride down the "death road" past Coroico and Caranavi, to Guayan, where we were supposed to get the boat. But because we ran into a few landslides on the way, one we dug out by hand with a big group of sweaty locals and their shovels, and the other took a bulldozer to clear. Plus there was a big tree down over the road so we didn't get to Guanay until too late to do any of the boating that day. Instead of camping, the company finally agreed to pay for our necessary hostel rooms. And to kill time, slash say that we had done it, the 5 of us girls and our guide (no one else was up to it apparently) took in the local nightlife, which was pretty amazing I have to say. The main place in town was this bar with a huge dancefloor, mainly taken over by underagers drinking fanta and dancing across from each other in 2 long lines. Not doing line dances. Just dancing in lines. Ridiculous. Later on when we were dancing with them, any attempts at deconstructing the rigidity of this system proved to be very stressful, and our circle dance attempt ended up forming a new line, just slightly askew from the others. Hilarious!

But the next day we did a few hours on the boat down this river which was pretty swollen with water, and our boat definitely was not really made for the rapids which we had to go through at some points. A little scary. But we stopped at little communities along the way, only reachable by boat, and did a big jungle walk in the day and at night, which were pretty cool for hearing about different plants and their medicinal properties, insects, etc. Not a lot of wildlife viewing, but still really cool. Camped in tents in the courtyard of one of these communities, and it rained so much in the morning that we had to get up quickly or else all our stuff would literally be floating. Could have been pretty miserable except for that it was so hot the rain was a nice relief, and also it felt pretty appropriate to be in the rainforest in the middle of some rainstorms. We went on another hike in Mididi National Park on the third day, after more boating to get there, where the highlight wildlife wise were some tracks from a large herd of 300ish wild pigs (like I haven't seen any of those before. yawn. haha) And then after a few more hours in the boat we arrived in Rurrenbaque in the evening of the 14th.

I would have loved to get my clothes washed, because they were all so sweaty and dirty and disgusting, and actually had dropped them at the laundromat, but then discovered that because pampas tours only leave on certain days, we had to leave the next morning. Which meant a sheepish return trip to the laundry place, where the girl hesitantly gave my clothes back, with an expression that said "you are so disgusting looking, are you sure you shouldn't have these washed?" Which probably would have been wise, considering that the dog at the tour agency was later so enthralled with my smelly clothes that he ripped open the bag and dragged my sports bra across the floor, much to the amusement of the staff and other clients.

Went out karaoking that night as well (and as I already told some of you, you may be surprised to hear that bolivian jungles are the hidden karaoke capital of the world. In a town where there isn't even a bank or a grocery store, they have karaoke bars on literally every corner. We're talking at least 20) However, finding a quality one proved a bit more trial and error, and the one we were at that night pretty much ignored all our requests for Cindy Lauper and Madonna, Backstreet boys, etc, until we basically stole the microphone from behind the counter and just started singing our own songs above the spanish ones actually playing. Soooo funny, but the karaoke supervisor girl wasn't all that impressed.

But then the pampas tour started the next morning. Three hours in a ridiculously bumpy jeep (oh and by this point, I had had some sort of allergic reaction to all the sandfly bites I had accumulated on the river, so my right foot was swollen to 3 times its regular size and superpainful. Only now starting to shrink) to get to a river, and the pampas, which is this huge network of rivers and wetland savannahish land that is just teeming with wildlife. On the 3 hours in the boat on the way to the camp, we stopped to swim in the river for a bit (although when we got back in only about 200m upstream there was a 3m alligator swimming-our guide assured us that they never attack in daylight. still a little disconcerting). There was a whole bunch of spider monkeys that we pulled up to and fed bananas, the guide even smushed some on our heads so they would come right on top of us and crawl all over. So cute, with a lot of little babies hanging on their mothers' backs. A ton of different birds, cormorants, eagles, falcons, parrots, etc. And where our camp was there were more spider monkeys, a resident alligator and nearby howler monkeys you could hear all night and morning. Really cool. That night after dinner we went out in the boat looking for alligators. Our guide caught a little baby one and we took turns getting pictures, petting it, etc., before he did the trick of touching its belly and putting it to sleep. Soooo weird. A ton of mosquito bites, despite the 100 percent deet, but totally worth it.

The next morning we went out to this more shallow area looking for snakes. Couldn't find any, despite wading waisthigh through waters where anacondas are known to congregate. But because it's the rainy season now, they're much more spread out and harder to find. But I did feel very JLo esque wading through there. Saw some more birds, and got bit by some fire ants when leaning against a tree (apparently a fire ant tree) to pour the water out of my boots. Hurt sooooooo badly, like a continuous wasp sting or cigarette burn or something for at least half an hour. Our guide said that the poison is powerful enough that only 250 or so of the bites can kill a person. Luckily I only got a couple, but still hurt like hell.

So no snakes, but after lunch we went out in the boat again and went swimming in the river in areas where there are tons of freshwater pink dolphins. So cool, and they even come up and bump your feet, playing with you under the water. At first it was kind of exciting, although always scared the shit out of me because the water is so dark that you can't see anything and all of a sudden you're just touched by something in this 12m deep river in the middle of the jungle. Could be anything. Creeepy. But they would splash around and stuff, and like I said it was pretty exciting, but for some reason they would not leave me alone, much more than any one else (most people didn't even get touched, but I actually had to get back in the boat after a while because it was starting to freak me out.) The only thing I can hypothesize is that my skin is so pale that under the water my body glowed fluorescent or something, I don't know. Very strange, but still really cool. And then we went out looking for more wildlife from the boat, and saw lots of monkeys, sloths, paradise birds, which are pretty much the ugliest things ever. And the most beautiful sunset I have maybe ever seen. Absolutely gorgeous.

Sadly had to leave the next day though, but not before my guide made each of us some customized jewellery (mine is a ring he whipped up in 15 minutes out of a cocoa nut shell, all buffed and carved with a really pretty design on it). He was a really nice guy, and knew soooo much about all of the wildlife it was unbelievable. He was definitely the most tarzan-ish one of all the guides on the river at the time, and everyone was visibly jealous of his skills. To be fair though, he told us that the community where he grew up is in the far northern jungles of bolivia, and from the closest city (Trinidad), you have to go 2 days by bus, 2 days by boat, and 7 days walking in order to reach his home. Really hard to imagine. But an awesome guy, and we tipped him well, especially when we found out that despite each of us paying 60 usd for a 3 day tour, he only gets paid 180 bolivianos for each tour (about 25 or 30 dollars). Absolutely horrible how the guides get treated here. Especially when they know their shit like he did.

But anyway, after one last jungle party in Rurrenbaque that night, I got in a jeep at 5am to head back down the death road for the 14 hours to LaPaz. It sounds like it would be horrible, given that it's mostly dirt winding roads around mountains, blind corners, etc., and it is kind of scary, but the scenery was so spectacular, I am so glad I didn't pay the 20 dollars more to fly, I would have missed so much.

But got back to the city last night, and spent most of today back doing some shopping at the witches market, catching up with people I know, trying to figure out how the next bit until my flight to brasil is going to go (still unsure), find out about buses, get laundry done etc. Feels like a lazy day, but really needed to be done. So probably will leave here tomorrow (won't hurt my feelings, after the hail I experienced this afternoon) for either the salt flats or the silver mines-will let you know!! More pictures are on the way, but I can't bear to tackle uploading them right now after more than 4 hours in this internet cafe already. Again, sorry for all the delays, but hopefully I can get better at this regular posting thing!!

much love

part 3 huacachina, lake titicaca

The hostel there had a nice pool, which turned out to be extremely necessary after only 2 hours of riding in a dune buggy at the mercy of a madman driver whipping around the huge sand dunes around the town (which is built around this oasis, really just a stinky mud hole, but compared to the bleak horizon of sand I guess you take what you can get). The dune buggy tour also included some sandboarding, which was fun but sooooo blazing hot, I actually got burned from the sand a bit. Kind of like snowboarding, only you can't really do much except go straight down the hill at top speed with minimal control or skill. Fun though. I only attempted to stand up on some of the hills, not all, because many that they dropped us off at were so steep that you couldn't even see the bottom of it when standing at the crest. That and several people did some really nasty face plants and shoulder tears etc. Didn't really think it was worth the pain.

We were only there for one night before heading off to Puno, but did manage to meet a few Australian guys who are also planning to be in Salvador for Carnaval, so maybe I'll end up meeting them again.

Then a long 17 hour night bus to Puno, on Lake Titicaca, which was more beautiful and bigger than I had imagined. We ran into a bunch of people we knew from the language school in Cusco there, so that was nice to catch up. Out of that city, we booked a tour boat to the islands of Uros (floating islands made of reeds that were first started around 1000 bc.) and Taquile (UNESCO named for the best knitters in the world-all male). The tour was really nice, and we even jumped in Lake Titicaca off the dock at Taquile, which was FREEZING cold, but definitely worthwhile to say that I'd done it.

The next morning we crossed the border over into Bolivia and found a boat at Copacabana to take us to the Isla del Sol, although we almost missed it because we forgot to change our watches 1 hr ahead. We stayed the night at the island there which was beautiful, really awesome views, but pretty cold at night (the lake itself is 3500m above sea level). Ran into this Australian couple who I've now met randomly at least 5 times (I think they're beginning to think I'm stalking them!) so us and a bunch of their friends hired a boat in the morning to the north end of the island, where there were some ruins in the place where the inca creation myth was started. Slowest boats EVER, as it took even longer to boat there than to walk back, even with a demoralizing drizzle that turned into downpour for the last half hour of the walk. Got back to pick up our stuff in time for the last boat to Copacabana, where we found a really cool little cafe run by hippies and I think I fell in a little bit of collective platonic love with them and their establishment. The best hot chocolate I have had in South America, and possibly ever, given how cold and wet I was, which started off the infatuation, plus the music was a little indie, reggae and funk mix that I was really loving, and then I used their bathroom which was not only clean and had toilet paper, but actually smelled of cleaner and had hand soap- UNBELIEVABLE!!!! And then when I came back out I saw the chef feeding the last of the hot chocolate pot to a stray dog, which was so cute, and one of the other hippie guys hanging around offered to cut my hair for free, which was suspect until he showed me his really professional portfolio from all the work he has down for fashion designers, magazines etc. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time because we had already bought tickets to La Paz, which ended up being quite the eventful bus ride.

Irene had some sort of food poisoning, and so she was feeling pretty nauseous-to the point where she got me to ask the bus driver to pull over, even though we were on this narrow, winding mountain road in the pouring rain. He kept refusing, just giving me a bag instead, and I was arguing with him, saying we had bags, but he really should pull over or she was going to barf everywhere. Suddenly I become aware of a big commotion behind me and I turn around to see Irene puking out the window, but because we're driving it is not only blowing back against the other windows but she is hyperventilating because she says that she can't breathe with the bus going so fast. Practically the whole bus, of mostly locals, is all gathered around her, yelling at the bus driver to stop, which he finally does, muttering under his breath, especially due to the cries from this one hippie guy sitting in front of us, whose dreadlocks she promptly pukes in on the way to the door of the bus. So then I'm half out of the bus trying to comfort her and half in watching our stuff, while the bus driver keeps revving the engine to try and hurry us up. Not the best ride ever, not to mentio nthat a few minutes after this episode we all had to pile off again in the driving rain so that the bus could ferry across a river while we were in a shitty little boat that met it on the other side.

part 2 new year's in lima

So after that rather eventful bus ride, we arrived in Lima to spend New Year's. The city was a LOT nicer than I had expected, given how many people have only negative things to say about it. Travellers I mean. The area of Miraflores is extremely modern, with fancier shopping malls than I have probably ever seen, Starbucks, beautiful malecon parks along the ocean, etc. Very manhattanish. But it was weird because we sat on couches outside the Starbucks drinking a post-christmas peppermint mocha, and something about the summer weather, triangle shaped park and outdoor cafe suddenly made me feel like I was in London sitting at one of the cafes by Victoria park. Very strange sensation, like anyone from home might turn the corner to meet me at any second.

The historical centre was really beautiful as well. Huge plaza, and lots of nice shops and cafes along walking streets. Didn't get to see the changing of the guard at the government buildings, but did go for a tour of the catacombs under the monastery of San Fransisco. The church itself was pretty interesting, although not as nice as the Cathedral in Cusco or the Basilica in quito, a little too much geometric-art deco design for my taste I guess. But all the tunnels and bones underneath the main floor were really cool to see, and weird to think of all those people as individuals at one point. Something like 40 000 bodies. The whole place though scarily reminded me of Mom and Dad's basement....... very similar decor.

Bought a new camera while in the city, along with new jeans, to replace the ones that actually disintegrated off my body. New Year's we spent at our hostel, which was located in the area of Barranco, a hip artsy suburb just outside of the miraflores area. Tons of tree lined streets and little cafes and boutiques along the beach. A really nice area, one that I think I would easily go back to to stay for a longer time. Did some paragliding on my last day in Lima, which actually wasn't very scary at all, and had a nice view of the main beach downtown.

Finally got my Brazilian visa processed, although I had to take new (smaller) pictures and wait 2 days. But all set for Carnaval now, and left the Point after about the 4th to meet up with Irene again in Huacachina (she had left earlier to go visit the Paracas islands, like the small galapagos of peru).

the last month (whoops!) part 1 christmasish

So sorry for all the very long delays, but it has been an amazing and hectic month, that's for sure.

Huaraz was beautiful. A nice little city up in the mountains northeast of Lima, with tons of people in traditional clothing and lots of real Peruvian food. Actually reminded me a lot of Cusco, only minus all the people trying to sell tourists postcards and finger puppets every two seconds. We stayed at this really nice family place there, and all of them were so generous and hospitable, which was especially nice since we arrive don Christmas Eve morning (plus we loved it cause it only cost 10 soles a night including great breakfasts! which translates into about 3 dollars). I had a little trouble adjusting back to the altitude so I slept a lot of that first day and didn't even want to get up and answer the door to our room when some of the other people staying at the hostel were trying to be friendly and brought us some cake at 10am when the breakfast bar was closing. Seriously....... so lazy. Refusing cake is just not like me.

They had a really nice Christmas eve dinner, with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and some delicious pasta salad, which I usually don't even like. But in order to make it to that, we all sat around the dinner table from about 7pm just drinking hot chocolate, telling travel stories, etc, which would have been a lot more fun if I wasn't feeling so tired and headachey. Some of the other people were pretty amusing though, including one czech guy who first refused to tell anyone his nationality, just saying that he was from "the dark side of the moon". But we waited around foodless until midnight, when everyone in the whole city ran outside and shot off fireworks, embers flying and falling everywhere, drank champagne and sang some ridiculous spanglish christmas carols, in which the line "vamos comer pavo" to the tune of "vamos a la playa" featured prominently. And then after dinner, the rest of us sat around and watched the family exchange gifts, which I thought would feel pretty strange if I were them, but I guess running and living in a hostel you must be pretty used to things like that. But just a very nice, homey Christmas overall, even if it did feel a bit like waiting for the ball to drop on new year's.

The next day (Christmas day), Irene and I hiked up a small mountain to this cross overlooking the city, which was really pretty and then we took a colectivo to a small town nearby to bathe in some hot springs that were a lot like Baños only the water looked even more disgusting. And then to this delicious chicken place for Christmas dinner (where we ended up going back to about 3 more times, partially because Irene knew her stomach could handle it and partially because the taste was just so tempting).

In the next couple of days, we arranged 2 day hikes, the first guided by a guy named Coqui from the hostel to Lago Churup. We had a colectivo (in which the man beside me had a live weaner pig in a burlap sack on his lap, and several sheep tied up on the roof rack, hilarious!) out to some town and then a 5 hour hike uphill, through some nice farmland and then almost straight up thi smountain, with the last half hour being rock climbing along the side of this rushing waterfall, which was absolutely my favourite part. I found it surprisingly easy, and have hypothesized that I must have been a mountain goat in a former life. But anyway, after the rock climb, you come to this small lake surrounded by mountains. The water was so blue, it was almost unbelievable, like a painting. Apparently depending on the type and angle of the sun or moonlight, the water changes into a multitude of colours, especially pure silver under a fool moon, which would have been really cool to see.

And then the next one we did was even more beautiful. Laguna 69 (not sure why it's called that)- in order to get there we had to arrange 2plus hours of changing colectivos on our own to find the departure point, and even then we were warned by the driver that if we didn't get back to that turn in the road before 4 or so, the last colectivo would be gone and we'd have no way of getting home. The first hour or so of the walk should have been pretty easy but I was dragging just from being so tired from the day before I think. And then there was a zigzag up a mountain-only had to stop briefly for a dead cow in the middle of the path that had apparently died in midst of giving birth, because both the cow and the emerging calf's legs had been gnawed on by animals. Or hungry hikers, I'm not sure. Then we came up to a small lake with a waterfall draining from it, which was pretty unremarkable except for that I was able to spot a little Andean fox hiding nearby, which was cool. Then we had to cross this big open marshy area, which resulted in Irene getting a soaker in a small creek, and then had to make another steep zigzag up, which was hard until you came around the corner of this ash gray mountain and caught a glimpse of a huge waterfall descending from snowcapped peaks all around, falling into a lake of the clearest blue water I have ever imagined. We sat there marvelling while eating lunch and I had a little half hour nap on a rock that manged to get me sunburned through my pants, but it was completely captivating nevertheless. Plus, we even made it back in time for our colectivo.

Pretty much took it easy then until the long (and so hot!) night bus to Lima, which was so sweltering that I had to strip down jus tto stop sweating. And then a piece of the bus got knocked off by going under a too low overpass on a detour, and then we got entangled in a bunch of low dipped powerlines, ensnaring the mangled mess of the air vents on the top of the bus. No one else except for the gringos seemed to be all that concerned though..........