Bolivia.

We have now moved on from the town of Uyuni.

Bolivia is in many ways such a rewarding country to visit because of its variety of landscapes, climates and history. I guess I will skate through quite a bit of our time in Bolivia for reasons that may be apparent.

Potosi

Entering Potosi

After leaving Uyuni we drove to Potosi, which was in the distant past a very important city in the world. 

It is built and situated on the side of a mountain which was once one of the richest sources of silver, and other noble metals, but mostly silver. At the time the Spanish were exploiting Potosi, it was said that there was enough silver to build a bridge all the way to Spain and still have loads left to carry over it. A couple of centuries ago it was said to have been the richest city in the world bar none.

Just one aspect of Potosi

It has a history of exploiting the silver and mining methods that were pretty basic. Many lives have been lost or sacrificed to getting at the silver, it has been said that up to 4 million lives have been lost exploiting this one mountain. 

Potosi has a mint and it possible to visit their museum. It is also possible to tour the mines.

There is no doubt that this is an old and truly historic city and the evidence that it was built on wealth is apparent.Unfortunately it is also one of the most difficult, rather hostile, chaotic and, well, unpleasant conurbations I have visited. It isn't much fun.

We arrived at the outskirts and had to negotiate the bleak dust laden roads filled with haphazard business,s and industries all related to mining. All the buildings, houses and everything are kind of glued to the side of this mountain that would have been so imposing if it was not so scarred by mineral exploitation. The ‘mining' gives the impression that it has consisted mainly of scraping away the outside and of blowing holes deep into the rock with Dynamite.

one of the more modern mineral processing plants

No kidding, No one has any idea how many mines there are, or what their extent or depth is. It is a lot!

We were warned that apart from the hideous conditions that the miners work in, there are still Children working there. Lots of other people will tell you that it is not true and there is a strict 16 year threshold. I do not know. We considered  taking a tour of the mines if only to witness for ourselves.

I did a Google search and this is the most helpful entry I found.

It was posted by Lonely Planet but is taken from the miners cooperative literature.

A visit to the cooperative mines will almost certainly be one of the most memorable experiences you’ll have in Bolivia, providing an opportunity to witness working conditions that are among the most grueling imaginable. We urge you not to underestimate the dangers involved in going into the mines and to consider the voyeuristic factor involved in seeing other people’s suffering. You may be left stunned and/or ill.

Dozens of Potosí operators offer guided tours through the mines. The best tour guides tend to be ex-miners, who know the conditions and are friendly with the men at work. The safety standards are hit-and-miss; you really are going down at your own risk.

Mine visits aren’t easy and the low ceilings and steep, muddy passageways are best visited in your worst clothes. You’ll feel both cold and hot at times, there will likely be a bit of crawling through narrow shafts and the altitude can be extremely taxing. On some tours, you’ll end up walking 3km or 4km inside the mountain. You’ll be exposed to noxious chemicals and gases, including silica dust (the cause of silicosis), arsenic gas and acetylene vapors, as well as asbestos deposits. Anyone with doubts or medical problems should avoid these tours. The plus side is that you can speak with the friendly miners, who will share their insights and opinions about their difficult lot. The miners are proud of their work in such tough conditions and generally happy for visitors to observe their toil.

Tours begin with a visit to the miners’ market, where miners stock up on acetylene rocks, dynamite, cigarettes and other essentials. In the past, gifts weren’t expected, but with the growing number of tourists, you’d be very unpopular if you didn’t supply a handful of coca leaves and a few cigarettes – luxuries for which the miners’ meager earnings are scarcely sufficient. Photography is permitted. Avoid taking plastic bags into the mine; accumulation of garbage is a growing problem.

The tours then generally visit an ingenio , before heading up to Cerro Rico itself. Note that since January 2011 it is now illegal for tour companies to give demonstrations of dynamite explosions, which destabilise the mountain and potentially threaten lives. Some companies continue to flout these regulations however. Ask your tour company vendor if a dynamite explosion is included. If they say yes, choose another operator. It is unlikely to be the only corner they are cutting.

Tours run in the morning or afternoon and last from four to five hours. The standard charge is between B$100 and B$150 per person; slightly lower rates may be available during the low season. This price includes a guide, transportation from town and equipment (jacket, helmet, boots and lamp). Note the claim that '15% of profits donated to miners' is a well-known marketing scam; all companies pay the same fee for entry into the mines and it is considerably less than 15%. If you want to help the miners, choose a company run by miners. Wear sturdy clothing, carry plenty of water and have a handkerchief/headscarf handy to filter some of the noxious substances you’ll encounter. There is less activity in the mines on Sundays.

It may not be too surprising that we decided not to take this tour. Since I have discussed with others and there is a consensus that it is a bit like visiting a zoo which may have its purpose but there are reservations.

One of many, many holes in the road

On arriving  in the city we found access is really difficult as the roads are steep and narrow, badly maintained and with enough sizeable holes to give the impression that people practice their mining techniques in the town. 

Crowded pavement in Potosi

Some of our fellow travellers who were travelling in standard 2 wheel drive vans, gave up as they could not climb some of the hills. Once in the city it is dense with traffic in the narrow lanes  horribly polluted and on the whole a very stressful drive.

We found a place to park for the night and went to find a place to eat that also had wifi. We found a Chinese restaurant,so called but we ended up having far and away the worst meal we have ever paid for. (we paid because it was too difficult to have the ‘discussion’ in a foreign language). The food was so bad that we left without eating! The Chinese owner was completely disengaged. The waitresses appeared not to understand even the simplest communication  and certainly had no interest in being helpful.

We went back to spend the night in the van and awoke to find Puncture number 3. We had planned to visit the mint museum  but to be honest we just hadn’t the heart. We just wanted to leave. I feel bad at not doing proper justice but there it is.

Women do so much of the physical work This is our puncture being repaired

Still in the tyre shop

We drove out through the mountains and on to the city of Sucre. This is the capital of Bolivia as it holds the parliament. La Paz is  described as the second capital. It seems  that one claims the title for having the parliament, while the other claims it for having the high court the capital although Sucre is possibly the most important city and La Paz the most famous.

Collapsed railway bridge

                                                    Sucre was a pleasant surprise.

Sucre government building

We had been told of a place to install ourselves and were given directions. We approached the city which to a large extent was not very attractive once again it is built clinging to the side of a mountain and is kind of carved up by valleys and rifts in the mountainside. 

unfinished buidings

Also, the Bolivian habit of never finishing a building contributes to the overall impression. Apparently there is some kind of tax advantage to not finishing building works.

Albert plays his Charanga with great skill and joy

 Anyway, we followed our directions  and although we thought we had found the location we just couldn’t find the address. It was at this point that and older man came running up behind us, rather out of breath he told us that he is Alberto and we should come into his place. He opened his gate and ushered us in. Alberto and his wife are really interesting people. It does appear that they take in Overlanders  mainly because they enjoy it.

Alberto and Felicidad, really nice folks!

Alberto is also interesting as he is a retired University professor who used to teach Electrical engineering. Now retired he spends his days in his workshop doing what he really enjoys.....Repairing electric motors! People come from far and wide to have motors repaired, large and small. Both of them have the talent to hold a conversation  or explain something  with no English but able to convey their meaning just the same. Their yard is so nice It is grassy and levelish, there is a sitting room and kitchen with a nice bathroom. Not expensive, better still they are two incurably helpful people.

The Central Plaza is so well used by all

It is close to the centre of town and the town is very pleasant it has a central square that is so well used  that you can hardly move for lovers on benches, young children learning to ride their bikes, skaters, youths practising break dancing, musicians and on. 

'They shoot Horses don't they'?

A near miss, or is it love?

Break dance practice

informal music

We a much needed rest and for a change did not rush around sight seeing. However, I did go to visit their dinosaur museum. The museum is centred on some real dinosaur footprints. Ping did not go as she said dinosaurs are really for young children! When I pointed out that there some older palaeontologists who may disagree with her statement she just looked perplexed.

The Cement Works

So I went, it was very interesting indeed. There is a huge cement works that has been working away scraping off layer after layer of limestone for cement manufacture. 

Diplodocus. So Big!

They had reached a point where it no longer yielded the stone they needed so the left this vast flat surface. No kidding it is about 70 metres high and 750m long and flat. 

Dinosaur footprints.

As weather has worked on this surface over the years, clear footprints have started to emerge. Large medium and small. Hundreds of them. Although this surface is perpendicular now, it was once the shore of a large lake and seismic movement had effectively tipped it upright over squillions of years. 

There was a guided tour which was really interesting with a great guide. The museum is small but very well set up. With detailed  life size models all over the place. One of them, the diplodocus was huge . I had never thought they could have been so big. This one was the length of several Olympic size double decker football fields in Belgium.

Welcome to the museum!

I had a great afternoon without the old lady, who found herself in the town hall enjoying an afternoon of dance and music performed by students from the local University.

Beautiful free balet display

Music student

Beautiful dance really original

Condor cafe

We found a really nice café.

A friend asked us to meet them at The Condor Café in Sucre. I was just about to go in when I saw that it was vegetarian!!!! Well I found myself going in despite misgivings about it being a bit too sort of ‘New agey’ for me. So in I went. It was really nice. Absolutely charming staff, really nice food and a relaxed atmosphere. 

The cafe sponsors a children centre and they were advertising for volunteers to help at this day care centre where working mothers can safely leave their children. you may recall that we have written in earlier blogs that there is very little child care facilities as the majority of the workforce are women, they have to bring their babies/children to their work place. We went to spend some time there, sadly there was really no specific task for either of us, it mainly involved playing with the children. The centre is poorly funded, most of the volunteers there wanted to do more but felt hindered by the lack of structure although the woman who ran it was doing her very best in spite of overwhelming odds. It was a bit chaotic and I am not sure whether we were of much use to them.

More minor problems.  Note the Ural motorcycle and sidecar . Pretty neat eh?

We did not do so much tourism as we had, yet again to get some repairs done. The starter on the van would not work. Alberto our host came to the rescue and arranged for a mechanic and an auto electrician to sort out our starter but it took a couple of days.         

UnhealthyStarter motor . Ping says it looks like a Guinea pig???

Katerine and David , Sprouts from Liege

In the mean time we were entertained by The Belgian couple we had met before who are driving around in a Russian Ural motorcycle and sidecar. Mmmm good luck with that!

Taxis in Sucre
During our time in Sucre, we had to run an errand for our German friends who had forgotten their laptop. it turned out that  a cleaner had stolen it and wanted £30 to get it back They had initially agreed to this, but If I was going to collect it I was damned if I was going to pay up. So as soon as the computer was produced I snatched it from the girl who took it and walked smartly out of the building and into the nearest taxi just outside. I was busy congratulating myself for a repo job well done when I noticed that the steering wheel of the taxi was missing!!!!  However the computer is now safely in the hands of its rightful owner.

Repo man strikes again!    Anything wrong here?

A drop of rain never hurt anyone!

When we were finally ready to leave. We very much wanted to travel to the north to visit the various memorials to Che Guevara who was first captured and shortly after summarily shot  by the Bolivian army.

It was a bit of a trek but I felt it was something that I needed to do.

A bit of background needs to be put in here. We have been hearing a lot about terrible flooding in Peru and more recently a disaster in Colombia where a town was devastated by sudden floods. There were reports of heavy rain further south in Chile and Argentina. In fact we had responded to an appeal for four wheel drive vehicles to assist with efforts in Peru but our offer was not taken up.  So we carried on.  We drove for quite a long day toward the Che Guevara memorials and then camped overnight by the roadside. Ahead of us was a 300 km drive along a mud road road which we had been told was actually quite a comfortable drive. We had considered camping down near a dry river  but it looked like rain and I had the various floods in the front of my mind. I said we should not risk overnight rain in such a location.

Rain on a mud road

 It rained for most of the night and in the morning it was still raining quite heavily. We decided to press on to see how this mud road would be like. Even now all the rivers we passed were running very fast. 

We could have crossed here, maybe, but with 300 km of the same to go we did not want to find we could n't get back so we sadly turned around here.

Where the roads had cut through hillsides there were rocks falling as we passed and indeed we passed a couple of quite serious rock falls.

Fallen rocks on the road next morning

Once on the mud road it became a bit difficult but the rain persisted. We managed a couple of small fords. But then we came to a fairly fast flowing river  running across the road. Already there was some erosion to the edge of the road. But there was just space for us to ford the river. It was very hard to know what the surface under the water was like. As we pondered whether or not to continue  we noticed that the erosion was getting worse in a very short time. I felt that we should not continue in case we encountered a bigger obstruction and then may not be able to go forward or back.

Swollen river , flooded road

The alternative was to wait for the rain to stop and the road to settle back down. With great regret on my part we decided to turn round and go back towards the city of Cochabamba. Very much aware that heavy rain and flooding would likely feature in the coming days and weeks.Even more aware that while this inconvenient for us. These rains have and will continue to have a devastating affect on the lives of people who live here.

We had a long but mostly pleasant drive that took a whole day. By the way we passed the place where we had originally planned to camp by the dry river. It was flooded! So I was pleased about that decision anyhow. 

Lovely mountain scenery

The roads were good and lovely mountain scenery, although cattle tend to wander onto the busy highways, followed by exasperated farmers, usually women with their children in tow as they have no one to look after the kids when they are having to tend to the animals. On one such occasion, I was pleased to be able to help with three runaway cows.

She was beguiled by the rotting maize that was just across the road

Then we came in to the environs of Cocabamaba and the road suddenly became urban and grey and very busy. There were about 40km of this and then we found ourselves in the city proper. The traffic was completely mad it took over an hour of some of the craziest city driving I have ever encountered. That is,of course, with the exception of Cairo!

Cochabamba

We eventually found the place where we would settle for a couple of days. It was a really nice place with all the facilities we could want and some good company as our German friends the Schumacher family were already installed there.  

The Schumacher kids despatching ice cream

There was a nice comfortable sitting room and as I descended from the cab after and hour of what felt like the chariot race from Ben Hur I was exhilarated and exhausted at the same time.

Taxi ride to Heaven?

There are a few spots for tourism but the only one that we were really keen to see was the statue of Christ el Concordia.

Christ on the Rock.  

 We had been informed that this was a giant statue that was allegedly bigger than Christ the redeemer in Rio. So the next day we got a taxi that would take us up the very high hill to have look at it. The taxi driver was charming and took us for the half hour drive to the hill on which this statue is set.

I would like to set the scene a bit here. There is a road which runs around in a spiral round this hill and it takes a full 20 minutes to drive to the top as it is quite high. The road has a bumpy rough surface but is, ok. There is not a trace of a safety barrier so you look down in to the city far below. Not my favourite kind of road.

Now, you know when you are driving along and you come to a sleeping policeman you can reduce the impact of the bump by driving at the very end of the bump so only two of your wheels go over the bump. It makes it much easier doesn’t it . Well on this road along the edge of the bumpy bit runs a smooth kerb. I guess it is about 6- 8 inches wide. Well in order to give a smoother ride our taxi driver drove the entire journey with his right hand wheels on the kerb to give a smoother ride. This is at the very edge of the road surface and inch further right and we are taking the short cut to town. I have to say that the reason I have given such a detailed description of this is because I was genuinely too scared to take a picture. I was too scared to look and too scared to close my eyes. 

Jesus 

I sat in the back of this car unable to move a muscle. I once read a description of Indian taxi drivers It said that they drive ‘With the skill and accuracy of a professional knife thrower’!  this certainly applied here. As we reached the summit I thanked the driver politely and wobbled off with my knees still knocking as I experienced  the relief of finding that I am still alive!

The statue was magnificent it had been built of concrete and is very high and towers over the city. But in all honesty I can’t see it is higher than the one in Rio judging from the pictures I have seen. We took in the sight of the statue and of the view of the city. We chatted to a few people while we were there, including a charming Chinese man, Ruben who is in town to sell digital advertising hoardings to the Bolivians. 

Stairway from Heaven (2000 steps)

After not too long we made our descent down the 2000 steps back to  terra firma. One detail I really enjoyed was the brass plaque which listed some of the vital statistics of the statue and the names of sponsors. The main sponsor was Duralit industries As far as I know this is the company that makes industrial toasters!

It just seems funny to my silly mind that this statue of Jesus Christ is brought to you by an electric toaster company. 
Sorry about that! 

Once safely down we had been given instructions, in order to get back, to ask a taxi to take us either to the Institute of Oncology which is near to our hostal. Or to ask for the American International School. We found our taxi, the driver had no idea about the institute of Oncology, but when I mentioned the American School he knew exactly where to take us much to our relief. Ping negotiated the price with him and after his nose had stopped bleeding, we set off. It took about half an hour to discover that, as it happens, there are two American Schools at opposite ends of this huge town. Needless to say the driver had no idea of where the other one was.  Despite this, the driver was great, he asked directions several times and after a very long time he found someone who knew exactly where we needed to go. I swear that as we got close to our destination we passed a familiar building, he said something in something in Spanish that  sounded a lot like, ’oh that Institute of Oncology!’ and at that moment the other American School came into view and we knew we were home. Now what I found remarkable was this, the driver had taken us much further and longer than he could possibly have anticipated and he had to follow directions from several people. He was good natured and did not once complain or mention more money. Of course we paid him properly for the ride but he did not ask! So that was the beginning and end of tourism in the City of Cochabamba.

As we left Cochabamba heading towards La Paz, 50 km of a grey landscape populated with light industry. This continued until a bit of dusty nondescript countryside. 


After that it was up,up,up we climbed, on fairly good road surface, although it did have a few surprises.

The road to La Paz

The road was  really a commercial route between Cochabamba to LaPaz so there were many slow moving overloaded lorries to compete with on this narrow winding mountain road we covered about 180 km in around 7 hours. 

With a lot of very hairy overtakes at  ridiculously slow speeds. Being Right hand drive it was necessary for Ping to look out to see if it was clear and then for me to lumber past often only in first gear. At speeds of as much as 20Kmh but sometimes only at walking pace hoping that in such time nothing came on in the opposite direction. It was hard work and at times a bit scary. 

La Paz buses

We were directed by I overlander.com that at the end of this stretch was a small town that had a sport field and the locals seemed to be quite happy for people to camp there. 

We spent the night there along with our friends the Schumacher family. School kids wandered past and cows were driven home and no one took any notice of us at all. We had a pleasant night and after a nice shared breakfast it was off to La Paz.

La Paz

The Von Trapp family

Actually we were heading for a place called The Oberland Hotel just outside the city.

The Oberland is a very well run hotel, restaurant and café. It even has quite good children's playground which is good for the Schumachers to let their two young kids off the leash. There is also a cat for them to torture if necessary. We will only have a couple of days in LaPaz so we didn’t want to waste any time but the altitude is weighing heavily on us and in particular upon me. I am feeling a bit under the weather most of the time not sleeping and sometimes feeling a bit like a fish out of water.

Lunar landscape

Just down the road is a place called The Lunar Valley. For a couple of quid you can have a 45 minute walk around this interesting bit of rock. The ground around This area is made of a very soft sandstone, actually it is almost a hard mud than rock. Due to erosion by wind and rain it has been moulded into a most wonderful shape. As we walked around we found it so lovely. 

The happy couple

Are you going to give me a hand or what?!

There a was also a couple of newlyweds getting their pictures taken. I am sorry to say that I couldn’t resist photobombing one of their pics! I was surprised to see that the photographer seemed to find it funny.

There was also a troop of Koreans  just ahead of us posing every which way for photos. Delightfully unselfconscious.

Very enjoyable  and the Schumacher kids loved it. We had to take it easy for the rest of the day as we were all pretty knocked out by the altitude.

La paz is the second largest city in Peru with around 2 of its 10 million population living there. Once again it is  glued to the side of a mountain but it covers a pretty large area.

The various sections of the city are now linked together by a system of cable cars that swing you over the rooftops over very long distances. It is a very unusual angle to view a city from. These cable cars are very new and it leaves one wondering how anyone managed to get around the city before them the roads are often ridiculously steep and long and the city is quite haphazard in its layout.

I have been happier, but mostly with both feet on the ground

We went on a couple of the cable cars and had a good look around and then we had a walking tour of the centre of the city.  This was quite pleasant and informative. Christian, our guide was very enthusiastic. He showed us the main market place. At this point it started raining very heavily but we pressed on. He told us that nearly everybody prefers to use the market especially for food and produce. Most people have a special relationship with their favoured traders. 

 He also explained a little about the national costume for women. Which includes layers of petticoats that fill out the voluminous skirts that most women wear. I was specially interested to learn that many of them wear bowler hats. nearly all women here were some kind of hat with a pair of plaits hanging down It seems that in the 1920s British traders introduced Bolivia to the bowler hat for men. The fashion took off but when the hats were shipped over there were only small sizes and so the women enthusiastically hijacked them and many can be seen to this day wearing them perched on top of their head. 

Busy doin nothin, workin the whole day through!

We were told that there is also some kind of code where they wear the hat in a certain way to indicate their marital status and /or availability,what is surprising is that the vast majority of adult women adopt the traditional dress and that courtship tends to follow very traditional pattern too. It is just my impression but it does seem to me that the bowler hat, the pigtails and the puffed out petticoats kind of take the form of a badge of authority. 

Not only does it appear that women do most of the work but it seems that they are also the bosses. Typically small shops and market stalls are run by women. Most noticeably in the country areas it appears that the ‘farmers wife’ is in fact the farmer.

Baby Llamas  and foetus's for witchcraft purposes.
 We are assured that they must die of natural causes. they a are not killed 

This is a very nice lady that we met

We were taken to The ‘Witches’ market. Where many traditional medicines  and potions are sold it seems that coca is the main ingredient of most of these. Surprisingly dried Llama foetus,s also figure a lot. Christian explained at length that most of these potions are used to call on Mother Earth to bless various ventures often new buildings. When one of our party pointed to some tiny cardboard coffins on display in a corner and asked their purpose. He just said, rather darkly some of the uses of witchcraft are for good and some are used for bad purposes! He then just moved on.It was an interesting mix of tourist tat and real witchcraft stuff.

Finally we were shown the La Paz Prison. This is a working prison right in the middle of town. It has some fame as the prisoners somehow used to offer tours of the prison to tourists there were some incidents where the visitors were put at risk,and while this was very unofficial activity the practice is now ‘officially’ stopped. This prison is designated as low security. The prisoners have to pay rent for the privilege of staying there and they are allowed to have their wives and children live with them. They are allowed to come and go but the men have to stay. 

The Prison gate

Apparently it is possible to pay more for your accommodation and have much nicer conditions, TV, internet, good food and so on.  Christian did also tell us that this the hub for drug distribution in the city and If you know how, this is where you can get your drugs!  The building itself is unremarkable and is in a pretty poor condition.

I remember seeing something on television that portrayed it as quite a dangerous place.

For a number of reasons we are having to push on which is quite a pity as these last countries promise to be the most interesting. We really need to be in Colombia by mid June and  we still have some 7000kms to cover.

Leaving Bolivia

We are very aware that we have merely scratched the surface of what Bolivia has to offer but time is pressing us.

Lake Titticaca

So the next day we said goodbye to the Schumachers and set off for lake Titicaca and the Peruvian border. The lake was a pretty underwhelming experience though we did not have time to visit the much celebrated Sun and Moon islands. So for us it has to be the knowledge that we have visited the highest lake in the world.  

On the ferry

We did take the ferry across a narrow channel , which was exciting I had to drive the van onto a fairly rustic looking barge along with some Argentinean folk who were travelling in very elderly but rather beautiful bus. They are also travelling all around South America.

Elderly but beautiful bus

After we left the ferry we drove off to find somewhere to camp for the night.

More on altitude

I should say once more that we have been quite affected by the altitude, me more than Ping. Even when we have been down at the lower levels around 3000 metres and the affect have made some of our recent travels a bit difficult. When I was up at 5000m in La Paz I felt pretty rough. There is no doubt that has put a bit of a damper on our travels. We are aware that for the coming couple of weeks at least we will be up with the gods.

Moving on.......

When we get to Peru we really want to visit Machu Pichu  which may be a bit of a challenge. We shall see. After that we need to get a bit of a move on to make it to Cartegena in Colombia in time for our deadline. We are acutely aware that travel in Peru is still difficult due to the damage done by the floods. I for one really look forward to being back down at sea level once more.

For now our last night in Bolivia was spent parked up on a hill overlooking The lake. At no less than 5000 metres, hardly able to breathe with a headache and finding sleep very difficult indeed. That was when the blinding lightning heralded the monumental thunder and the torrential rain started.

I don’t know if the affect was caused by being so close to the clouds, but when the lightning flashed the van lit up like day even with all the blackout blinds down. The thunder was so loud that the percussive effect on the van  shook it hard. It rained hard all night. I have to say it felt a bit lonely up there. I didn’t sleep much.

The next day it continued to rain  as we trundled off to the Peru Border.