Salar de Uyuni

Only about 5% of roads in Bolivia are paved. The reality of this really hit home on our first night bus in Bolvia, from La Paz to Uyuni. The bus left at 9pm, and the driver assistant advised us to try and sleep for the first few hours, before we hit the bumpy dirt roads. We're not sure the "roads" were even really roads... more of rutted paths through the desert. We were due to arrive around 7:00, but by now we've learnt this means 9:00, so we arrived around then, met our guide, found Dewey, loaded our gear on top of the jeep, and had some breakfast. Our guide, Archie, and driver, Carmelo, went to buy an iPOD cord from the market while we ate breakfast, and we all took this is a really good sign of the good times to be had on the next four days of our trip. We set out and first visisted the "train graveyard", a collection of old, rusty trains abandonned (and now considered to be a historical site) from war times.

From there, we headed out into the vast expanse of the Salar de Uyuni. The salt flats, which cover an area of 12 106 squared kilometers, are the evaporated remains of an old lake. For as far as the eye can see, there is bright, white, salt, with volcanoes in the distance. During parts of the year, the flats are flooded, and innavigable due to zero visibility from the reflections. We stopped for lunch, and took a silly amount of photos, taking advantage of the illusions created by the white expanse of salt and bright, cloudless blue sky.

Up close, you can see that the salt has dried in hexagonical shapes, and you could break free large chunks of salt, and lick them (if you wanted). We also stopped at some thermal pools, where chemicals (including lithium) bubbled to the surface. For those who have visited Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, you would notice the striking similarity (other than the salt, of course). There are "islands" in the middle of the salt flats and after many hours of driving, we stopped as Isla del Pescado (a.k.a. Isla Incahuasi), a cactus-covered island in the middle of the sea of salt. We wandered around the island, with it's many 1000+ year old cacti, and bizarre rock formations.

Mirages and illusions made the whole place seem surreal, and was easy to see how you could easily get lost in the desert, especially if the salt plains were flooded.

We spent the night at a Salt "Hotel" near San Juan; entirely carved out of blocks of salt (including the picnic tables, and beds). In these remote Bolivian communities, electricity is a rarity, and only available from 7:00 to 10:00pm. We were told that showering wasn't going to be an option during the 4-day tour, so when we were offered hot showers for 10BS (about $1.50... expensive for here) we leapt on the opportunity.

The next morning was Lisa's 23rd birthday. We woke up at 5:30, packed our bags and gear back on top of the jeep, and enjoyed white breakfast bundt cake, complete with a candle in the center! We left the salt flats (driving past many vicuna along the way) and the scenery changed remarkably.

There aren't any real roads through the Bolivian desert, but it was navigable by Jeep. We stopped in a remote community to buy some wine and snacks, and played a little football with the local kids.

We were very close to the Chilean and Argenitian borders at this point, and passed through a couple military community check points. Volcanoes, smaller salt flats, llamas and vicunas were regular sightings from the Jeep.

We stopped to observe one of the only active volcanoes in the region. If you look closely, you can see a small puff of smoke coming out the left side of the volcano below.

After being cramped up in the Jeep for hours, we felt some mid-morning stretches were necessary.

In the afternoon we saw many colorful lagoons: Laguna Canapa, Laguna Hedionda, Laguna Charcota, Laguna Honda, Laguna Ramaditas and Laguna Colorada.

Each lagoon was a unique color, and most were home to huge flocks of flamingos; one of the only species able to survive in the salty, inhospitable landscape. We saw three different species of flamingo.

In all, we probably spent about 8 or 10 hours in the Jeep, but with great company, great tunes, and great landscapes, the time flew by. Our last stop of the day was some seemingly out of place rock formations in the middle of the desert which were shaped by winds and blowing sand.

They provided some absolutely incredible bouldering (rock-climbing) opportunities and we all climbed around on the rocks for far longer than our driver and guide would probably have liked.

All in all, there were probably about 100 rocks formations, many as large as 2 or 3-story houses. The most famous of the rock formations was the Arbol de Piedra ("Tree of Rock").

That night we sipped wine, ate Bolivian food, and played cards... all while well bundled up at 4300 meters (quite chilly!). A pretty great way to spend a birthday!

On day 3, we woke up early again visisted geysers, thermal pools, and some natural hot springs (where we bravely took a dip at 7:00am). It stunk like sulphur, and the stinky mist covered us all.

After breakfast, it was a long day in Jeep, but the scenery was extraordinary, and we sang (much to the amusement of our guide and driver) pretty much the whole way (all the good stuff: Journey, Kelly Clarkson, good Canadian country, 90's one-hit wonders... too many to name).

The mountain range below is actually on the border between Bolivia and Chile.

Later in the day we stopped at Laguna Verde ("Green Lagoon"); one of the most famous lagoons in Bolivia. Unfortunately, it wasn't very green when we were there... apparently it changes throughout the day, depending on the sun. We had a good stretch, and made some rock towers instead.  

The volcano behind Laguna Verde is a popular climbing destination. It's steady grade makes it easier than other volcanoes in the region. With binoculars you could see people climbing in the distance. The climb takes 8 hours up, and 3 down (due to the high altitude.. over 6000 meters above sea level).

We got really lucky at one lagoon, and spotted vicuna and flamingos in the same area... perfect photo opportunity! The white in the background is salt.

The scenery changed once again as we lost elevation.

We stopped for lunch in a small community, and played soccer with the local kids. They were facinated by the camera, and enjoyed chatting to us (although we didn't understand everything they were saying). They were telling us they had "Yamitas" in the house... which we later found out were "Llamitas", a.k.a. baby llamas.

As the Jeep slowly crawled up the hill on the other side of the valley, we saw a large dust-devil/ mini tornado going dangerously close to the town soon after we left.

Our last stop of the day was a abandonned town. It was destroyed by the Spanish about 300 years ago, and most of the inhabitants moved down the valley to another small town (whose name we forget) where we ended up spending the night.

We saw many of these rabbit/chinchila-like creatures running around the ruins. We'll have to double check, but we believe they are called Viscachas. Later, we found them on a menu in Potosi and bravely ordered them in a spicy sauce. It was quite good, although a bit difficult to pick all the meat off the bones!

At our accomodations that night, we stayed in a bedroom so full of beds you could barely get around. You had choice between a rock hard bed, and one which was all springs and no padding. We were tired though, we slept fine. 

The woman whose house the accomodations were in was blind, but you'd never know it. She raised llamas and other animals (pictured below with our guide Archie).

On our very last day of the tour, we tried to see some wild ostrich, but were unsuccessful. Instead, our guide stopped at an abandoned copper mine and let us wander around (you'd NEVER get to do this in Canada). It was really interesting. The blue mineral in the rocks is the unrefined copper.  

We stopped in another small village for lunch, and some local children brought out a brand new baby goat for us to hold.

We saw a brand new baby llama and it's mother, and vultures soaring around looking for the afterbirth.

We began our descent into Tupiza, known as red-rock country due to the iron deposits. This is where Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid supposedly met their fate.

 

Below is the valley of the moon, just outside of Tupiza. Erosion created the spindly rock spires you can see below.

We ended our trip in Tupiza. Another great South American adventure! 

Chacaltaya Mountain

On our last day in La Paz we took a day trip up to Chacaltaya Mountain. Chacaltaya used to be a ski resort (the highest in the world, and the first in South America) but you can't ski there any more since the glacier began melting and was completely gone by 2009. We figured it would be one of our last chances to easily get above 5000 meters (we'd only been to about 4900 meters previously). We would take a bus part way up the mountain and then hike the remainder. The bus took us up thorugh La Paz, and El Alto, where the working class of La Paz mainly live.

That night, it had snowed in La Paz, making the narrow dirt road up the mountain even more challenging for the bus. On the way up to the mountain kids were making snow creatures.... we make snow men... they make snow llamas and snow rabbits!

  

The bus couldn't make it up to the base, but the driver was determined to try, and we ended up getting off the bus (along with everyone else) because the driver was pretty much backing up over the edge of the cliff to "get a run at" the next switchback. We started hiking at around 5000 meters, and were told we wouldn't have time to make it to the summit at 5300m, so we turned around at around 5150 meters. 150 meters doesn't sound like a lot but you move pretty slowly at this altitude, even if you are acclimatized.

We packed a lunch for ourselves, one which has kind of become our staple market lunch around here: buns, a can of tuna, a huge avocado, tomatoes, salt and pepper. Absolutely amazing, and all made possible by one handy swiss army knife (thanks Rob!).

We ended up waiting forever for half the group (including the guide) who decided (without notifying us) that they were going to try and summit the mountain anyways. We all got tired of waiting, and the bus driver made another attempt at trying to drive part way up, but we got off again because the driver was insane, and we didn't feel safe in the least. Here is a view of La Paz from El Alto on the way back down.

That night, Kayleigh, Russ and us took a night bus from La Paz to Uyuni to meet back up with Dewey (who headed down there a day earlier) for a 4-day salt flat & Bolivian desert tour which we had arranged from La Paz.  Keep posted, this next post might take awhile to get up because there are so many great pictures, and our internet connection is frightfully bad... we'll get it up as soon as we can!

A Canadian Thanksgiving in La Paz, Bolivia

We got into La Paz on the afternoon of October 9th, and enjoyed a fabulous llama curry dinner at The Star of India (suggestion thanks to Dewey). La Paz is the capital of Bolivia and one of the highest cities in the world at 3,660 meters above sea level. The views of the city coming down into the valley on the bus were amazing, and Dewey snagged a picture of this neat Che Guevara statue made from recycled metal parts (Che is extremely popular down here).

On the 10th, we scouted for ingredients, and spent the day relaxing at the hostel watching movies with our friends while it rained outside... some seriously needed down time (and the first real rainy day we've had since being in South America).

As many of you probably know, we (Jessie too!) started a pretty sweet tradition 5 years ago, and we were determined not to break it this year. Because we both went to school in Ontario, and it wasn't feasible to come home for Thanksgiving, we started to doing the full deal out East... turkey and all. We were pretty excited when we realized (months ago) that we'd be having Thanksgiving in South America. We made sure we'd be in La Paz a few days early, just to prepare. We scouted out the hostel with the best guest kitchen in La Paz (Adventure Brew Too) and invited a crew of fellow travellers to join the fun; Kayleigh, Russ, Dewey and Bjorn.  

It took us a few days to collect all the necessary ingredients from around La Paz. We were surprised we were able to find some ingredients, but were defeated by a few (turkey, pumpkin, cranberries). The pie crust was probably the biggest challenge. The chickens were an adventure in themselves; after giving up on the turkey hunt, we settled on two (rather orange colored?) chickens from a [unrefrigerated] pile at the market. They still had their heads on, and we made the guy cut them off for us. We figured if we cooked them really well it would all be OK... after all this is probably the same chicken we've been eating at restaurants for months. It will also go on the record at the most inexpensive Thanksgiving dinner of all time... thanks Bolivia!

We started the prep (and the party) around 2:00pm, but couldn't start cooking until about 4:00 because we ran out of propane only minutes after starting prep. We bought what we thought was pumpkin, but after cooking it up (and tasting it) decided pumpkin pie was not happening (despite a valiant effort), and made apple pie instead. It was a hilarious experience getting the whole meal prepared in a guest kitchen in Bolivia, but so so wort it.

Menu:

-2 whole roasted [and stuffed!] chickens

-Bread stuffing with herbs, bacon and onions

-Home-made gravy

-Green beans

-Mashed potatoes with cream and roasted garlic

-Roasted carrots with garlic and oregano

-Spiced spaghetti squash

-Apple pie with whipped cream

-Red and White Bolivian wine

We made everything from scratch, and everyone helped out. It was a blast.

The finished product (minus the pie):

(This is obviously Lisa's plate, so excuse the overload of vegetables and the chicken hiding in the back)

We played tacky 90's music, played cards, and enjoyed the food and wine.

From left, clockwise: Kayleigh (from Jersey, UK), Lisa, Russ (also from Jersey), Bjorn (from Germany), Alex & Dewey (from Idaho).

The next few days were spent getting Lisa's Med School application finished (!!), and wandering around La Paz. We were fortunate enough to happen upon the visitation of the emperor of Japan and the president of Bolivia. It took us forever to figure out what was going on (it was a huge deal) and we still aren't completely sure. Note: even the security guards were taking pictures of the situation.

Another common theme in central plaza's around South America: excessive pigeons, and people feeding them. These bowler hats are part of the traditional dress in Bolivia, but are totally bizarre because they rarely fit on the head's of the women wearing them.

Lake Titicaca: Puno, Uros, Taquille, Copacabana & Isla del Sol

First off, let us appologize for the very, very extended delay getting this blog post up. We have been keeping on top of the photos, but throughout Bolivia we haven't had wireless internet, which makes it exceedingly difficult to upload our blog posts.

Back to October 7th...

We took a day bus from Arequipa to Puno (we took the advice of our guide book and avoided taking a night bus across one of the most dangerous stretches of road in Peru). The bus putted along at an unbelievably slow pace, and we arrived in Puno several hours later than intended, and checked into hostal Q'oni Wasi; a bit of a dump, but it had very friendly staff, and an included breakfast. Fake wood paneling, a ridiculously huge run-down bathroom (with bidet and electric shower), and metalic and pink carpet accents. 

We'd heard that arranged tours of the islands of Lake Titicaca (the highest navigable lake in the world) tended to exploit the locals, and that you could do it yourself if you were up for the challenge, so we opted for that option. We woke up bright and early and headed for the docks, picking up some snacks along the way. At one fatefull fruit stand, we also picked up an unwanted creepy local man who tried (repeatedly) to convince us that the docks were, in fact, down various sketchy alleyways. We wisely ignored his advice, but he followed us (litterally, stepping on our heels), and told us he wasn't going away, so we headed for the other side of the street where we could see some policemen. We eventually lost him, but were soon surrounded by hundreds of people trying to sell us tours. We went straight for the government run ticket office and just bought a boat ticket. The tickets were cheap (~$2.50 each way, per person) but we probably could have swum faster than the boat, which took 3 hours to get to the island, 34km out into the lake.

We stopped first at Uros, the famous "floating" islands made from layers of buoyant totora reeds. It was an interesting site, but the authenticity had definitely been damaged by tourism. As our guide book put it, the islands have become shockingly commercialized, though there is still nothing quite like them anywhere else, and it was worth the trip.  The boat wouldn't start when we went to leave, but not to worry, the driver/ mechanic fiddled away at the engine until it would. If something doesn't work here, you just sit around until it does.

Next we continued on to Taquile island, where we had planned to spend the night. While the island had no hostels, we had heard that you could pay the locals for a "homestay". The elevation of the Lake is 3808 meters above sea level, and it was a strenuous climb to the top of the island. 

About half way up we realized that the local woman in front of us was "following" us (waiting whenever we stopped to catch our breath or take a picture). She didn't say anything, but kept this up for a good half hour until we reached the top, and then politely "herded" us to her restaurant. We were looking for food anyways, so we went with it. The food was good, althought we'd had just about enough of the island after 2 hours, so headed back to Puno for the night instead (much to the dissapointment of the woman who was hoping she had convinced us to stay with her for the night).  On the way back, the boat was twice as full and we got stuck sitting on top for the 3-hour journey. It was freezing cold, and we bundled up in all our clothes, and even our sleeping bags. Near the port, they made everyone cram (like sardines) into the cabin, because apparently it's not legal to ride on top of the boat.

Back in Puno, we decided to treat ourselved to one last Peruvian dinner for our last night in the country. We split two dishes; 1) alpaca tenderloin medallions stuffed with smoked lake trout in a red wine reduction
sauce with some sort of local berries and quinoa, and 2)  lamb with red wine sauce, apples and roasted baby potatoes. We also split a bizarre Peruvian variety of cheesecake for desert and had some local wine as well. The whole deal set us back a whopping $12 each... quite the treat. We then wandered around trying to find a postbox for our 6 un-mailed postcards... quite the task! We ended up asking some policemen who were just standing around chatting and he kindly took us under his wing and found us a post-box (hidden inside a corner store).

The next day we set off for the Bolivian border. No major hiccups, but we find it strange that you have to walk across the border. You go through Peruvian immigration, then customs, then walk down the road to Bolivia (past various street vendors) and do the same on the Bolivan side. No where do they ask to see your bags, or ask you any questions. We got our 30-day VISAs and continued on to Copacabana; a small sunny town with no ATM's, and the hub to Isla del Sol. We checked into a hotel (mostly just so we had somewhere to store our bags while on the island) and hurriedly caught a boat to Isla del Sol (4000 meters above sea level, and the birthplace of the sun in Inca Mythology). Because there were no ATM's in Copacabana, we showed up on the island with an absolute bare minimum of funds to get us through our stay there. 

We scoured the island for the cheapest accomodations, and settled on Hostal Puerta del Sol, right at the very top of the island, in the Yumani region. On the way up we ran into a discouraged couple (Kayleigh and Russ, from the UK) who were in the exact same monetary situation. They informed us that if you tried to walk around the island, the locals would stop you every 10 minutes and demand payment to walk on the paths. As such, they had spent all their accomodation money and had to head back to the mainland early. We also tried to walk around, but only made it past 1 "checkpoint". A little girl magically appeared and demanded payment for a photograph we took of her donkeys, and when we pretended to delete it, she demanded payment for walking on "private property" (which is clearly wasn't). We wouldn´t actually have minded paying if it was legitimate (which it wasn´t) and we had the money (but we didn´t).

Exceedingly frustrating, so we gave up on trying to walk around the island, and just lounged by the hostel and enjoyed the incredible view. We met some great people at the hostel, including our new friends Dewey and Sean. (If you keep reading this blog you will find out that we spend the next two weeks with Dewey, Russ and Kayleigh). We socialized and watched the sunset from our hostel, then headed into the bush (literally) to a highly recommended restaurant. 

 

The one-room wood shack restaurant was in the middle of the eucalyptus forest, over-looking the bay. The owner and his wife enthusiastically cooked us an incredible meal (handmade bread and all) by candlelight. We had fresh lake trout, quinoa, vegetables, bread and wine (of course) and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. We didn't have enough money, but Sean spotted us, and were able to enjoy yet another extraordinary $5 dinner. Everything in Bolivia has been extraordinarily inexpensive; about $4 per person per night for accomodation, and less than that for a great meal.  

The next day we headed back to Copacabana (again, we got stuck on top of the boat), and our new friends convinced us to head straight for La Paz instead of spending another night in Copacabana. Probably for the best, since we were out of money and it was getting close to Thanksgiving (needed to prep)! We ate a cheap but delicious trout lunch on the beach, and headed for the bus, where we ran into Kayleigh and Russ again. 

The 6 of us headed for the highly recommended Adventure Brew hostel in La Paz. At one point, we had to get off the bus, while the bus got on a very rudimentary "ferry" of sorts, and we took a shuttle boat across a narrow portion of the lake. Here is the ferry that the bus went on:

 

 

The ubiquitous election grafitti of Peru spilled across to the border into Bolivia as well. This was a pretty tipical sight along the shores of Lake Titicaca as we headed to La Paz.

Next post: A Canadian Thanksgiving in La Paz (up soon!).