Bolivia

Copacabana

Our bus pulled into the little town of Copacabana, right by Lake Titicaca again. This was after a funny little boat journey across the lake with our bus rocking back and forth on a raft. Our time was now reasonably limited as we had only just over two weeks to see Bolivia and Northern Chile before we had to take our flight to Patagonia.




Rocky crossing

We ended up staying three nights in total. Although room prices were the same as in Peru, it seems you get a lot more bang for your buck, not least including non-mouldy walls. The TV also helped (when we could find a channel that was in English).

The first day we took it easy and just popped out for lunch. There were so many choices, with menu del dia boards displaying what was on offer. We eventually settled (Luke would say I settled) on a restaurant that was medium priced and ordered. We both ordered the mushroom soup and then the fish for seconds, Luke the pasta.

The soup was probably a good indication of how the rest of the meal was going to go. She served us packet soup (or what seemed like half of it, being so runny). Most places serve these hearty homemade soups, that being the point of the day menus is that they’re cheap to make and will all go. But packet soup it was. We drank that…and then our mains came. Overcooked sticky cold rick and raw chips for me. And Luke’s plate was not a tomato pasta, but cold salty noodles with a spoonful of ketchup on them! He even asked if he could have some more salsa, and the woman just walked off. Well, we all make mistakes…or as Luke pointed out, I made that mistake!!




Little donkey

 

We eventually went out to Isla del Sol on one of our days there. We decided to book a return boat to the North of the Island. On our boat, we bumped into two Irish girls we had met in Lima, and a couple from London we had met a couple times in Ecuador. We got to talking with this couple mostly- Robert an investment Banker and Chloe a junior doctor working in delivering babies that was tired of the NHS. She explained to us their lack of staffing, putting babies in danger, and the cutbacks they’re trying to make- a third of the current pay. She said it’s made her want to quit her profession and go into the world of pharmaceuticals. Such a shame!




Island sales




Stunning views off the island

We eventually got to the island after a couple hours and paid our £1 to walk an hour to the ruins. It was like the Mediterranean- beautiful waters, these golden hills and a lovely cliff top walk. We saw the ruins, which at the end of the day weren’t that exciting and stopped for lunch. But because our boat was a little late in setting off, we didn’t have much time before we had to head back. I’ve never seen a full circle rainbow around the sun before, and I think it was to do with the altitude and also the apparently thin ozone layer up here. It was beautiful nonetheless, but enough of burning my corneas.




Ruins on the island




Your everyday bag for everyday needs

Our boat took us back to the mainland, with our driver hoping we would all say no to visiting the floating islands, but we were all keen. Unfortunately it was more touristyy than Peru! It was just one little ‘floating island’ which was not made out of reeds, but planks of wood and barrels with reeds thrown over for effect. Nobody lived there, despite the huts they had made, just for show. It was technically a restaurant on water, where you could pick your fish from the little farm they had there. A bit of a disappointment if I’m being honest. Glad we visited the floating islands in Peru!

We had a better meal that night…rule number one, always follow the locals! Unfortunately I was starting to develop my first cold this year…yes I survived until September, but I think a mixture of the altitude, hot daytime weather to freezing temperatures at night, on top of the dust was getting to me!




Rotten fruit lady

 

The next morning, before our bus to La Paz, we decided to take a canoe out onto the lake. It was beautiful and the water was so calm. Can’t say I rowed much owing to the heavy wooden paddles and my lack of energy from my cold. But I enjoyed the view, whilst my minion took us through the waters.

Our bus took us further along the lake until we came to a crossing…a very windy crossing. Whilst everyone got off and paid 20p to take a motorboat across the water, our coach looked a little like it was about to sink. Loaded onto a float which swayed back and forth on the water, you could see why everyone had to get off beforehand. It took quite a while to reach us from the other side, but luckily the mayor from La Paz had come to the little village we were waiting at, whilst a good 20 marching bands were each performing from him. We laughed at a band who had clearly taken inspiration from our Queen’s guard, wearing the fluffy hats, but in red, and were not all pleased with their leader’s choice! Our bus finally reached us and we jumped on before being swept away by the wind.

La Paz

We arrived at the bus station in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. After a short walk, we found a cheap hostel and settled in, settling in like my cold. Thanks to the altitude, I could barely breath with these combined, but it seemed like a lot of people we met were getting sick. Where was this sun that South America promised???

We eventually stumbled across a pizza joint which Luke took full advantage of…without the most important ingredient of course…cheese! But over the next few days we found a veggie place that did an incredible buffet and soup. So many veggies, it must have been Bolivia’s full yearly veg allowance considering all the other restaurants looked at us like we were crazy every time we asked for veg!


SO MUCH STUFF

We spent a good four nights here, getting to know the town pretty well. The temperature was dropping the further south we were travelling, so it was time to invest in a jacket…a copy of course!

We both found Colombia jackets, ready for the cold and windy weather Patagonia was going to bring. And of course we hit the tourist shops full of all sorts of knitwear, making deals in every shop. I think we bought enough gloves, scarves and hats to last us several winters.

One woman’s shop we had been in and out of a few times, having bought something already. When Luke was trying to decide whether he should buy a scarf from her or next door, she eventually said, ‘Don’t come back. You’re coming and going so much you’re making me suspicious.’ Did she really think we were going to steal something?

On one day a man came up to us showing us something. Us thinking he was trying to sell it to us, we quickly said no, but Luke soon realised he was trying to get us to tell him what it was he was holding. It turned out to be an energy gel, a banana and strawberry one. He asked us if he should consume it or use it as a shampoo!! ‘Eat it,’ we said, ‘it will make you strong…for a while anyway.’ He thanked us and went on his way. It seemed everyone around us were popping out of nowhere with different samples of stuff and little shopping bags. We eventually stumbled across this massive street fair that was on. People were selling little trinkets, food, giving out samples and university students with stalls showing us what they’d learnt, with a lot of impressive work in electronics.

We came a across a baking stall, claiming that their food was really healthy. We were expecting them to say something like- no sugar, low fat butter or some new super food we hadn’t heard of. Everyone wants someone to say to them ‘cakes are healthy.’ But no, it wasn’t as surprising as that in the end. The carrot cake had….carrot in it. The almond biscuits had…almond in them. The peanut butter cookies had…peanut in them. All healthy they assured us. I wish I could convince myself that the sugary, buttery, eggy cake I was eating was good for me! Sorry guys, you didn’t win me over, but I’ll still be eating cake…I just know it’s not good for me…but it is...

We checked out a few museums, but the lack of signs in them made it hard to see any relevance in them. There were some amazing dolls and scenes displayed with little puppets, but not much of a description of what they were about. There was also a small gold museum, but absolutely no signs anywhere. It was a shame, but nice to have a look around anyway. All four museums were down a cute, colourful alleyway with cobbled streets, which made a change from the uneven, dodgy paved roads that covered La Paz. In the short time we were there, we had seen a lady trip over whilst crossing the road, and another led by some women who had smacked her face on the pavement and was bleeding from her nose and mouth, with a bruised head. Poor lady!




La Paz views

 

There were telefericos in the city, essentially cable cars that lead up to these viewpoints. La Paz looked set in a valley, but it covered the hills as well, and there were brilliant views from the top once we got in. There were snow-capped mountains in the background from several different sides of the city. It was beautiful, and all the colours of the buildings in the city looked amazing against the backdrop.




Up, up and away in La Paz

 

We eventually decided to move on from this city, not having expected to like it much, like most big towns you come across on your travels, you just expect it to be dirty and crowded and a bit unsafe. But for a big city, it was lovely to have explored and we were sad to be leaving.

Having got a bit lucky with our bus, we managed to get these comfy cama (bed) seats for nearly half price of the other companies. We appreciated it, as it was a twelve hour overnight bus.

Uyuni

We arrived at Uyuni early in the morning for the salt flats. With Luke having done a three day tour several years ago, and my cold not yet gone, we were reluctant to hit temperatures below freezing at night in these cold hostels they put you up in.

We decided to just do the one day tour, but were knackered so decided to do it the day after instead of rush off within the hour. We scouted out the best deal for the one day tour. Most were asking for 160 bolivars (£16), but as we were walking out of a shop, another lady rushed up to us and said she could do it for 100 bolivars. Well she said she was called Fatima and led us to her own office tucked in the back of the street next to a hostel. It was one of those things where we thought…is this too good to be true? But she issued us with a proper receipt and she did have her own office, so we thought, why not???

The next morning we got breakfast from the same toothless lady at our usual stall. Coffee and a couple pieces of plain bread for 40p. Can’t argue with that? She even gave us her best smile J

After that, we headed to Fatima’s agency for 10.30am, bumping into her on the way. She seemed in a rush, but just said to wait there. Her place was locked up, so we just sat outside. And waited, and waited. At 10.50am, we started to worry and Luke went to ask the group of women trying to sell their company’s tours at the end of the street if they knew Fatima and where she was. They all started laughing!! Oh dear, that can’t be good. They said she apparently disappears a lot! And we asked the woman at the hostel next to her office where she was and the woman shrugged and said she’s not a proper agency, and not very legit! Oh dear…what have we done. It got to 11am and Luke and I were wandering the street looking for her. She had a distinct boil on the end of her nose so hard to miss. Luke was trying to call her from some French guy’s phone when all of a sudden this jeep pulled up, and the women Luke had spoken to early said that it was for Fatima’s group. So I grabbed Luke, and we bumped into the mysterious women herself. We jumped in the jeep and relaxed a little. There was an Aussie guy, a girl from Yorkshire, two Brazilians and a Spanish girl – we couldn’t all be being conned!

There’s always stories about these trips that your driver is so drunk that there are several deaths each year. Bearing in mind there isn’t any traffic and no cliffs or anything…just driving straight across the salt. The Lonely Planet even says you should ask your driver to stop drinking if he starts up!

Luckily for us, our driver was young and cautious. I think because we were on a one day tour rather than three, he wasn’t in a rush as knew he’d have to stay out for sunset anyway. He was really sweet and friendly, and our day turned out to be pretty good.

He first took us to the train cemetery, you got it…where trains come to die. It was pretty cool, as we all climbed on all these rusty old things in the desert. Most of them just old shells now.




Train graveyard




Swing swing on the train set

We moved on to the salt flats. They weren’t very white at this point, and the driver was quick to point out that the salt gathered into small piles on a few foot high were not natural believe it or not, but man made! Shock horror.




Salt flats

 

The jeep moved on to take us to lunch, which was pretty decent and they catered to our veggie needs. The Yorkshire girl reminded me of three people – her accent like my old housemate Hayley, her humour like the unforgettable Beth, and she looked like my mate Kelly. I just wanted to hug her forever…but I resisted for fear of odd looks and an awkward car journey!




Anybody want some salt?

I had been thinking for a couple of months now that I should have been creating a Mummy photo album this whole year. On my journey there have been a lot of short, dark skinned, short haired women resembling my mummy. I had thought about trying to get a picture of each of them with me…but I think I left it too long and have missed out on some goodies. Plus some probably awkward turtle moments have been missed from asking them!!

We headed on to even whiter salt flats, feeling it crunch as we drove over them. The puddles that had dried up have made these amazing patterns on the surface. It’s a shame there’s no water on them at the moment as they made the most incredible reflections.




Beautiful coloured volcanoes

When you look into the distance it almost looks like the mountains, hills and volcanos are floating. After stopping for a few pictures, we headed to this beautifully coloured volcano where a few flamingos fed at the bottom. It was stunning and the flamingos were a bright pink with a beautiful reflection on the water they waded through.



Flamingos on the salt flats

After dropping off the Spanish girl and the two Brazilians, who were on a two day tour, we headed to an island that was unique in the salt flats for being covered in cactuses. It was ridiculously windy, but we managed to clamber to the top and take in the amazing view of salt flats surrounding us.




Cactus island!




Random, but stunning

We were going to watch the sunset but the Aussie and Yorkshire lass had booked a bus for just after and had been told by the woman they booked with that they’d be back on time. Shame to miss it, but as Luke said, ‘I think there’s a sunset each day, we’ll catch the next one.’

Hungry and cold, we quickly searched for food and stumbled through a night market selling all sorts of things set up for just that evening.

We had an early bus the next morning, a 4am start, so an early bedtime it was. The bus was to Calama in Chile. It was meant to arrive in Calama at 1pm and we were told there were usually 3 buses after then from most companies that headed to San Pedro de Atacama, where we were to couchsurf at a girl called Mariana’s place, with her boyfriend Sebastian.

Well, we got to the Bolivian border at 7.30am. Border doesn’t open till 8am, and we had to wait for the first coach load of people to pass through immigration first. When we eventually did, the officer asked us for 15 bolivars each. We had asked the immigration office in Uyuni if we had to pay anything and he had said no. So we knew this was just going into his pocket. We stood our ground and said we were told we didn’t have to pay anything to leave. He tried to tell us that our bit of paper for entry had a stamp on it that had been scribbled on it to say it was cancelled…to which we said, ‘that clearly says 30 days.’ He eventually gave up arguing and stamped us through, not even looking at my passport picture! Good job Mr!! More training in corruption than security here I see? He was charging all the locals 15 each too, but not one argued. I just think they’re oblivious.

So 9am and that was Bolivia done, and we were due to arrive in Calama in Chile at 1pm, or so we thought…



Cars look like they're floating