The cross over the border to Bolivia has bought lots of bad food, but also some amazing sites. We caught the bus to Copacobana but infortunately couldn´t go on Lake Titicata as there were no ATMS in the town and the cash advance place was closed! So we spent a night doing pretty much nothing in the tiny town and scraped up enough Bolivianos to catch the local bus (we didn´t have enough for the nice tourist bus!) to La Paz. Here we also had a few difficulties with money as our card wouldn´t work in any ATMS....we hiked with our packs for about 1hr trying to find our hostel and finally landed in the Wild Rover for Paddy´s day. The Irish hostel proved to be a fun night for Paddys with lots of green and baby guiness shots all night!
Bolivia seem to be obsessed with deep frying, pizzas and chips on the side of every meal, so we have spent all our time looking for reasonable food with no luck... the people thanbkfully do not hassle you as much as in Peru, and there seems to be some sort of protest on every day with millions of police in their full army gear surrounding you!
We headed sth from La Paz to Uyuni and did a tour of Salar de Uyuni which is the largest and highest salt plains in the world. It was absolutely amazing, you stand in the middle and cannot see the edge of the lake its that big. Driving along on a 4 X 4 feels like you´re driving on snow. We stayed overnight on the edge of the lake where there are hostels made from salt block, tables, chairs, beds - you name it, all made from salt! It was surprisingly comfortable sleeping on a salt bed and wasn´t as cold as we had been warned about. The bus ride to Uyuni from La Paz was pretty horrendous - we took the overnight bus that was supposed to take 12 hrs, however due to a tyre blow out (i´m not surpised considering it was 12hrs of corrugations!) it took a little longer than expected... overall it was an amazing trip and is definately worth the journey.
From La Paz we decided to fly to Rurrenabaque in the North to go to the jungle for a few days. We caught the 12 seater plane up in 35mins - any longer and we may have been a little claustrophobic as there were only window seats and you couldn´´t stand up. The whole flight we were staring at the pilot! But from all reports, it definately beats the 17hr bus ride to Rurrenabaque from La Paz where they lose a couple of bus loads a year over the edge of the horrific roads.
We completed a 3 dat pampas tour which was amazing. This involved driving for 3hrs over yet another bad road (this one was really bad!!) fro 3hrs in a squishy van in the humidity and heat we´re not yet used to. Once we arrived at the river we went down the river for a few hours looking for local wildlife and animals. Unforunately as it is the end of the wet season, the water is a bit too high for most things, but we say some turtles, lots of birds, and some monkeys. We arrived at our camping area where we got the mosquito nets organised, and set off for a night ride on the boat to look for aligators... we saw lots of eyes and our guide grabbed a baby one out of the water for us to play with. There is a local alligator at the camp site which comes pretty close when you offer it food which was pretty amazing. The next day we were in search of anacondas. So we set off in gumboots and our long shirts in the stinking hot sun for a few hrs wading through thigh deep water hoping to see one. Unforunately no anacondas, just 7 tired people! That afternoon we were able to swim in the river with pink dolphins who liked to bite peoples feet! THe next day we got up for an early sunrise over the rive which was beautiful, then set off to catch some pirahnas. Surprisingly we all caught a few except poor old Tim. We even ate them for lunch, but considering the size there were´nt much meat on them and they looked pretty revolting after being deep fried whole!
So now we are back in Rurrenabaque and catching the plane back to La Paz today. We´ll stay for a night or to and do the Road of Death on a Mt bike, and visit Copacobana again to stay on Isle Del Sol (this time with some cash!). Then we´ll head sth towards Argentina for Salta, Cordoba,Iquazu, BA. THen the coast of Uruaguay and Brazil.. We were going to head to central america as we have the time, however the flights are atrociously expensive and it would put too much of a hole in our budget!! Next time hey.
