Falling off the Andes

Happy May Day! Bolivians are either on vacation today or demonstrating outside the government office so consequently our little area of La Paz feels deserted. A big vote is coming up in a few days and we plan to be out of town avoiding the fracas and hiking on Lake Titicaca’s fabled Isla del Sol. Bolivia has been such a surprising treat and it has been the highlight of our trip. The landscapes are incredible and the culture is fascinating.

We crossed into Bolivia from Chile’s Atacama Desert and spent 3 days squeezed into a 4x4 with 6 others driving across the high desert, the Altiplano, in the south-western corner of the country. It was an unforgettable experience!! The first morning the car refused to start and we spent a shivery hour anxiously waiting for the battery to warm up, coca leaves and tea were incessantly consumed to ward off altitude sickness, we unwillingly engaged in a high velocity bird hunt as our driver chased a grouse-like bird with our car (the poor thing travelled with us for an hour or so until we caught up with another tour and the driver’s wife, our cook, proudly showed the bird to the other tour operator before letting the traumatized bird loose, much to our relief since we were expecting it to appear in the pot that night!), we helped dig another stranded tour vehicle out of the mud and we had a small collision with another tour vehicle travelling in the opposite direction which resulted in much yelling between the two drivers (though luckily the incident didn’t lead to blows like it did for another group travelling the same day!). We bumped past green, red and white lagoons, steaming geysers, icy volcanoes and Dali-esque rocks. On the final day of the tour we awoke at 4am and drove blind in the dark to an island in the centre of the vast salt flat and watched the sun slowly rise over the distant mountains and the endless expanse of the Salar de Uyuni turn a blinding white.

From the salt flats we nervously took the bus to Potosi, the highest city in the world, declined the silver mine tour and instead dodged traffic on its winding, bustling and narrow streets during our city exploration. Potosi is a wonderful and colourful city, but built on so much suffering. Her sister city, Sucre, the old capitol of Bolivia, is full of lovely colonial buildings and shady green plazas. Those who prospered from Potosi’s silver lived here and built their fabulous houses since the climate and altitude was more welcoming. We took our time in Sucre, also enjoying the lower elevations and increased warmth. We decided not to risk the roads again and flew to La Paz.

Bolivians are awful drivers. They take their time with everything else, yet everyone seems to be in rush when they get in their cars. Common occurrences include buses passing trucks before blind bends in thick fog while going uphill …. 3 cars across a two lane road … sheer drops by the side of deeply rutted roads … dogs and children crossing without looking …. it’s been terrifying! Consequently we’ve been travelling in day light and selecting our buses carefully! As a result we avoided riding mountain bikes down the notorious “Road of Death” to Coroico (why anyone tackles this busy road down sheer cliffs on a bike is beyond me especially in consideration of the fact that 10 people died on that route last week yet hundreds of adrenaline loving travellers tackle this route every week). Instead we took the slow path and spent 3 days trekking to Coroico on a beautiful Inca trail that plunges over 3000m from an amazing high Andean pass at 4800m where we were encircled by gleaming black cliffs and snowy peaks, across high alpine grassy valleys with contented llamas, through cloud forest and eventually traversing steep and steaming jungle clad slopes high above rushing rivers. We passed isolated Aymara villages where people scratched out a living on small plots of land with their llamas, cows and crops and ancient Inca ruins. It was an incredible journey and there are plenty more wonderful treks in Bolivia. It’s definitely a place we’d like to return to. We feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface of this amazing country, yet it has drawn us in so much deeper than any other place we’ve visited, despite the shocking driving and suspect food!