We entered Bolivia at Copacabana on the shore of Lake
Titicaca. The bolivian border control was pretty lax. It was just a small
little room with posters of naked women on the walls. The customs guy who
otherwise seemed pretty bored got really excited when he saw Dusks NZ passport
and yelled out Kiwis! Which is a bit strange as I’m sure he sees a few of us,
there were at least 2 others on our bus.
Copacabana is a pretty sleepy little place except for about
30 min around midday when tourist buses from Peru and La Paz turn up. We wanted
to send some post cards and souvenirs home so got everything ready and headed
down to the post office only to find a sign on the window that said; “run out
of stamps – go to La Paz” (La Paz is a 3 hour drive away). We had a really good
meal at the Hotel Rosario the first night in Bolivia but after that the food
wasn’t great. The next night Dusk had cannelloni which came out as a plate of
melted cheese and not much else and was sick for the next 3 days or more.
From Copacabana we headed to La Paz mainly to get some money,
as outside the major cities it is impossible to get cash in Bolivia. Dusk spent
most of the 2 days there in bed trying to get better. I spent it running around
the city booking tours, flights and going to the post office (which is an
absolute haven of tranquillity in the madness of La Paz).
Some people we had meet in Peru told us about a 5 day bike
and boat trip from Sorata high in the Andes to Rurrenabeque right down at the
edge of the Amazon which sounded really good so we decided to do it. Getting to
Sorata wasn’t very comfortable as the only way there was to squeeze into a van
with a pile of locals for 4 hours. The bike trip started in even less comfort with
9 of us squeezing into the back of a Landcruiser for a bumpy 2 hour drive up to
a 4500 m pass. The first part of the mountain biking was pretty full on with steep
roads, loose rocks and sharp bends. We needed the full suspension downhill
bikes and all the protective equipment they gave us. There were 5 guys and 3
girls on the trip. The girls decided to sit out the first bit and ride in the
Landcruiser – all the guys had done a lot of biking before and so went for it. Surprisingly
given the speed we were going and the conditions only Pablo from Spain crashed
but he was fine.
Once the road improved a bit the girls joined us on the
bikes. After about an hour of riding we were waiting on a corner for the last
Belgium girl when the guide turned up and said “and then there were 7”. The
poor girl had fallen off and probably broken her leg – we never heard for sure.
Fortunately the little village we were near had a brand new hospital but she
still had to face an 8 hour ambulance ride back to La Paz. As her friend went
with her Dusk was the only girl left on the trip, the 2 guides and driver were
all male. In hindsight the operators probably shouldn’t have let the Belgium
girls go as they had never been on bikes with gears or hand brakes before let
alone a downhill bike.
The rest of the riding went without problem, although Pablo
did have another spectacular crash where he fell off a cliff but again was fine
and I had one hairy moment when a dog chased a group of pigs onto the road in
front of me but I just managed to avoid them all. We dropped almost 4000 m and
travelled 120 km over the 2 days including about 20 km of rolling uphill. I
really enjoyed the biking but Dusk wasn’t as keen especially as she felt she
was holding us up after the other 2 girls left.
We finished the biking in Mapiri which is a real wild west
town. Dirt streets, saloons, miners, dusty and hot. We decided we wanted ice
creams but randomly the only place we found selling ice creams was the dealers
that bought gold off the miners. It must have looked a bit suspect when 5 big
foreign guys (Bolivians are all small) walked into the little office.
The next 3 days were pretty easy just sitting back in the
river boat, camping, jungle walks, swimming under waterfalls, trying to buy ice
creams at any of the little villages we came to and generally trying to keep
cool. We had planned to do a Pampas tour out off Rurrenabeque but we were a bit
over the heat and didn’t really feel like going on another trip straight away
either so just decided to go straight back to La Paz. The flight from
Rurrenabeque to La Paz is only is in a small 20 seater plane and only takes
45min but you basically climb all the way. We were very close to the ground and
the plane was bouncing all over the place as we scraped through a pass in the
Andes with mountains on either side and descended to land at the plane
graveyard that is La Paz airport.
Bolivia is a pretty crazy country in general but driving there
is really crazy.
·
Seatbelts are optional extras.
·
Headlights are optional extras and even if
fitted are for some unknown reason rarely used even when pitch dark.
·
If your roof hasn’t caved in you can still load
more cargo onto it.
·
Pedestrians are fair game unless they are being
assisted by people in zebra suits. (no kidding)
·
If your vehicle comes fitted with seatbelts
remove them and replace with a picture of Jesus sellotaped to the dashboard.
·
If someone hasn’t been squeezed out the side
window of your collectivo (minivan taxi) you can still pick up more passengers.
·
Tyres are good until they blowout.
·
You must not let anyone overtake you. If someone
is in front of you, you must overtake them. Hence the battle begins.
·
Traffic lights are only obeyed if they are
patrolled by a policeman with a gun.
We had a spare day in La Paz before heading south to Uyuni.
I decided I wanted to go mountain biking again – this time on the “Death Road”
from La Paz to Coroico. The UN labelled it the “Death Road” as it used to have
the highest number of deaths for any stretch of road in the world but this was
when it was a lot busier before the new road was built. Now there are far more
tourists riding bikes down it than vehicles driving it so it is relatively
safe. (18 tourists have died riding down it though) I didn’t find it
particularly bad and not as scary as some of the roads we went on in Peru or
around Sorata but still had a lot of fun riding from the top of the Andes to
the Jungle again.
At the bottom we visited an animal refuge which had lots of
different animals mostly just wandering around the grounds. One of the spider
monkeys took a liking to me a climbed up my arm onto my head. I was a little
concerned about having a full grown monkey on my head but the volunteer didn’t
seem worried. Then one of the other tourists reached out to grab my camera
frightening the monkey which then fell off and started shrieking at me I assume
because it thought it was all my fault.
The saga of my sunglasses. I lost my good sunglasses in Mapiri just after we finished the biking. I'm not sure if I just left them somewhere or they just walked off but definitely gone. I figured I'd just buy some cheap ones (Bolivia only has cheap sunnies) to do me till I got to Chile/Argentina. I found some just down river in Guanay but they didnt last long as I left them in the tent when it got folded up. The next pair were bought in Rurrenabeque but broke within a couple of days. The forth pair I got the morning before the salt flats tour and had broken by the following morning. They got patched up with Duct tape as they were necessary for the trip. I finally found some reasonable ones in Salta which have lasted so far. Dusk got pretty sick of looking for sunnies.
The train to Uyuni was surprisingly good if a bit rocky and
from what we’ve heard a much better option than the bus. From Uyuni we joined a
3 day 4WD tour to the salt flats and volcanic region of south west Bolivia
ending at the border with Chile. The 4WD tours are notoriously bad so we’d
checked out a few operators and chosen one that had only a few bad reviews.
(None have no bad reviews) After sitting on the side of the road all morning
watching other tour groups leave our jeep finally turned up. In the end our
jeep and driver weren’t too bad – at least better than the group that had a
drunk driver or another group that broke down and were stranded for a day. The
scenery on the tour is spectacular though and well worth the uncomfort of being
squeezed into a jeep for 3 days.
At the end of the tour we were dumped at a remote, windy
border post with Chile high in the Andes. We had already cleared immigration in
Uyuni 3 days earlier so there was nothing to do but sit around, try to keep
warm and hope our connection to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile turned up.
Thats Bolivia.
