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La Paz, Bolivia

Dave has been telling me for years he’d like an alpaca or llama named Tina. I added that to the “yeah, sure honey, next year” list. After a week in Chile and Bolivia I see he has a point. After doing research on these two fluffy bundles of joy we can now distinguish the difference between the two and make an educated decision about which would be a better pet or lawn-mower. Llama’s are taller and bigger than alpacas. Alpacas are cuddly looking, with softer fur. It’s a no brainer, we’re going to have an alpaca named Tina. Not to mention, we have eaten llama’s so that would be all kinds of weird having an editable pet.

The only place in Chile we visited was a tiny village, San Petro de Atecama. Only a few days prior, the villagers in San Pedro felt the effects of the 8.2 earthquake. Earthquakes are very common there. Although only a few hours from the Argentine – Chile border, this little village of 400sqm had an awesome Chilean vibe to it. It also had dirt roads with restaurants and shops with mud walls. The food was unbelievable. From the local stew, to quinoa salad to pizza. Unlike Argentina and Brazil, there seemed to be a high level of English literacy. This is particularly interesting as the Chilean English language universities only teach colours in the first semester and numbers in the second, according to our local guide anyway. Locals travel to Argentina’s capital for a better education.

By golly, we made the most of that full day we were in Chile. Straight after breakfast we took the truck across country, into the desert until we reached two little lakes – one we could swim in and one was for flamingos to swim in. Millions of years ago a large lake was formed. Over time the lakes evaporated leaving small water areas in the desert. Some of them had a high concentration of lithium (what batteries are made of) under the salt flats. From a swimming perspective, we were unsinkable because the salt levels are at a higher density than the Dead Sea or 70% saltier than the ocean. I think if anyone was stupid enough to put their head under, their eyes might have fallen out. Bobbing up and down like seals we were there for about 30 minutes before we got out – the salt was so thick we looked albino. After a quick lunch back in town, we were back in the truck, accompanied by a local guide for the afternoon’s outing. This time, a highlight tour of the Atacama desert, the oldest and driest in the world and with the lowest humidity. It’s 200 million years old and used to be part of the Pacific Ocean. In some parts of this desert, it hasn’t rained in 20 million years but on average the desert receives 10mm per year over 5-6 days. There is a high density of salt and minerals, so few animals can survive there. Apart from two – the condor bird and the lizard. The condor is the 2nd largest in the world with wing span of 14ft and probably only eats ‘salty’ lizards. Goodness knows what the lizard eats… probably dirt.
I’ll mention volcanoes a lot over the next few days because there are lots of them in the Andes, 2,000 with 150 still active. Death Valley was the first stop and it hasn’t rained there in years – except for when we were there, 3 drops fell. Death Valley’s landscape is similar to that of Mars. In fact, NASSA, astronauts, space geeks and the likes, come to use the area as a testing ground before heading into space. Mars Rover even made its debut there! Gipsen is what some of the area is made up of. It looks like glass but is what plaster of paris is made from. The second stop was to Moon Valley. It is famous for its resemblance to the moon. Different environmental factors over millions of years have caused different stratifications (Mum, aren’t you impressed with the big words!). We visited a few including:
– sand dunes caused from strong winds and an accumulation of sand
– a salt mountain chain caused from the horizontal layers of sand, clay and salt
– rock formations caused from erosion
– salt mines or tunnel like caves cased by the effects of high pressure and absence of humidity.
Without going on too much, the coolest three parts were: 1) chucking small stones into the cave edge and listing to what sounded like water in a glass being tapped, chime like. 2) listening to the giant rocks moving and contracting. 3) licking the salty rocks… as you do.

By 6am we were on the road and in line for the Chile – Bolivia border crossing. Border crossings, in the middle of a desert can be so different. The Argentina – Chile border was intense. All perishable food chucked, bags searched and the truck cleared by officials. One building with two lines. One to exit Argentina and one to enter Chile. Chile into Argentina was different again. We gained an exit stamp to depart Chile, but the Bolivian entry stamp was about 50 kms or an hour later. That Bolivian entry building was a clay shack. We didn’t even enter that building. Someone came to the truck and took our passports off us. Their toilet was behind a rock in the desert.
At that same border crossing, we picked up our local navigator. It was mandatory to have someone who knew how to cross the Altiplano desert (translating to freakin high plateau) as it had no defined roads. We four wheel drove for two days and stopped at random photo stops along the way. A million miles of brown sand and dust. Along the way snow covered volcanoes, geysers and lakes could been seen. Our Dragoman leader couldn’t understand our Spanish local guide but thankfully a few passengers were able to translate what we were looking at. Basically, the volcanoes extract the minerals from the earth’s inner core and when they erupt they chuck them out, leaving the minerals behind on the earth’s surface. That is why the lakes, although in close proximity, have different minerals. Kinda like a gateway from the inner to the outer. Depending on the minerals, different animals can be found at different lakes. Most lakes have the black andena and pink James flamingos. On a side note, shrimps eat the green algae (which has pink enzymes) in the water and flamingos eat the shrimp. Which is why the James flamingo is pink.
On the first day we visited a few lakes:
– Laguna Blanco – white lake with calcium carbonate
– Laguna Verde – green lake with copper and magnesium. It had white edging which was arsenic – the flamingos have built a tolerance to the poison.
– Laguna- can’trememberwhatitscalled lake. An absolute stunner. It was mostly flamingo pink but had streaks of white and green. The colours were created by micro organism in the plants but no minerals.
– Can I count hot springs as a lake? Probably not. Swimming in the hot springs was one of the highlights of the day. Due to the freezing outside temperatures and altitude sickness 4,900 metres above sea level (m.a.s.l) only two of us went in for a dip, me and Emily. Altitude sickness is something i’ll probably harp on about over the next few weeks. It is a huge part of our everyday lives at the moment. It’s not even so much the height, as in the higher you go the worse it is. It’s the speed in elevation that we are rising at. Trust me when I say, travelling from 1,400 m.a.s.l to 4,500 in a day really screws with ya. What gets you the most is moving around. Just walking around a few metres tires you and leaves you with a splitting head ache and nauseous feeling. We’re drinking water by the bucket load and peeing often and everywhere. Pee stops are in the desert with no trees, just dust. Or literally behind the truck on the road or in my case, down a cliff face trying not to roll down the hill with my pants down. (Overlanding sure isn’t for those folk who prefer the finer comforts). In all seriousness, there is not really any point in pulling off the actual road for a toilet stop because there is no one out in the desert. Vehicles can be seen miles ahead. The dust storm created from the vehicles looks like steam or smoke coming from the ground.

14 long, bumpy-like-India hours later, we arrived at a refuge. I can tell you now, I have NEVER been so happy to see a bedroom with a light and freezing cold sho
wer in my life. Today was a long day. 14 hrs on a flipping dirt road with enough bumps to throw you off a seat mixed in with altitude sickness will do that. We rose 2,000 m.a.s.l in 50km at the beginning then dropped 1,000 back down to 4,000 m.a.s.l in the afternoon. Seeing a tent and a yoga mat would have been the epitomy of a bad day. Thankfully, for the rest of Bolivia we will been in hostels and hotels, not camping. The Andes is freezing, too cold for camping.

Having a moment… Another one.. Sixty days is a long time to spend with the same people. As lovely as they all are. Another 7hours trapped in the truck after yesterday’s long drive is beginning to take its toll on an already not very patient Julia. It’s pretty **** too that the $1 per meal per person food allowance caters for one small bowl of cornflakes at 6am and a tiny lunch at 2pm. (And you know how I am when I’m hungry). If we had of known, we would of bought snacks. Later that evening we finally arrived into Uyuni. The little town of Uyuni had four ‘to dos’. Working backwards, from least important was the World’s Highest Pizza Restaurant located in our hotel. It’s at 3,650 m.a.s.l.
Secondly, the Extreme Fun Pub with odd shaped drinking devices. I ordered a Little Chicken cocktail served in a baby’s bottle with a chicken hat and Dave’s came in this mug full of holes. Only the dedicated could figured out how to drink without getting it all down the front. Of course there was the vagina and penis shaped cups but they don’t need too much of an explanation.
Thirdly was the train grave yard. A photographers dream at sunset. It’s a cemetery for trains and locomotives. It’s so big that it looks as though all of the trains in South America have been moved to Uyuni, Bolivia, to chug their last chug. In actual fact, in 1888 the Bolivian president believed that Bolivia would benefit from a good transport system. The local indigenous people continually sabotaged the train line as it was an intrusion in their lives. Then in 1940 the mining industry who used the train lines collapsed. After that the train line was abandoned producing the train graveyard. In other places, the mighty steel trains would have held up better. The salt winds that blow over Uyuni, which hosts the world’s largest salt plain, have corroded all of the metal. Without guards or even a fence, these pieces were picked over and vandalised long ago. A photographers dream, particularly at sunset.
Lastly, the reason we were in Uyuni was to visit the world’s largest salt flat. The glare was so bright, it is like being in the snow. The plain is 10,582 square kilometres, has an elevation of 3,656 m.a.s.l and has a natural hexagonal shape pattern throughout the salt flats. It looks like a white, flat bee hive. Under the 64million tons of salt is the world’s largest deposit of lithium. Before we went into the salt flats we visited a tiny village on the outskirts where they make the salt. A “production line” of 8 people take 5,000 kilos of salt a day from its rawest form and transform it into edible salt. In a concrete room no bigger than a child’s bedroom, the process went as follows: place raw salt on top of a fire to purify the salt and remove water, move salt to a large pile to cool it down, then on to a tiny machine that breaks down the granules. Package the salt by hand. Finally an open fire seals the bags closed. I think that understanding the process and knowing how much salt is bagged per day is important, especially since a small bag sells for 20c and a larger bag 40c. Next to nothing.
The average income for Bolivians is $2,000 per year. This came to mind when we were shopping in the markets next to the salt flats. Bargaining down a few dollars would mean a lot to them, and not a lot to us. After a few purchases, including a world map, an ugly balaclava and oven mitts, we headed into the salt flats. The colour white could be seen for miles as we drove in four wheel drive jeeps to the little island in the middle for lunch. The salt is only 30cm thick on the edges (27 meters deep in the middle), so our Dragoman truck would be too heavy. That little island looked very out of place surrounded by a sea of white. In actual fact, millions of billions of years ago, it used to be covered over by the ocean. Coral can still be found today next to the thousands of cacti. A 45 minute walk around the island was included but 10minutes into it we were all out of breath from the altitude. How are we going to survive the Inca Trail next week? Following a hearty lunch, it was back in the jeeps for the next stop – middle of a white salty nowhere. The main reason we all were so excited about the salt flats was because of the must do activity: perspective shots. Dave was volunteered to play director and photographed the group shots. Trust me when I say, these are much harder than they look. I’ve seen perspective shots before but it isn’t until you give the photographing a go, that you realise how hard it is. It was a lot of fun to be out there with the group, trying to be eaten by dinosaurs, to carry a beer bottle, eat Dave, balance on a basket ball and be sprayed by a water gun (the photos can only do this justice). A day in the sun left us exhausted so an early night for us – followed by an early morning for Dave, when he couldn’t sleep at 3am and uploaded all the perspective photos on the Internet over the following three hours.

Onwards and upwards – Potosi the mining town, the world’s highest city. Only a 6 hour drive from Uyuni. I think we are loving Bolivia so much because it’s the first country since Asia and Africa that is so different from the West. It’s a country that is back to basics. Mud houses, dirt roads and children slaughtering livestock on the main road. The kids consistently have little grubby faces, I’d love to take a Klenex to them. The Bolivian people are very indigenous looking, almost Mongolian. Traditionally, the ladies have two braids, down to their bottom and wear a bowler hat. Skirts are often pleated past their knees with thick stockings and sandals. On their back, over the shoulder, is a woven cloth that could carry a child or food. I will expand on this later. Street edges have ladies with small kids selling fruit and other products to locals. I think that is what is very different to other places. Bolivia seems to be more about the locals needs and its not all about the tourists. Particularly the town of Potosi. At night time, after the siesta, the streets were full of local markets selling food. We enjoyed tasting local street food from the trollies. We tried: cakes and pastries soapy looking sweets. We didn’t try: a cows head cut open, flies crawling over blood dripping carcasses, cow teeth and tongues – all sold in the local’s market.

For goodness (deleted word and replaced) sake, it’s so hard to escape people. It is hard being with 19 opinions, voices and sounds -24 hours a day – there’s nowhere to escape the noise…. Aaahhhhhhh!!!!!

The last stop before we arrive in La Paz, the end point of another leg, is Livichuco. This is Dragoman’s closet thing to a cultural experience. Intrepid sold this trip as a “4 out of 5 cultural experience”. What a joke! I think you would need to interact with locals for a cultural experience. One of the ONLY cultural experiences of this trip so far was staying at a traditional home stay. Ladies from the village came to show us how they make woven blankets. It takes 28 hours from the shearing of the alpaca wool to the weaving of the blankets, using bone and sticks. The village leader blessed coins before we each threw our sugar made lucky charms into the bon fire. After dinner, two 12 year old girls and their Dads sung and strummed their hand made guitars. Sadly, only 50% of the $50 per night fee goes to the whole community and the rest goes to the organisation arranging it. To put that into perspective the local ladies see $2-5 per day and we had come to them. It was great to see the ladies hand making blankets but it was a stretch from a ‘traditional home stay’, considering they were brought in to give us a ‘show’
. My goodness me. I’ve been travelling too long. I’m becoming a cynic, and totally opinionated. But really, what’s changed.

Well, it was only a matter of time before non patient Julia exploded. It was a shame it was on the last night, before 7 wonderful, amazing friends left the trip. Oh well, nothing a few cocktails couldn’t fix. The group started the evening at a Bolivian restaurant. I know I’m not a foody but even I know a country in South America shouldn’t be famous for chicken and pizza, as people kept saying to us. In many ways they are right. Bolivian food isn’t much to write home about but they do have some traditional dishes. We are llama and empanada’ed’ out so I had a boring old carbonara. It was perfect for lining the stomach before hitting the town. Bolivians really know how to party. So much so that I had to ask the barman to tip some of the vodka out of my ‘$3 vodka with a hint of Red Bull’ drink and tip more Red Bull in. Vodka is cheaper than Red Bull so it was an uphill battle. Altitude was surely enough to contend with.

After only a few hours sleep, we dragged our sorry ***** to the 3 hour free walking tour around the city of La Paz, “the city in a bowl”. I’m so, so glad we did. I’m unsure if this will come out right but we have been a little underwhelmed by South America to date. Although its been pretty and interesting we haven’t had the wow factor or any cultural shock or experiences that could compare with Asia and Africa. That was until coming to Bolivia, in particular La Paz. Maybe it is to do with the fact that it is South America’s least developed and poorest country, with an extremely low minimum wage. Or maybe it is the fact it is South America’s most isolated country therefore doesn’t have many western influences. What ever it is, we loved it! It’s a fascinating country with interesting quirks. Here are a few we learned during the walking tour:

SAN PEDRO PRISON: This prison is famous, so much so it even had a book written about it (Marching Powder) and used to offer a tour for tourists. The prison is built for 400 inmates but the current number is over 2,500. You would think that it would require hundreds of guards. They only have 8 and their job is to ensure people don’t escape. Although, day passes are given to those willing to bribe the guards. The prison itself is run by the inmates. Inmates are charged rent to be in there. For $6 per month they can share a cell with 20 and for $700 per month they have a private two story duplex with jacuzzi, kitchen and sauna. Families can also live inside. Bolivia has a very harsh criminal system whereby tourists and locals are guilty until one day they may be proven innocent. Not all jails in Bolivia are like San Pedro, but this 8,000 Sqm jail seems to be working. So saying, it is too dangerous nowadays to continue tours for the tourists. Inmates make money for their mandatory rent by taking out jobs in the prison. There are restaurants, bars, a cocaine factory, carpentry shops and coffee shops. My favourite is the inmate real estate agents who look after the renting or even selling of the prison land.

MARKETS: There are over 20million people in La Paz and the city next to La Paz, Alto. Unbelievably there are only 20 supermarkets for the locals to shop in. Instead, locals shop in the street markets. All over the two cities, streets close on the weekend and are replaced with stalls selling absolutly everything you would find in a shop. Except here, the ladies (no males work the markets) are gutting fish next to the sacks of sugar or crates of apples. Yapas or freebies are given to those buyers who have formed relationship with the sellers. The markets we visited were 12 blocks x 12 blocks in size – huge, but not the biggest. They weren’t the only markets we visited. La Paz has the Witches Markets. Tourists flock to these markets for super cheap shopping. Llama wool jumpers for example are $10 and llama leg socks for $2. (Yes, we stocked up on all things Llama and all things Bolivian). Locals flock to the Witches Market to buy powders and potions and all things spice to make concoctions for witches’ rituals. Dried llama foetus is used as a sacrifice when opening a shop, house or constructing something small. There is an urban myth in La Paz about what they use as a sacrifice for bigger constructions like large buildings and bridges. A live human being – to be clear that is some poor bugger buried alive. It is said, before the foundation concrete is laid, the witches will collect a passed out homeless drunk to use as the sacrifice (Someone who wouldn’t be missed or noticed by the community). Although this used to happen, many believe it doesn’t happen these days. So saying, the construction workers are so superstitious they won’t work on a construction project unless it has been ‘blessed’ by a witch doctor. Some projects around the city have been abandoned because proper rituals haven’t occurred.

THE CLOTHING: The attire of the cholita, (indigenous bolivian female) is one of my favourite things about Bolivia. It really is something else. A pleated-skirt, a 19th century European bowler hat, the silky shawl and thick stockings. Their hats are far too small for their heads. It is said that the Italians originally designed the hat for the Bolivians but they got the measurements all wrong. They thought because Bolivians were small, so were their heads. The hat literally perches on their heads because the hole is about the size of a saucer. Rather than sending all the hats back, the Bolivian government told their people it was a “new European fashion”. Back then there wasn’t Google so the story stuck. Nowadays the hat and the dress is a symbol of pride in being indigenous, and is considered a status symbol. Hats worn slightly off centre show the lady is ‘available’. If a daughter wants to start wearing this clothing, the mother must also as it cannot skip a generation. The ladies look like they’re about 20 layers deep in clothing. There are a number of reasons for this; ladies work long hours so contend with the day’s climates and the more clothing they wear the ‘beefier’ their bottoms look. Men look for for ladies with big child bearing hips – I’d fit in rather nicely here!

POLITICS: Bolivia is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most amount of presidents in the shortest amount of time – 200 in 100 years. The last or former president was a U.S citizen who stole millions of dollars from the bank and ****** off back to the States. The current one, the first indigenous president, seems to be doing a great job. Except he doesn’t stick to speech scripts and doesn’t have a brain filter. His latest controversial comments were “People have to stop eating chicken, otherwise they will turn gay” “Coca cola will make you bald” (he wants to get rid of Coke in the country). And my favourite “If you’re a woman over the age of 18, with no kids you must pay a higher tax – because you aren’t contributing to the country.”

WHAT THE?: Some Zebra Crossings in La Paz have men dressed in zebra costumes with zebra flags directing traffic.

This last 7 days and especially the one day in La Paz have been a highlight of South America. It was the South America we had been looking for. Bolivia is such a vast land, with a lot of beautiful landscapes between fascinating towns and villages and cities. I’ll end here but not before mentioning the street shoe shiners. These are men and woman who can teach us a lesson about not judging a book by its cover. We were waiting for the free walking tour to start, outside the prison. A shoe shiner wearing a balaclava approached us and we of course fobbed him off. We learnt about these people later in the day. A shoe shiner is the lowest of the low jobs and is somewhat embarrassed so they wear balaclavas to cover their identity, their shame. If we had given them half a chance to scrub our boots, we would have also been offered a .20c newspaper they write full of poems and stories. We would have been sold cheap jewellery that the government give them to make ends meet. If only we g
ave them 5 minutes of our time to hear their story, under the balaclava of shame.

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