Posts By Laura
Photo of the Day: Bye bye Bolivia, it’s been a blast
Adventures in the Amazon!
Another tick for the bucket list- we’ve conquered the Amazon jungle and it was FANTASTIC (well, for me anyway.)
On Thursday morning we took a very scenic flight from La Paz to Rurrenebaque- if we’d taken the bus it would probably have taken over 20 hours on unpaved roads- no thanks. From there it was on to a lovely hotel with views not unlike those on the Mekong Delta and a pool. So nice. Bright and early the next day off we went on a 5 hour boat ride up river to a wonderful place called Chalalan Lodge. The ride itself was great- amazing views the whole way and we were sat at the very front so had uninterrupted views:
Chalalan Lodge is a community owned and run model for eco tourism, set deep in the Madiri National Park, one of the most bio diverse places in the world. It was set up 20 years ago to encourage community sustainability and educate tourists on the need to protect the park (it’s a pretty big area- over 19,000 sq km.) Although Chalalan does cost more than the privately owned resorts, 50% of the profits go directly to the community so that they don’t need to hunt and cut down trees in order to earn money. It has a capacity of only 30 people although when we were there there were only about 10 of us, which was really nice as it wasn’t crowded. We stayed in a ‘luxury’ cabin (see below for the jungle version of luxury) with lovely hammocks to lie in during the afternoons when it was too hot to go out.
It’s always an early start followed by a 3 or 4 hour ( very hot and very sweaty) trail. After lunch it was time for a siesta and then around 3.30, it was out again for either another trail or a canoe ride to see cayman (a cross between an alligator and crocodile,) monkeys swinging through the trees or amazingly weird looking birds. After dinner, it was back out again in the pitch black on a night hike to see a completely different side to the jungle- huge spiders, deadly frogs, freaky looking insects, pirhanas and more monkeys (there were many many kinds.) Sam was not a fan of the night hikes- it turns out that he and the jungle are not destined to be friends.
The trails were awesome- we learnt so much from our fantastic guide, Ronny. He grew up in the community which runs Chalalan and seemed to know absolutely everything about the Amazon. He could recognise every kind of animal, bird or insect from listening to it from far away (when we couldn’t even hear the sound.) Ronny showed us all of the different types of trees used to make traditional medicine and could spot poisonous spiders from about 20m away.
Accidentally scaring a jungle turtle
Hello little monkey
Cayman cruising on by
Super sweaty trail walking
Now onto the bullet ants and big brave Sam.
Think of an ant, x it by 10 and add a massive venomous sting. This is what stung Sam on his foot as he stepped out a hammock. I’ve only seen him in pain like that once before, in Bali when he slammed a bit wooden gate onto his fingers. Sam described his foot as being both on fire and broken simultaneously. It took 5 hours for the pain to subside and the staff were on the verge of giving him snake venom antidote to try and help, after all of the traditional medicines and painkillers did nothing to help. We found out afterwards that usually the sting from a bullet ant can make your whole foot swell and the pain normally lasts 24 hours. Ouch.
Model pose- before the bullet ant incident
So, although not such a successful trip for Sam, I absolutely loved the Amazon jungle and would go back again tomorrow if I could. Even the mosquitoes (of which there were many,) could not dampen my spirits!
Lake full of cayman and pirhanas
So, that’s Bolivia done and dusted. At times it’s been challenging as we’ve been so tired but overall it has been a fantastic country to visit and we’d encourage anyone to go. Although still very much a developing country and having terrible wifi, it’s got so much going for it- from stunning architecture in Sucre, to the wonders of the the salar and the amazing diversity of the jungle.
Due to family circumstances, we’ve had to put our Peru and Ecuador plans on hold and return to the UK. We hope to resume soon as we have so much we still want to see but for the moment we won’t be updating the blog.
So for now, it’s bye from us!
Up in the mountains- Potosi, the highest city in the world.
NB: This was written about a week ago- but internet in Bolivia is almost as bad as in NZ so takes forever to do anything!
Here we are in Potosi, the highest city in the world. It sits at about 4300m above sea level and we thought we’d really feel the altitude but I think, because we’ve been at high altitude for over a month now, our bodies have adapted. That’s not to say we’re not struggling sometimes, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was when we got to Cusco or climbed the volcano in Chile.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ve been in Sucre for about a week, relaxing and not doing a lot. That’s not to say we didn’t do anything- we went to see the world’s largest collection of dinosaur footprints, which was amazing. We also visited Tarabuco, famous for its textile market (stay tuned for photos of my new alpaca wool jumper. It’s so stylish.) We ate some fantastic meals here too- amazing steaks and super strength red wine, yum yum. However, by the last day in Sucre, we were definitely ready to move on and headed 3 hours up through the mountains to Potosi.
Jaunty safety helmet required to view dangerous dino footprints.
Tarabuco textiles
Potosi is famous for its silver mining- hundreds of years ago, over 80% of all of the silver in the world came from here and men still mine it today in Cerro Ricco. It’s really dangerous and reportedly has horrendous working conditions, but over 20,000 still go everyday to mine. There are tours you can do but with my claustrophobic tendencies, we decided it would be a waste of money for us. Instead, we went to Casa de Moneda (the money house) to learn about Potosi’s rich history of coin production. Interesting fact: Due to the volume of silver from Cerro Ricco, money from Potosi was exported to Spain and then around the world. That’s right, I paid attention.
Cerro Ricco
We were able to snag a visit to the cathedral when it was empty so we got to explore on our own- it was really cool to go up to the bell tower and see out across Potosi- it’s another UNESCO heritage site and as such, the buildings, for the most part, have been preserved so it’s beautiful to look out over.
We’ve managed to score ourselves anther great Airbnb apartment so we could cook- this was great until we realised Potosi doesn’t have the best supermarkets and we kind of had to scramble meals together (resulting in a very grumpy Sam last night.) It’s really polluted here- like a smaller version of La Paz and so to counteract it, we headed away from town, into the mountains to find some Lagunas. It was so beautiful up there and apart from the hundreds of alpacas roaming around, was deserted. It felt so good to be hiking again although we’re both suffering now.
Tomorrow we’re on the move again, 7 hours down the road to Tupiza for (hopefully) just an overnight stay so we can book our Salar de Uyuni trip from there. Then it’s 4 days over salt flats to the steam train graveyard (guess who’s excited about this) followed by an overnight bus to La Paz (unavoidable) and then flying on down to the Amazon for 4 days of adventure in Anaconda Central, yippee! (My mum is not happy about this at all. Helpfully, Dad keeps referencing anaconda films and all the things that could happen during Skype calls. Mum is not taking this well.) We only have a 30 day visa for Bolivia so we need to be out and back into Peru by the 12th April- extending our visa seems to involve a lot of faffing at the embassy so we want to avoid that if we can.
Well, hello there Sucre. We’ve been looking forward to you.
At the Copa, Copacabana…..
View from Cerro Calvario- a punishing walk up at an already high altitude of 3800m.
After a couple of weeks in Peru, we’ve (temporarily) left to zoom on over in Bolivia. First stop was Copacabana- no, not the Copacabana from Barry Manilow fame, but rather a small backpacker hangout 9km over the border. This felt more like SE Asia than anywhere we’ve been so far (apart from actual SE Asia.) Lots of 21 year olds (“oh my god, I was literally so wasted last night. I just have so much love to give when I drink.” Get a grip. Wake up. Stop irritating the rest of us. Noone cares.) There were loads of terrace cafes, average Mexican food, exceptional pizza and good vibes, as well as beautiful coast lines such as this:
Copacabana sits on the other side of Lake Titicaca, which is where we were when we went to the floating islands last week. This lake is so big that it’s shared between Peru and Bolivia. The water was gorgeously clean although very very cold.
The main reason we stopped in Copacabana was to visit Isla del Sol- described by many people we’ve met as a ‘must do.’ Like the Inca trail, it did not disappoint.
We took an incredibly badly organised but cheap boat out to the island, which sits 2.5 hours out into Lake Titicaca. From here, we hiked around 5 hours from north to south via another Inca trail and were treated to views like this pretty much everywhere we looked:
I know, I know, I look so stylish.
In hindsight, we should have stayed over on the island as there were some lovely looking hostals but due to our poor planning, we were unable to cancel our hostal booking back in Copacabanaa (a very very nice little place that was only $25 a night inc breakfast. My, how we’ve changed!) We’ve got to pass back through Copacabana when we go back to Peru so we might come back to the island again and stay.
After a couple of lovely days, it was time to catch the bus to La Paz, the de facto capital of Bolivia. After about an hour on the bus, we were told to get off so that we could cross the lake in a speedboat whilst our bus went on this:
Hhhm, safe.
It wasn’t until we were on the speedboat that I realised all of our luggage was on the bus. I could see this also dawning on other people.
Nothing could have prepared us for La Paz. It’s been about 8 weeks since we were in a busy city and we’d somehow forgotten what they were like. La Paz is BUSY. To me, it’s on a par with Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam although Sam doesn’t think it’s as bad. Luckily, we’re staying in a really nice leafy part, called Sopocachi- a mostly residential area with nice cafes and AN ACTUAL SUPERMARKET (at this point in the trip, we actually miss ParknShop in HK.) We found an amazing Airbnb, which Sam is in love with. It’s a 3 bedroom apartment with so much light, a welcome basket, A WASHING MACHINE (unheard of) and a gorgeous terrace. All this for only $35 a night. Bargain!
Right now, that’s one of my only positive impressions of La Paz. We walked for hours and hours yesterday exploring the city, only to find it was dirty, polluted and crazy busy. Some friends had recommended a walking tour so we joined that in the afternoon and, in fairness, there are some interesting parts such as the witches market (dried Llama foetus anyone?) but overall we just weren’t impressed and actually left the tour early. We didn’t even take any photos- this NEVER happens. Even in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, we took a few (read our post to find out the striking impression it left on us.)
Today we’re going to take a cable car and explore the area we’re staying in- there’s no way I’m going back into the craziness of the centre. Tomorrow it’s (thankfully) out of La Paz into the mountains to stay in a teepee for a couple of days before we head down to Sucre for RELAX time!
Some great news- USA is booked! 6 weeks of adventure to finish our trip in style- NY (with the Dixons in tow to hopefully treat us to some nice meals- hint hint Mum and Dad,) Washington DC to catch up with some lovely people we’ve met over the past few years of travels, New Orleans, Santa Monica and San Fran! Yippee!
Following the Inca trail into Bolivia….
Getting into the spirit of all things Peruvian
