After Easter Island, we travel from Santiago de Chile to the north of Chile to cross the border to Bolivia.
When we arrived in Santiago the 5th of August in the evening, we changed our original plans a bit. Instead of spending another day in the city of Santiago, we went by bus to the bus terminal where we bought tickets to go to Arica that same evening. Although the guidebooks told us that it would take about 28 hrs, it finally took us 31 hrs!
We arrived in Arica the 7th of August at 7 in the morning. We ignored all the cab drivers who were asking us if we wanted to go to Peru, Bolivia or the city center, and took a city bus to downtown. We found a nice hotel, where we could immediately sit down to have breakfast before going to our room. We first slept for a couple of hours before going to explore the town.
Although our Lonely Planet called Arica a really popular beach-resort, when walking through it we wouldnīt call it one ourselves. The first nice beach however is at least 1 to 2 km south or north of the city. But it is probably still close enough to call it a beach-town. The city has also has a few nice old buildings and also some nicely created parks and squares, but that is about it. The rest of the town looks actually a bit shabby. There were also not a lot of gringoīs around, so we didn't feel at ease right away.
We used Tuesday and Wednesday to update our website, check our e-mails and do our finances. When we needed a break from all the computer-stuff we went to a restaurant near the coastline where they served great schopps (0.5 ltr) for less than a Euro!
La Paz
We left for la Paz - Bolivia on Thursday morning the tenth of August. We had hoped to arrive in Bolivia in the afternoon but the bus-drive took somewhat longer than expected (10 hrs!), so we finally arrived early at night. First thing we did when coming of the bus was getting some Bolivianos from an ATM machine inside the terminal building. Since we didnīt know the exchange rate we decided to get 200 Bolivianos. A few minutes later we learnt from a French couple that we had in fact taken EUR 20,- from the machine! We initially thought that it wouldnīt take us very far, but later learnt that it can easily get you through the day!
Before coming to Bolivia we had heard that La Paz is not the safest place to walk around with all of your luggage, so we were a bit anxious about hitting the streets. Since the French couple also didnīt have a place to stay yet, we decided to walk together to the center of the city.
When we left the terminal and walked toward the center we we were overwhelmed by the street-noise, the smell of diesel and urine!, the number of people, the many street-vendors and the outrageous number of taxi buses. It was a bit much to take after such a long bus-drive.
After a fifteen minute walk we arrived at the actual center and decided to go for the first decent hostel we would see. We found a really nice one, which had an inner-square, a breakfast buffet and cable TV. It was probably also the most expensive one in whole La Paz, about 26 US$! At that time we couldnīt have cared less, because we were simply too tired to be bothered.
After settling in a bit in our room we looked for a nice place to eat. We found a local place and had a fairly decent meal. We had been advised not to eat food from street-vendors so instead we sat inside the restaurant whilst the food was being prepared outside! Maybe not too clever but very cheap nevertheless! This was the cheapest meal in South-America so far.
The food only cost us EUR 2,= for 2 persons whereas the beer was almost more expensive than the food! But 0.90 cents for 600 ml is still not too bad! Best thing yet was that we didnīt get sick. We have hopefully built up enough antibodies to last us a lifetime!
Early next morning (Friday), we started to look for a cheaper hostel. Thanks to a tip from a fellow traveller, we finally checked into the Adventure Brew Hostel end of the morning. This hostel was not yet mentioned in the Lonely Planet since it was too new, but we had already heard some great stories about it. It has a free pancake breakfast, one free home-brewed beer each day, internet, BBQīs, nice relaxing areas, laundry service, 24 hrs a day security etc. etc.
We spent the rest of the day walking around town. As said before the city noises and smells remained overwhelming although after a while you kind off get used to it. Especially the taxi buses are a continuous source of amazement. Besides the driver each minibus has a salesman / woman a board who yells out the next destinations of the bus as soon as the bus comes to a stop. Try to imagine not 1 bus, but at least 20 coming to a stop in the same street and all salespeople yelling the destinations at the same time and at a speed you cannot possible comprehend!
Saturday we again spent walking through la Paz (it is a big city). The altitude of the city (3600 mtr) fortunately didnīt bother us too much, only when you tried walking the steep streets too fast.
La Paz is the highest capital city of the world and like Quito and Cusco also partly built against the hills. The city has a few colonial buildings but not as much as the other cities just mentioned.
Some of the streets against the hills are however very pretty with all the artisan shops and colourful people. Although not many, you can still see Bolivian women in their traditional dresses and with their typical Bolivian hat. (Still no idea on how the hat remains on their heads!)
Another remarkable and typical site for La Paz is the number of Balaclava-masked shoe shiners in the streets.
At the main square, Plaza San Francisco, they are all lined up also wearing the same outfits. It looks like they have sort of a union for shoeshine people of which they are all members (shoe-shiners united!).
Since they have they heads and most of their faces covered with a balaclava-mask they sometimes reminded us more of guerrilla soldiers!
At one of the many agencies around we booked a tour to Pampas, a famous national park, leaving Tuesday, where we could see a lot of animals. The tour would leave from Rurrenabaque, an hour flight away from la Paz. By road and boat to Rurrenabaque would have taken 2 days and would also have included driving in a touring-car on the North Yungas Road, also called the Death Road. Each year about 400 people die on this road in car-accidents. This road is unpaved and at some points extremely narrow. When you then have a 400 mtr steep drop-off on one side and the mountain on the other, you will probably get the idea why it is called the Most Dangerous Road of the World!
This is still the only road leading to the town of Coroico and finally leads to Brazil. It is heavily used by large trucks, touring-cars, minibuses and private cars. Only last week a touring-car fell over the edge because the bus-driver had fallen asleep. At that accident 15 people lost their lives. At some corners there are human traffic lights to indicate if you have to stop or not. Some years ago someoneīs wife and two children died in an accident on this road, so he started as the first human traffic light to prevent more accidents. They now have 15 people (volunteers) standing on the most dangerous corners of the road.
What I didnīt mention is that the road is also used by mountain-bikers, who bike downhill on this road as part of a very popular excursion! Since you couldnīt have been in La Paz and not have done this trip, we booked it for the next day.
We booked it with Gravity, a company which has connections with our hostel and came highly recommended by a fellow traveller. They have the highest safety standards and have never lost a tourist yet (so they say).
At night we enjoyed a nice barbecue in our hostel (how convenient!).
Sunday morning the 13th of August we were picked up at 07.30 hrs by Guy (our Belgian tour-guide) from our meeting place, a restaurant in La Paz. They had 3 minivans full of idiots who booked the trip. After an hour drive we reached the starting point of our bike-trip. We had chosen for the all inclusive package, so we didn't have to bring much stuff ourselves. The package included a jacket, trousers, dust-shawl, gloves, helmet and of course a full suspension bike. The advantage of this bike was that you could stay seated during almost the complete length of the trip. We then received instructions on the first part of the road and who to operate the gears and the breaks of the bike (extremely important!).
First some characteristics of the road;
* length of the bike-trip: 65 km of which 22 km is considered the most dangerous, taking 5 - 6 hrs;
* the first 25 km is still paved;
* the starting point lies at 4800 mtr;
* you descend to 1100 mtr;
* steepest drop-offs are 1.000 mtrs;
* landscape scenery changes from snow-covered mountains to tropical rain forest;
* the climate changes from extremely cold for the first hour to 27 degr. at the end of the trip.
Because the first part of the road was still paved, we used it to get ourselves familiar with the bike and the speed. This went pretty well, so when we finally reached the 'dangerous part', we were already a bit more confident than at the beginning of the day. The unpaved part was really extremely strenuous. You had to ride the bike focusing solely on the road.
The bad state of the dust-road and the fact that we had to ride our bikes at the left side of the road where the drop-off was created most of the danger. We were advised not to look around us when riding the bike, only at the stops we had during the day we could admire the amazing views and take pictures.
Whenever a vehicle was coming behind us or towards us, the guides warned us with their whistles. Sometimes we just had to be careful but other times we had to get of our bikes and let them pass before continuing. When looking at the size of some vehicles, the state some of them are in and the size of the road, we could easily imagine accidents happening. We passed numerous crosses and signs besides the road indicating all the people losing their lives on that road. It was actually more safe to ride the road on your bike than it was by car.
The last hour was the dustiest one. Even with the dust-shawl before your mouth and nose, you still breathed only dust. We were very glad to have finally reached the endpoint of our trip.
We immediately got a beer to clear our dusty throats. After we got out of all our rental clothes, we went by minibus to Coroico to have lunch.
Luckily nobody had gotten hurt from our group but unfortunately in another Gravity group a girl broke a wrist when she fell.
After lunch, we went back by minibus to La Paz. The bus now had to drive the same road which we had come off from! It was pretty scary even though we had way over the trucks coming down and we got to drive nearest to the mountain! Especially when it got dark, we were all focusing on what lay ahead of us. It took us 3,5 hrs to get back to La Paz. You can probably imagine that we were completely exhausted not only because of the biking but also because of the ride back! We ordered in pizza (did I tell you yet that we were in a great hostel!) and had a few home-brewed dark beers, before turning in.
Monday we had our laundry done and went into town for some more shopping. In the afternoon during happy hour we starting talking to two guys who had also been in our hostel for a couple of days. We ended up having dinner with them in a really nice restaurant.
Rurrenabaque - Pampas
Tuesday we got up really early to catch the flight to Rurrenabaque. Arrived at the airport they informed us that the plane was in maintenance and consequently they had cancelled the flight. We were really upset since our Pampas tour would start right after our flight. To pass the 3,5 hrs of waiting we had some breakfast and wrote some e-mails.
When we finally arrived in Rurrenabaque the tour-agency informed us that the group had already left and that they had no Four-wheel drive available to bring us to the starting-point of the Pampas tour. The only option was to start a two day tour the next day. He arranged a hotel for us and gave us some money for food and that was basically it! Since it was much warmer in Rurrenabaque than in La Paz, we just walked around town a bit and played some pool. The town itself wasn't that special, the only remarkable thing was that they used motorbikes as taxis.
On Tuesday our trip to Pampas started. With only 2 other tourists in our group, we drove for about 3 hours by fourwheel drive to Santa Rosa the starting point for going to Pampas. First however we could try our luck with fishing for piranhas. Rolf caught at least 5 of them!
After the fishing we got into the canoe and followed the Yacuma River. Luckily for us that due to the dry season, you would be able to see much more animals. During our 3,5 hr trip we saw whistle monkeys, macaws, turtles, hawks, alligators, caimans, capybaras (family of the rats) etc. etc. About halfway, when the river got a bit wider and deeper, we also saw sweet water pink dolphins.
We all jumped into the water to try to get a closer look. One came up just beside me and thus scared the hell out of me! You couldnīt see them coming since the water wasn't clear. One time the dolphin even jumped, so we could take a really good look at him. The amazing part is that he really is pink!
End of the afternoon we arrived at our lodge which is built on the banks next to the river. We were the only 4 guests (made us wonder where our original group went!?!), so we had the place to ourselves. It was a really basic lodge with a few dorm rooms and only 2 tiny bathrooms.
After dropping of our luggage and having a drink, we went back into the boat to look at the sunset from the top of different lodge.
We could then also see the Pampas for the first time. When we were in the boat before, you couldnīt see the surrounding area since the water was too low.
The exact meaning of Pampas is: wide, flat, grassy plains in South America, trees are found only along watercourses; the height of the grasses varies with the amount of rainfall.
It was truly a beautiful site! The owner of this lodge had a generator for his TV and refrigerator, which meant for us; cold beers!
We returned to the lodge when it was already dark. We had taken our flashlights with us so we could observe the eyes of the crocodiles giving light. We have never seen so many!
This definitely wasnīt a good place for a swim, at least not if you want to keep all of your limbs.
After having had dinner in our lodge we all went to bed. Nothing much else you could do when all the lights were turned of at 9 oīclock!
Wednesday morning after breakfast, we went for a walk through the Pampas, trying to find anacondaīs. We hadnīt seen one when we were in Manaus, so we were now pretty anxious to find one.
The weather had turned around completely. Instead of the hot humid weather the day before, the temperature had dropped considerably and also a strong wind made it feel quite chilly. The 'paths' through the Pampas were more or less dried up, but at other times we had to plough through extremely muddy parts. Luckily they had provided rain boots!
After having first found a dead anaconda (due to the draught) and a complete skin of one, our guide finally found an alive one. He was almost more exited about his find then we were. They can grow up to 6 mtrs, but this one was 'only' 2,5 mtrs. With our mission succeeded we headed back to the lodge to have lunch.
Unfortunately for us, our trip ended then. We went by canoe back to Santa Rosa with a different group.
At Santa Rosa, all jeeps and buses were waiting for groups to return. There we got the disturbing news that also the return flights had been cancelled. We managed to reach the airport just before our original flight (our driver drove like a madman!) and there we got the confirmation on the cancellation.
So this meant for us another night in Rurrenabaque and hopefully a flight the next morning. We found a different hostel than the first one (since during our first night in Rurrenabaque we had been kept awake by screaming Irish girls), which appeared to be fine.
Our tour-agency wasnīt much help with getting a new flight confirmation, so we ended up getting it ourselves. If nothing went wrong we would be on a flight out of there at 10 in the morning.
Back in La Paz
Friday morning after breakfast we returned to La Paz with no further delays (woopie!), so we were back in our hostel just after 11. Again we had a new load of clothes to be laundered (its really difficult if not impossible to stay clean during outdoor trips). In the afternoon we booked our bus tickets for Sucre leaving Saturday evening, worked on our website and got prepared to leave our hostel the next day.
Saturday the 19th of August we placed our backpacks in storage and hit the town for the last time. We took the bus at 18.45 to Sucre. We had booked the most luxurious bus we could find, with only 3 seats per row. The trip, which took a little over 12 hours, was quite comfortable, although it got freezing cold during the night (no heating!). We did get a blanket, but even that couldn't keep the cold away.
Sucre
When we arrived on Sunday at around 8 in the morning, we immediately took a bus to the town center to find a hostel. As always the first one we entered at the main square was probably the most expensive in town! We were more lucky with the second hostel, just one block away from the square.
When we checked in we noticed a sign for a tour to the Indian market, which we had planned to visit that same day. Only problem was that it would leave in 10 minutes time! We basically dumped our backpacks in the room and ran to the square where the bus for Tarabuco would leave from. We were extremely fortunate to get the last 2 available places in the bus.
We reached the town of Tarabuco after a drive of an hour through a beautiful landscape. It was a tiny town and also the market was not big and crowded like the ones we had seen in Guatemala and Ecuador. We did however see many locals in their traditional outfits and also found a lot of pretty handcraft-work. We saw at least three different types of head-wear, which didn't look at all like the hats we had seen in La Paz. They all presented a different tribe coming from the area of Tarabuco.
Monday and Tuesday we spent in Sucre, exploring the city.
It is without doubt one of the prettiest places we had seen so far. It has beautiful bright white colonial buildings, really old churches and nice spacious squares. Besides the center of town, we also visited the most beautiful and impressive graveyard we have ever seen and a castle which was now being restored to its original glory.
Potosi
Wednesday the 23rd of August we took the bus to Potosi, which is the highest city in the world (4.000 mtrs) and famous for its silver-mines.
We had booked it through a travel-agency and thought that we would go by touring-car. But nothing of a sort! Probably because of lack of people for a complete touring-car, we were put in a crappy, local bus. We arrived in Potosi at 2 in the afternoon, leaving us only with an hour to get to the city-center, find a hostel and get to the meeting point for our mine tour. The first impression we got from Potosi wasn't very favourable especially since we came from such a nice place as Sucre. Around the bus station looked extremely shabby and dirty. We already had an address for a possible hostel which we got from the travel-agency in Sucre, so we took a taxi to get there. The hostel proved to be very nice and conveniently located at only one block from the center of town. Fortunately the city-center looked much better compared to the suburbs.
At three o'clock in the afternoon our 3 hour tour to the mines of Potosi started. We got a protective cape, a helmet and boots for the trip. We then drove up the mountain to the mines. The mountain had been mined since Inka time but got really in full operation during the Spanish occupation. It financed the Spanish crown for two centuries and made Potosi the second largest city in the world during the 17th century.
Although the silver is now almost gone, they still mine for minerals. Around 12000 people work in the mines in very poor conditions. Most of the work is done by hand. People working the mines usually have a life expectancy of 40 years before they die of miners disease (dust-lungs). The miners only bring food for the morning and for the remainder of the day they chew coca leaves, drink water and smoke really cheap cigarettes. The coca leafs make them feel less tired and hungry which enables them to work longer hours. They earn around 65 Bolivianos a day (6,50 Eur) and children earn 35!
The rocks with the minerals are not processed on site but are transported to larger Bolivian cities from where they are exported to the far east.
A weird and funny part of the tour was a visit to the miners market to buy gifts for the miners, things such as bottled water, cigarettes, coca leaves, and dynabol (Bolivian dynamite!).
The dynamite can be bought including accelerator and fuse for 10 Bolivianos (1 Euro!). We seriously considered buying it to take home, but once we got our brains back, decided against it.
We then went inside one of the mines and walked for about 500 meters. In some parts of the mine we couldnīt even stand-up straight and also the support constructions were not always in the best of conditions.
The mines are generally considered as unsafe to work in!
Inside a part of the mine they had created a tiny museum, displaying the history of the mine.
When we came across a few miners at work, we gave them our presents, which they gratefully accepted.
We finally left the mine with great respect for those people having to work in them day after day.
At night after having washed away the dust in our lungs with a few beers, we went to dinner in the center. Of course even if it is the highest city in the world which basically means that it cools of considerably at nighttime, this doesn't mean that you will have heaters in your restaurant! Thus leaving your coat on is the only logical option.
Thursday the 24th of August we first walked around the city-center to admire the (again) colonial buildings.
Uyuni - Salt plains
At 11 we took the bus to the bus terminal from where our minibus to Uyuni would leave. Because they had sent us to the wrong side of the street to wait, we got into the bus last. Of course, miraculously, the row numbers had all disappeared, leaving us the crappiest places, all the way in the back, for a bus-ride of 7 hours!
What we also didnīt know was that the road to Uyuni wasnīt paved and sometimes reminded us strongly of the Death-road in La Paz. At around 7 at night we finally arrived in Uyuni. The city looked terribly unattractive. It was dusty and had rubbish lying and flying around everywhere. Due to the roads and the fact that they had put our backpack in the back of the bus (who cares about a gringo's backpack!), we got them back covered with at least half a road of dust.
Not feeling to cheerful, we went looking for a hostel. After about half an hour walking around this happy town we found a fairly decent hotel (we thought at the time). After having had a nice long, hot shower, we went to dinner. We had come to Uyuni at exactly the right time, since they had a festival for a couple of days. Music bands and people with all sorts of different types of costumes were filling up the streets, making it a colourful site.
During the night we found out that although the hotel and its owner were quite decent, the other guests weren't! A large group of Israeli's and French had also found this hotel and had decided to practically camp outside our hotelroom door. They made our lives a bit miserable for a couple of hours that night.
Friday we spent looking for a decent tour to the salt plains and watch the festivities in town. We finally booked a three day tour which would finally take us to San Pedro de Atacama (Chile, yes again!). Although it didnīt seem so logical at the time, this would be the fastest way to get to Argentina. According to our travel agent, we would arrive in San Pedro at 12 in the afternoon and buses to Argentina would leave at 7 at night. Perfect planning, we thought.... That night again, our Israeli 'friends' made us very happy with their continuous singing and shouting in the middle of the night!
At 10.30 the next morning, we sat waiting in front of our travel agency, since this would be the meeting point for our tour. Around 11 oīclock we got a bit worried since we saw other groups packing their stuff and loading it on their 4 wheel drives. Our travel agent said that our truck would be here soon (yeah right!), and that we shouldn't worry (where did we hear that one before!). We did worry nonetheless, since we also didn't see any other people still waiting for their tour. Finally at 12, the travel agent told us to hurry up and get to our car. What happened was that they had been gathering tourists from 4 different travel-agencies to complete a truck! Everyone in the truck was very happy to start the tour, since nobody wanted to stay in Uyuni for one more day!
First stop was a train graveyard just under Uyuni. Here a great number of ancient Bolivian steam trains are placed.
The next stop was on the largest salt plain in the world, covering 12.000 km2. It was really amazing driving through this eye-blinding, white plain. Really surreal. At some places the salt-layer is 40 meters thick! Almost in the middle of the plain they even built a hotel completely made out of salt, which we also got to visit.
We had lunch at one of the volcano islands in the salt plain, Isla de los Pescadores. Numerous cacti grow on this island, and climbing the island gave amazing views on the plain.
After lunch we continued further south, where the salt plain also ended. The drive unpaved sandy and rocky roads was pretty rough and left us covered with dust. The scenery however made it all worth it. Endless flats with red-coloured mountains, made it feel like we were on Mars.
End of the afternoon we reached a tiny town where we would spend the night. We had a dorm room for the six of us. Since we had a little of spare time before dinner, we went looking for a bar (of course!) which we unfortunately didn't find. We did however find a bottle shop and bought enough supplies to keep us warm through the coming night.
We were told when booking the trip that although the daytime temperatures could be quite agreeable, at night the temperature would drop considerably. Luckily for us the first night wasn't too bad (nice Pinot noire), so we all had a pretty good night sleep.
Sunday morning at 8 we were all packed and ready to go again. After about an hours drive through the Mars-like scenery we had our first stop at strange looking rock-formations formed by erosion. Our second stop was at other rock-formations, which we of course had to climb to get the best pictures!
Beginning of the afternoon we reached a beautiful Laguna full of Chilean and Andean flamingos. Really an amazing site.
Our final stop before reaching our sleeping accommodation was Laguna Colorado, or the Red Lake. And indeed, bright red it was! Also this Laguna was home to numerous flamingo's. We must say that this is one the most amazing sceneries we ever saw! The red colour is produced by algae.
End of the afternoon we reached our accommodation, which made our first night accommodation look like a three star inn! Some of us almost got sick just looking at the mens' toilets (which were leaking at the time).
You had to flush to toilet by throwing buckets of water into it, but some people obviously couldn't be bothered to do so (yuk!). The dropping of the temperature also made us not looking forward going to bed. Of course there was no heating in the middle of nowhere. An hour after we had arrived, our 19 friends from Israel also arrived (yes the same as in our hotel!). How could we have gotten so lucky! They were as annoying, rude and anti social as ever, but we had great fun talking about it. Our guide also told us that they are known for causing problems.
In the evening the temperature dropped dramatically, so we didn't stay up that long. Lucky for us, we had gotten the blankets from Barbara and Ralf since they had a good sleeping bag.
We then had a sleeping bag and 4 thick blankets to keep us warm, which they did!
At 5 in the morning, Monday, we reluctantly left our warm beds to pack our stuff and get ready to leave. It had been -/- 15 degr, and it was still -/- 8 when we got up. No wonder when you are at 4800 mtrs. We took our sleeping bags into the car, which was very necessary since of course the car also had no heating!
We first stopped at the geysers and some mud-pools. Although fascinating and a beautiful site with the rising sun, the cold and wind almost didnīt make us want to leave the car.
By the time we reached our next stop, our hands and feet were frozen. But lucky us, we had stopped a the hot springs! Here we would have our breakfast. Although a bit hungry, the warmth of the pool was simply too tempting to resist. So within 5 minutes, Colin, Rolf and I were lying in the warm water.
This was the first time in almost 3 days that we felt relatively 'clean'. After about half an hour soaking up the warmth in our bodies, we got out to have breakfast. The 'getting out' part wasn't too great, but we managed to stay warm anyway. It was still freezing, so after I left the pool, my hair froze up immediately. About an hour driving further, my hair finally defrosted. Our last site was the Laguna Verde, the green lake. Because of the lack of wind however, the green colour wasn't that obvious, but it was still pretty.
Around ten o'clock in the morning we reached the Bolivian border.
Here Colin, Rolf and I said goodbye to Ralf, Barbara and Anabella, who would all return to Uyuni. We got onto another bus, which took us to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. 
Here ends our adventure in Bolivia. Instead of our scheduled 2 weeks, we finally spended 3 weeks touring through the country. During these weeks we did a few really great tours, saw a lot of nice sceneries and visited a couple of cities. All and all we think that we have got a fairly good impression of Bolivia, although we could easily have spent another month here. (Taking into account how cheap it is here, we could easily spend a few years here!)
Although very poor, a bit dirty and somewhat poorly organised at times, it is a great country in many ways and we really enjoyed our time here.
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