April 18, 2008 Lima, Peru
In Cusco we had the choice of a good road bus- 36 hours, or an iffy road- 22 hours (if the road was open,) or third- a 1 hour flight to Lima. We took the flight. Our hotel in Lima had sent us instructions for the person waiting to pick us up. “Make sure and check the I.D. number!” I wondered just how many people would be waiting with our name that would hustle us off to God knows where and rob us. Our flight was met by Edwin, with the proper I.D. and soon our entire luggage went into a taxi for the 20 mile ride to the hotel, “Hostel de los Artes” in Central Lima. This turned out to be a charming old hotel with an indoor patio, TV in a common area and free internet. Added bonuses were the private bathroom and a good mattress. Since Lima Centro is inhabited by poorer people, crime can be a problem. At the corner of the block was the Central Police Station and both sides of the street were filled by police eating, talking on mobile phones or just getting their cars washed; the street was very safe.
One thing we’d noticed about Peru was how food was prepared. It is almost never served hot, just room temperature. Buffets can be breeding grounds for bacteria or worse. As a consequence, Ted (who’ll eat almost anything) developed a bit of traveler’s diarrhea. After two days, a few doses of Bactrim soon had him up and about again but with no desire to eat much of anything. The area around the hotel had at least a dozen Chinese restaurants called Chifa restaurants. None of them served food anything like Chinese elsewhere in the world. Bad! Bad! Bad! But cheap. There was one great seafood place where the food was good but relatively expensive. We found one restaurant that served omelets for breakfast, not typical. Peruvians, like most of the people in the world, eat the same things for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all inedible as far as I am concerned.
Lima is a city of 7.5 million people, an old, dirty place with a few lovely plazas and many old buildings built in the old Spanish mode. Since the city has suffered numerous earthquakes, most of the buildings are about 100 years old. Our hotel and other old buildings have signs posted stating Tremor Safe. All over the city there is road construction going on which compounds and creates traffic jams. On the main or large streets there are four lanes of traffic. Buses only in the center two lanes and all other vehicles in the two outside lanes. Drivers prefer to drive at full speed, sliding to a stop only when the light is fully red not merely orange. As soon as the light turns green for the pedestrians, people run across like crabs on a beach, because very quickly the light turns red and the rows of charging cars and buses spring like greyhounds from the gate at the starting bell, honking at any stragglers in the crosswalk. We watched as one person; helping a blind man cross the street, pulled him the last few feet. As the cars careen around corners they blast their horns at all pedestrians crossing. Old and young alike, learn to run crossings. We didn’t actually see any accidents but I assume they pick the bodies up fast so as not to hinder the traffic.
Miraflores, an upscale beach community that long ago merged into Lima proper, is full of lovely homes, large hotels and numerous shopping malls. Burger King’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and numerous fast food places. It is lovely, expensive, and bathed by costal fog; cold at this time of year. Cliffs of land butt up to the shore and it is necessary to take a car or taxi down to the water or climb many steps down. The Pacific Ocean is so calm, with only a few swells, not really waves, lapping the shore. Beach sand isn’t sand, it is gravel. A park like area with several soccer courts and a few grassy places has been built on the shore and we watched as groups of soccer players kicked the ball around and a couple of would be surfers tried to ride the swells, such as they are. After wandering around and buying just “one more souvenir,” we returned to Central Lima, the broken sidewalks, lounging people and dirt.
Like all of South America, they love their statues and monuments to heroes of past wars on charging horses and of course, copies of old Greek or Roman figures. We walked around a beautiful park, completely fenced and closed so no one could enter and were reminded of an old joke. This park is yours, no running, no walking on the grass, no pets, no picnicking. Enjoy!
There is a long pedestrian only street between the two main plazas, filled with shops, lovely old buildings, fast food places and hundreds of Lima’s middle class buying or selling wares. It is a poorer version of Florida Street in Buenos Aires. At one end is a lovely park with the Cathedral, the Bishop’s House, a Government Building, a large arched building with museums and other display areas, coffee shops and several Army Tanks with armed military. It is a strange feeling to walk around a grassy park on a warm and beautiful Sunday, families with babies in strollers, lovers kissing, children skating and a tank with armed military on the ready.
Finally after two weeks in Lima, 6 months in South America, and 10 years on the road, it was time to settle down somewhere and return to a somewhat more traditional way of life. So we decided to head for Mexico and Puerto Vallarta.
Our flight from Lima to Puerto Vallarta ended up being over 28 hours mostly spent sitting in airports. The first airline we took was Taca to Bogotá, Colombia, a 2 ½ hour flight, where, for some unknown reason (maybe we looked old and pitiable) we were bumped up to Business Class. Real luxury with food served with wine, real cloth napkins and large and roomy seats. What a difference! Only problem was that, for customs reasons, we had to collect our luggage at the end and go through the entire rigamarole of Colombian customs inspection. We arrived at 12:15 A.M and found an airport with an army of cleaning crew and workmen. The waiting lounge is on the second floor but there are no public elevators and only one, closed, escalator. Behind glass doors there is an elevator for the handicapped and, by then, I felt we qualified. We talked a guard into letting us and our two carts full of luggage use it. We might have been able to sleep away some of the 8 hours there except for the welding, sawing, hammering, and vacuuming being done at night when the airport is nearly empty. In addition, though the temperature outside in Bogotá was near freezing, the A/C was on full blast as well. A handful of travelers, including us, tried to stretch out on the very uncomfortable wooden benches; the floor was more comfortable, at least until the vacuuming crew got to work. One restaurant where they charged the customary ridiculous price of $3.00 for a small bottle of water (like all airports) was open all night.
Finally it was time for the second leg of our journey on Mexicana Airlines to Mexico City, but at least our luggage would be automatically transferred to Puerto Vallarta and not need to be collected by us. But by now, we were carrying our heavy winter coats along with camera bags, assorted other bags, and finally our heavy winter shoes. Leaving Colombia is a chore in itself. First through immigration, then the customary security check where they saw something in my bag. After pulling my bag apart, they searched my little cosmetic bag and found the dangerous weapon, a two inch, hair thin, eyeglass screwdriver that had slipped through un-noticed by all the other airlines. Also, Ted’s two half-used bottles of water were confiscated. Now maybe, if we were terrorists, I could have overpowered the pilot with my mini-screwdriver and Ted could have mixed up some sort of bomb but it really is insane. Next we had to walk through the “screening room” which is a line up of armed police where we were patted down looking for what? That was only the beginning. Passports are checked as we boarded the plane which is logical. But why must we show the passports on exiting the plane? Could we have sneaked on sometime during the flight? Or maybe changed seats with a terrorist somewhere over Colombia?
Finally, after a flight of 5 hours we arrived at our second stop, Mexico City, which has an airport the size of many small towns, all behind glass and no air-conditioning or even a single fan though the temperature here was in the high 80’s. After going through passport control, we walked the several miles to gate 15 for our connecting flight. No signs, no information in any language and no clue about what was going on. After asking a man sitting at an unmarked desk, he sent us on to area “B”. There, everyone on a connecting flight sits around until the flight is announced over the loudspeaker system. It was already quite warm; some could even say “hot” and of course, we were dressed for cold Andean weather. The altitude was causing Ted’s barely calmed intestinal tract to writhe and coil like a ball of snakes in the sun. The eight hours before our next flight slowly crept by; our departure time was scheduled for 8:10 p.m. for arrival time 9:35 in Puerto Vallarta. Each gate at the airport feels like a mile from the next. We couldn’t find out which would be our departure gate until 7:45! I looked at the miles we would have to run, the pile of hand luggage, including the very heavy so called laptop computer, our coats and shoes and Ted trying not to vomit, and arranged for a wheelchair, if not for Ted, then for the stuff we carried. Finally at 7:45 our gate was announced. Gate 27, the last gate, at least five city blocks away with five minutes to board. Ted climbed into the wheelchair and I piled most of our stuff onto him. A young man pushed him as I followed along to the last flight of the day.
Finally we were airborne for an hour long flight. Arriving in Puerto Vallarta at 9:30 pm we had a grand surprise. Baggage claim was only a 2 minute walk from the gate and we didn’t have to go through any kind of customs at all. Also, Ted’s gut had stopped writhing. A short cab ride later and we were at our hotel the Posada de Roger about 28 hours after we’d left our hotel in Lima; the end of our last and single worst, day of traveling in 10 years.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Peru and Machu Pichu
April 6, 2008
Our first tour was a 9 hour, butt numbing, motion sickness inducing roll down to the Sacred Valley around Cusco. The first stop was at Pisac, a typical Andean village where a Sunday market, all merchants selling the same items, winds its way through the small town and up the hills. Further up the hillside are the ruins, a defense area where the farmers could take cover. The hills are crisscrossed with the old Inca trails which visitors (not us) can walk up and down. At the top of the mountain are several Inca temples, the sun, the moon and other old buildings. Unfortunately, no one knows what all the buildings were originally used for and the names we have were given by the Spanish and may have little or nothing to do with the actual buildings.
The Sacred Valley of The Incas is a wonderfully pastoral place with fields planted and cared for, with grazing cattle, sheep, pigs and llamas, surrounded by snow capped mountains and watered by numerous rivers. The great Urubamba River begins here, rushes madly down to the Amazon basin and eventually feeds into the Amazon River on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. We stopped here, at the town called Urubamba, for a delicious buffet lunch, eating in a lovely garden, warmed by the sun.
On the way up the mountains toward Machu Pichu is the old town of Ollantaytambo, 2600 meters above sea level, (8500 ft.) one of the main defenses of the Inca Empire. It is impressive because it is built going straight up the side of the mountain. Looking around, houses and temples are built on adjoining mountains, half way up the sides. Visitors (again, not us) climb up a very steep hill on pathways set on the terraces. At the top is the temple of the sun, formed by six rectangular monoliths with a weight of 50 tons each. All the stones were brought from a quarry 3 ½ miles away by humans. A very cold wind was blowing and after climbing through a few streets, we took refuge in a restaurant. The last part of the trip consisted of going back to town and the hotel.
On Wednesday we took the city tour, visiting the cathedral built on the bases of the Inca Palace. Some of the palace rooms were incorporated and used to house the clergy. The Spanish were convinced that Spanish construction methods were better than the Indian, so they built the church, courtyard and other rooms in the European manner. The Inca walls were built to form a 15 degree slant and withstood the constant tremors for at least 600 years. A large earthquake in 1650 demolished the church but left the Inca portions undamaged. A second earthquake in 1950 finished off several other churches in the area -and the Inca palace still stands.
About a mile outside and above Cusco are the ruins of Sacsayhuaman (known affectionately as “sexy woman”). Three massive walls running parallel to each other on ever higher levels were laid in 22 zigzags in such a way that any attacker could be detected immediately. The biggest stone is 25 feet tall and weighs 361 tons. According to archeologists, it took an army of 250,000 men to drag the stones, place them and cut and fit all the adjoining stones during the 75 years of construction. Under some of the stones there is a tunnel that connected the walls to the fortress. The name Sacsayhuaman means “head of the Puma”, and from above, it does look like a Puma head with the zigzagging walls being the teeth.
Local Indian women in traditional dress, with a small herd of Llamas and Alpacas will pose for pictures, hoping to get a few cents from visitors. Of course, I had to pet the animals, take pictures and paid my few Soles for the privilege. Alpacas have fuzzy faces and Llamas have clean faces. Both kinds are not as soft as the cleaned and brushed skins for sale in all the shops. And both kinds will spit in your face if you try to get them to do something they don’t want to do, just like their cousins, the camels.
A few miles away and 3715 meters above sea level (12,260 ft.) is the “red fortress”, Pucapucara, an Inca military fort constructed on red earth, with terraces, stairways and enclosures where travelers and their animals could rest.
The last stop was at Tambomachay where the Inca took advantage of natural caves and rock formations to create a cult place dedicated to water with a fountain bubbling out of the hill into three Inca built falls and stone channels.
Our final trip was to the famous Machu Pichu. The first part of the 4 hour train ride was an engineering marvel, a set of remarkable switchbacks which enabled the train to rise several thousand feet from the station in Cusco to the top of the surrounding mountains before plunging down to the Sacred Valley through a series of narrow gorges and defiles cut by the Urubamba River, with sheer cliffs rising on either side for several thousand feet, and the river itself a swirling mass of white water roiling down the precipitous slope and around massive boulders fallen from the heights above.
From Cusco’s elevation of 3700 meters (12000 feet or so), we dropped down to about 2000 meters (6000 feet) into a cloud forest filled with orchids, bromeliads and ferns. It was a rainy day and clouds hid the tops of the mountains; the lushness of the valley as wonderful as any we’d seen in Costa Rica (or anywhere else for that matter). When we finally disembarked in Aguas Calientes it was raining a fine spray. Hundreds of hawkers met the train, each holding rain ponchos in every color possible. We declined the ponchos and boarded a bus for the final climb to the top of the mountain and Machu Pichu, a 30 minute ride winding up more than 2000 feet above the Urubamba river which flowed around between gigantic, roundish peaks, each thousands of feet high and looking like nothing so much as titanic stalactites (or stalagmites, we can never remember which is which.) These peaks are a biological wonder. Isolated from each other, the smaller fauna of each are developing into separate and distinct species.
Arriving at the top we looked for our guide who quickly passed us over to an English speaking guide. Following her through the entrance gate, we worried that we might have to hike some distance but were delighted when a short walk brought us right into the ruins. Looking around at the ruins, some covered by clouds, and then the surrounding mountain tops, one could only stand in awe at the location.
Built sometime around 1400 AD, in an almost inaccessible location, the city was abandoned only about a hundred years later, possibly to make sure that it was never discovered by the Spanish Conquistadores, which it never was, and for 500 years it lay in ruins, overgrown with vegetation and invisible. It wasn’t until July 24, 1911, when the American historian Hiram Bingham, taking a shortcut to the Inca ruin of Vilcabamba, stumbled upon some building stones rising above the jungle. Intrigued, he started digging around – and the rest is history, not to mention Peru’s single biggest moneymaker, hosting 1500 visitors a day and more than 3000 during the high season at an average cost of some $200 per day per visitor, not including hotels, meals, souvenir sales, etc.
The ruins themselves scale right up the mountain with several large buildings perched on adjoining mountains. We followed our guide as she explained that Machu Pichu was only a religious center where about 500 priests lived. The Inca kings lived in Cusco, probably visiting only for religious ceremonies. Of course, this is all rank speculation. To this day, no one really knows what Machu Pichu was really for.
After climbing up and down the ancient stairways to various parts of the ruins, we were completely exhausted and happy to re-board the bus back down to Aguas Calientes and lunch. . We wandered around the small town which seems to be 50% restaurants and 50% souvenir shops. Every thing is set up for the million visitors; clean and orderly. Lunch, a buffet, was good and, now rested and full, we walked back to the station to wait for the train home which, after having seen the ruins, was an interminable 4 hours through the darkness of night.
Our final day in Cusco was spent visiting the beautiful plazas and the charming, narrow, cobblestone streets of the center of town, the large churches around the plazas, the high end shops and the many small tourist shops along the side streets. While we were eating lunch, a group of unhappy workers marched through the streets, around the plaza and finally stood on the city hall steps, calling for something or someone. We never did figure out what they were demanding and after about an hour, they melted away.
Cusco is a very charming city and the tourist industry is very well organized, leaving nothing to chance and ensuring that the visitor has seen it all in comfort. (except for the lack of sufficient oxygen.) Happily though, the next day we boarded our flight to Lima and blessed Sea Level.
Our first tour was a 9 hour, butt numbing, motion sickness inducing roll down to the Sacred Valley around Cusco. The first stop was at Pisac, a typical Andean village where a Sunday market, all merchants selling the same items, winds its way through the small town and up the hills. Further up the hillside are the ruins, a defense area where the farmers could take cover. The hills are crisscrossed with the old Inca trails which visitors (not us) can walk up and down. At the top of the mountain are several Inca temples, the sun, the moon and other old buildings. Unfortunately, no one knows what all the buildings were originally used for and the names we have were given by the Spanish and may have little or nothing to do with the actual buildings.
The Sacred Valley of The Incas is a wonderfully pastoral place with fields planted and cared for, with grazing cattle, sheep, pigs and llamas, surrounded by snow capped mountains and watered by numerous rivers. The great Urubamba River begins here, rushes madly down to the Amazon basin and eventually feeds into the Amazon River on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. We stopped here, at the town called Urubamba, for a delicious buffet lunch, eating in a lovely garden, warmed by the sun.
On the way up the mountains toward Machu Pichu is the old town of Ollantaytambo, 2600 meters above sea level, (8500 ft.) one of the main defenses of the Inca Empire. It is impressive because it is built going straight up the side of the mountain. Looking around, houses and temples are built on adjoining mountains, half way up the sides. Visitors (again, not us) climb up a very steep hill on pathways set on the terraces. At the top is the temple of the sun, formed by six rectangular monoliths with a weight of 50 tons each. All the stones were brought from a quarry 3 ½ miles away by humans. A very cold wind was blowing and after climbing through a few streets, we took refuge in a restaurant. The last part of the trip consisted of going back to town and the hotel.
On Wednesday we took the city tour, visiting the cathedral built on the bases of the Inca Palace. Some of the palace rooms were incorporated and used to house the clergy. The Spanish were convinced that Spanish construction methods were better than the Indian, so they built the church, courtyard and other rooms in the European manner. The Inca walls were built to form a 15 degree slant and withstood the constant tremors for at least 600 years. A large earthquake in 1650 demolished the church but left the Inca portions undamaged. A second earthquake in 1950 finished off several other churches in the area -and the Inca palace still stands.
About a mile outside and above Cusco are the ruins of Sacsayhuaman (known affectionately as “sexy woman”). Three massive walls running parallel to each other on ever higher levels were laid in 22 zigzags in such a way that any attacker could be detected immediately. The biggest stone is 25 feet tall and weighs 361 tons. According to archeologists, it took an army of 250,000 men to drag the stones, place them and cut and fit all the adjoining stones during the 75 years of construction. Under some of the stones there is a tunnel that connected the walls to the fortress. The name Sacsayhuaman means “head of the Puma”, and from above, it does look like a Puma head with the zigzagging walls being the teeth.
Local Indian women in traditional dress, with a small herd of Llamas and Alpacas will pose for pictures, hoping to get a few cents from visitors. Of course, I had to pet the animals, take pictures and paid my few Soles for the privilege. Alpacas have fuzzy faces and Llamas have clean faces. Both kinds are not as soft as the cleaned and brushed skins for sale in all the shops. And both kinds will spit in your face if you try to get them to do something they don’t want to do, just like their cousins, the camels.
A few miles away and 3715 meters above sea level (12,260 ft.) is the “red fortress”, Pucapucara, an Inca military fort constructed on red earth, with terraces, stairways and enclosures where travelers and their animals could rest.
The last stop was at Tambomachay where the Inca took advantage of natural caves and rock formations to create a cult place dedicated to water with a fountain bubbling out of the hill into three Inca built falls and stone channels.
Our final trip was to the famous Machu Pichu. The first part of the 4 hour train ride was an engineering marvel, a set of remarkable switchbacks which enabled the train to rise several thousand feet from the station in Cusco to the top of the surrounding mountains before plunging down to the Sacred Valley through a series of narrow gorges and defiles cut by the Urubamba River, with sheer cliffs rising on either side for several thousand feet, and the river itself a swirling mass of white water roiling down the precipitous slope and around massive boulders fallen from the heights above.
From Cusco’s elevation of 3700 meters (12000 feet or so), we dropped down to about 2000 meters (6000 feet) into a cloud forest filled with orchids, bromeliads and ferns. It was a rainy day and clouds hid the tops of the mountains; the lushness of the valley as wonderful as any we’d seen in Costa Rica (or anywhere else for that matter). When we finally disembarked in Aguas Calientes it was raining a fine spray. Hundreds of hawkers met the train, each holding rain ponchos in every color possible. We declined the ponchos and boarded a bus for the final climb to the top of the mountain and Machu Pichu, a 30 minute ride winding up more than 2000 feet above the Urubamba river which flowed around between gigantic, roundish peaks, each thousands of feet high and looking like nothing so much as titanic stalactites (or stalagmites, we can never remember which is which.) These peaks are a biological wonder. Isolated from each other, the smaller fauna of each are developing into separate and distinct species.
Arriving at the top we looked for our guide who quickly passed us over to an English speaking guide. Following her through the entrance gate, we worried that we might have to hike some distance but were delighted when a short walk brought us right into the ruins. Looking around at the ruins, some covered by clouds, and then the surrounding mountain tops, one could only stand in awe at the location.
Built sometime around 1400 AD, in an almost inaccessible location, the city was abandoned only about a hundred years later, possibly to make sure that it was never discovered by the Spanish Conquistadores, which it never was, and for 500 years it lay in ruins, overgrown with vegetation and invisible. It wasn’t until July 24, 1911, when the American historian Hiram Bingham, taking a shortcut to the Inca ruin of Vilcabamba, stumbled upon some building stones rising above the jungle. Intrigued, he started digging around – and the rest is history, not to mention Peru’s single biggest moneymaker, hosting 1500 visitors a day and more than 3000 during the high season at an average cost of some $200 per day per visitor, not including hotels, meals, souvenir sales, etc.
The ruins themselves scale right up the mountain with several large buildings perched on adjoining mountains. We followed our guide as she explained that Machu Pichu was only a religious center where about 500 priests lived. The Inca kings lived in Cusco, probably visiting only for religious ceremonies. Of course, this is all rank speculation. To this day, no one really knows what Machu Pichu was really for.
After climbing up and down the ancient stairways to various parts of the ruins, we were completely exhausted and happy to re-board the bus back down to Aguas Calientes and lunch. . We wandered around the small town which seems to be 50% restaurants and 50% souvenir shops. Every thing is set up for the million visitors; clean and orderly. Lunch, a buffet, was good and, now rested and full, we walked back to the station to wait for the train home which, after having seen the ruins, was an interminable 4 hours through the darkness of night.
Our final day in Cusco was spent visiting the beautiful plazas and the charming, narrow, cobblestone streets of the center of town, the large churches around the plazas, the high end shops and the many small tourist shops along the side streets. While we were eating lunch, a group of unhappy workers marched through the streets, around the plaza and finally stood on the city hall steps, calling for something or someone. We never did figure out what they were demanding and after about an hour, they melted away.
Cusco is a very charming city and the tourist industry is very well organized, leaving nothing to chance and ensuring that the visitor has seen it all in comfort. (except for the lack of sufficient oxygen.) Happily though, the next day we boarded our flight to Lima and blessed Sea Level.
Bolivia, end
April 3, 2008
Bolivia is a very interesting country geographically, from the Atacama desert, the endless salt flats, Lake Titicaca and finally La Paz, built in an old volcano crater. It has been raped by its powerful neighbors and outside invasions for centuries and has lost more than a third of its land. Today, completely landlocked except for a small corridor to the sea available only on loan from Chile, is dependent on tourists and the income from the illegal drug trade. Rich in natural gas, for some reason, it has refused to sell it internationally. We watched as a long line of Bolivians waited to fill their propane tanks. Propane gas sells for about 75 cents a gallon in Bolivia but a few miles north, in Peru it sells for 15 dollars a gallon so much of the gas is siphoned off to the black market, leaving less for the Bolivians.
The Bolivian air force has planes left over from the Korean War era and if Bolivia should want to purchase a new plane, Chile would take that as an “act of aggression” and line the borders with military personnel. Same for Brazil, Peru and Venezuela. Coca, the main income producing crop in South America, due to the pressures of the US war on drugs, has been moved into an area that is guarded by well armed guerrillas from Venezuela and Colombia, and large swatches of the population are slowly being armed with guns being smuggled in from Venezuela.
Most of the rural population, and those without skills who have moved to the cities, have not progressed in education or sophistication for hundreds of years. Still paying homage to the ancient gods, fearful of cameras and without modern convienieces, they live much as they have for hundreds of years. Throughout the country, there are very few TV antennas. Whole villages are cut off from the modern world.
Those that have moved to the city and found employment are dissatisfied and in La Paz, at least once a day, sometimes three times in a day, the city is brought to a standstill as protestors block main streets with parades or sit down demonstrations called “manifestaciones”. The government has no history of stability with 175 presidents in 175 years and a reputation of corruption, and seems to be unable to make any changes that affect the people positively.
We talked to an older, educated man who lived in Europe for many years, and he is convinced that there will be a civil war within a couple of months and is prepared to defend his home and family with a gun. As I watched the hundreds of tourists climb the hills and shop in the thousands of handicraft shops, I tried to imagine gun fighting, death and destruction in the streets. I couldn’t! That way of life may be real to the people of Iraq or Pakistan, but not to modern Westerners. He also is convinced that the U.S. will send an army down at the first sign of trouble. I’m not so sure. Bolivia is a Christian country and a democracy, so we can’t bring either “the true God” or democratic deliverance to them. As a god-fearing, drug using nation, I don’t think that many Americans would be in favor of another war in a hopeless situation.
To Cusco:
So, with all this on our minds, we left Bolivia, the most interesting country in South America and the cheapest place so far on this continent, and headed into Peru by bus. At the border, everyone disembarked from the bus, walked into the Bolivian immigration office for an exit stamp, walked a few meters more to the Peruvian immigration office and were issued a 90 day visa in about three minutes. The streets of Desaguadero, the border crossing town, were filled with bicycle driven carts, a sort of tuk-tuk as in Asia and India, transporting all manner of items, as well as passengers, around town. In front of the Peruvian immigration office sat a row of money changers busy changing Bolivianos for Soleis, Peruvian money.
As we drove through the country side for the next nine hours, we noticed that most of the village and farm houses had metal roofs, unlike the thatch roofs of Bolivia. Except for that, the houses looked the same. Large farms cut up the valleys and climb the hills, with thousands of grazing sheep and cattle. As we approached Cusco, the landscape changed from the flat plateau to steep, green and lush mountains with the glaciers of the Andes rising behind. Picturesque villages and farms in the valleys with workers in the fields or herding sheep or cows along the side of the road, made for a lovely sight.
However, the roads so far in Peru were dotted with potholes and in need of repair. All along the roads in Bolivia and in Peru, the houses are little cube like structures of raw brick with all the top floors unfinished. Even in La Paz, the houses climbing up the hills were built the same way. Finally reaching Cusco after a 12 hour bus ride we found it to be a modern city with many single family homes, beautiful flower filled yards, pastel stucco with tile roofs and very few rural ladies or street stalls. There are numerous market streets leading off the main boulevard but the boulevard itself is strangely free from tourist shops.
We had contacted a hotel on the internet and they sent someone to the bus terminal to pick us up. Good thing as the hotel isn’t really a hotel, rather a private home on the second floor with five rooms on ground floor, each with private bath, a small heater, a common area with a mini kitchen and two tables with chairs. There is no sign outside and we would never have found it on our own. There is no reception and the owners upstairs were there to greet us. Because we were so tired, they ordered a delivered Pizza. The next day we discovered that many of the restaurants are closed during the day making it difficult to buy lunch. Early in the morning two men from a tour company showed up, giving us information on the available tours. I had marked 9 different ruins that we might be interested in. We signed up for three tours that would take us to each place, including a day trip to Machu Pichu by train. At one time there was a cheap local train to Machu Pichu but that has been discontinued. Today the “backpackers” train costs $99.00 each and the luxury “Vista Dome” costs $148.00 roundtrip. There is an even more luxurious train, the “Hiram Bingham” named for the discoverer of Mach Pichu, which is made up of nothing but dining cars. It also features live music, hot towels when you board, and any kind of gourmet food you’d care to order, prepared by internationally trained chefs. All this for a mere $625. Not bad for a round trip of 8 hours! Also, the entrance fee to the ruins is $50.00 each. Our total cost for three tours: $540.00, still less than the “Hiram Bingham” and that included several meals, bus transfers, and all the entrance fees. The tour man also arranged for our flight tickets from Cusco to Lima. The three tours did include all the ruins and valleys in the area so we were able to see all that we wanted.
First about tourists in Cusco. Over a million tourists visit Cusco every year. The industry is run very efficiently. Someone from the “Visitor’s Information” office is at the bus station or airport to greet arrivals, help with luggage and go with the visitors to their hotel. After seeing them to their rooms, they set up an appointment with the tour companies. Early the next morning, the tour company makes arrangements for visiting each of the ruins and the city tour. The tours could be done without the tour companies but are more difficult and take more time. The tourist busses line up and leave from the Plaza de Armas every few minutes, each full with their load of passengers and a local guide. When the tour is long, meals are included at very nice restaurants. Finally, the tour company sends a taxi for departure from Cusco and the person who greeted the tourist at the bus station is there to see him off at either the bus station or the airport. Everything is arranged to insure that the visitor is comfortable, sees everything and has had ample opportunity to spend lots of money in the local community.
Climbing the surrounding hills, the city itself is very pretty, clean and charming with cobblestone streets, walls made of old Inca stones, lots of eye catching merchandise, friendly people and every class of restaurant possible, lovely gardens with well kept flower plots, fountains sparkling in the sun, impressive old churches and a history complete with greed, power, rape and ravishment. What more could a visitor want, besides, at 12,000 ft., more oxygen!
There are four classes of visitors. First the “do it themselves” backpackers who go on local buses and arrange lodging on the fly. Most of them end up on the arranged tours anyway. Second are those, like us, who stay in budget hotels and take the Backpackers train and all the tours. Third are those with more cash who take the Vistadome train, and finally those with gobs of money who stay in the 5 star hotels and take the “Hiram Bingham Train” at $625 a day, per person.
The Inca Ruins.
The Incas themselves were late comers in the New World, lasting only a hundred years before the Spanish arrived. Compared with the Aztecs and the Mayans, they were less advanced. They didn’t develop writing or as fine an architecture but had gold and silver in abundance. They had developed a good army and controlled a huge area from Ecuador to Chile, always having to defend themselves from the fierce Indians of the Amazon Basin.
As far as archeologists can determine, they had a religion full of myths, mysticisms and miracles, not too unlike the religion brought over by the Spaniards with a belief in the afterlife. Indian tribes that had been conquered by the Incas were more than willing to join the Spanish and overthrow the hated rulers. But like the Indians to the north, they knew excellent real estate. The locations of the cities are some of the most beautiful in the world, from large food producing plateaus to tropical rainforest valleys to breathtaking heights. A vast network of paths and troops of runners insured fresh fish from the sea and rivers, produce from many different locations, and gold aplenty to decorate themselves and their houses. All these places had been inhabited for centuries by different Indian farming tribes who hadn’t developed armies capable of defending themselves from the Incas. Only the fierce, head hunting Indians in the jungles could or did resist.
The Inca rulers lived in Cusco, in a large valley surrounded by vast growing areas. Since they imported so much, a network of relay stations was developed, each about 6 miles apart, the distance a runner could make easily where another runner would take over. Llamas did most of the transport but unlike donkeys, would not carry heavy loads so necessitated many animals. Llamas also provided food and warm clothing.
The buildings of un-mortared stones, some weighing over 50 tons each, had to be quarried and transported by human effort. These huge stones made up the bases of the walls. The higher up the wall construction went, the smaller the stones and these were worked into more or less square shapes without the use of metal tools. The magnificent walls with huge rocks were built in the valleys taking advantage of natural outcroppings and caves. Most of the defensive walls were built in the Cusco valley, some with three sets of walls as high as 50 feet. The better, square cut stones, were later pillaged and used by the Spanish to construct the churches and homes they built in Cusco and other towns. One marvels at the incredible workmanship which fit the stones together so closely that mortar was not needed; which was a good thing since they never invented it.
What they did invent, though, was a system of building which canted the walls at a 15 degree angle to each other, perfect for preventing collapse during the frequently violent earthquakes which pummel the region regularly. In many places, you can see where the stones have separated, often leaving large gaps between, yet the walls have remained standing.
Bolivia is a very interesting country geographically, from the Atacama desert, the endless salt flats, Lake Titicaca and finally La Paz, built in an old volcano crater. It has been raped by its powerful neighbors and outside invasions for centuries and has lost more than a third of its land. Today, completely landlocked except for a small corridor to the sea available only on loan from Chile, is dependent on tourists and the income from the illegal drug trade. Rich in natural gas, for some reason, it has refused to sell it internationally. We watched as a long line of Bolivians waited to fill their propane tanks. Propane gas sells for about 75 cents a gallon in Bolivia but a few miles north, in Peru it sells for 15 dollars a gallon so much of the gas is siphoned off to the black market, leaving less for the Bolivians.
The Bolivian air force has planes left over from the Korean War era and if Bolivia should want to purchase a new plane, Chile would take that as an “act of aggression” and line the borders with military personnel. Same for Brazil, Peru and Venezuela. Coca, the main income producing crop in South America, due to the pressures of the US war on drugs, has been moved into an area that is guarded by well armed guerrillas from Venezuela and Colombia, and large swatches of the population are slowly being armed with guns being smuggled in from Venezuela.
Most of the rural population, and those without skills who have moved to the cities, have not progressed in education or sophistication for hundreds of years. Still paying homage to the ancient gods, fearful of cameras and without modern convienieces, they live much as they have for hundreds of years. Throughout the country, there are very few TV antennas. Whole villages are cut off from the modern world.
Those that have moved to the city and found employment are dissatisfied and in La Paz, at least once a day, sometimes three times in a day, the city is brought to a standstill as protestors block main streets with parades or sit down demonstrations called “manifestaciones”. The government has no history of stability with 175 presidents in 175 years and a reputation of corruption, and seems to be unable to make any changes that affect the people positively.
We talked to an older, educated man who lived in Europe for many years, and he is convinced that there will be a civil war within a couple of months and is prepared to defend his home and family with a gun. As I watched the hundreds of tourists climb the hills and shop in the thousands of handicraft shops, I tried to imagine gun fighting, death and destruction in the streets. I couldn’t! That way of life may be real to the people of Iraq or Pakistan, but not to modern Westerners. He also is convinced that the U.S. will send an army down at the first sign of trouble. I’m not so sure. Bolivia is a Christian country and a democracy, so we can’t bring either “the true God” or democratic deliverance to them. As a god-fearing, drug using nation, I don’t think that many Americans would be in favor of another war in a hopeless situation.
To Cusco:
So, with all this on our minds, we left Bolivia, the most interesting country in South America and the cheapest place so far on this continent, and headed into Peru by bus. At the border, everyone disembarked from the bus, walked into the Bolivian immigration office for an exit stamp, walked a few meters more to the Peruvian immigration office and were issued a 90 day visa in about three minutes. The streets of Desaguadero, the border crossing town, were filled with bicycle driven carts, a sort of tuk-tuk as in Asia and India, transporting all manner of items, as well as passengers, around town. In front of the Peruvian immigration office sat a row of money changers busy changing Bolivianos for Soleis, Peruvian money.
As we drove through the country side for the next nine hours, we noticed that most of the village and farm houses had metal roofs, unlike the thatch roofs of Bolivia. Except for that, the houses looked the same. Large farms cut up the valleys and climb the hills, with thousands of grazing sheep and cattle. As we approached Cusco, the landscape changed from the flat plateau to steep, green and lush mountains with the glaciers of the Andes rising behind. Picturesque villages and farms in the valleys with workers in the fields or herding sheep or cows along the side of the road, made for a lovely sight.
However, the roads so far in Peru were dotted with potholes and in need of repair. All along the roads in Bolivia and in Peru, the houses are little cube like structures of raw brick with all the top floors unfinished. Even in La Paz, the houses climbing up the hills were built the same way. Finally reaching Cusco after a 12 hour bus ride we found it to be a modern city with many single family homes, beautiful flower filled yards, pastel stucco with tile roofs and very few rural ladies or street stalls. There are numerous market streets leading off the main boulevard but the boulevard itself is strangely free from tourist shops.
We had contacted a hotel on the internet and they sent someone to the bus terminal to pick us up. Good thing as the hotel isn’t really a hotel, rather a private home on the second floor with five rooms on ground floor, each with private bath, a small heater, a common area with a mini kitchen and two tables with chairs. There is no sign outside and we would never have found it on our own. There is no reception and the owners upstairs were there to greet us. Because we were so tired, they ordered a delivered Pizza. The next day we discovered that many of the restaurants are closed during the day making it difficult to buy lunch. Early in the morning two men from a tour company showed up, giving us information on the available tours. I had marked 9 different ruins that we might be interested in. We signed up for three tours that would take us to each place, including a day trip to Machu Pichu by train. At one time there was a cheap local train to Machu Pichu but that has been discontinued. Today the “backpackers” train costs $99.00 each and the luxury “Vista Dome” costs $148.00 roundtrip. There is an even more luxurious train, the “Hiram Bingham” named for the discoverer of Mach Pichu, which is made up of nothing but dining cars. It also features live music, hot towels when you board, and any kind of gourmet food you’d care to order, prepared by internationally trained chefs. All this for a mere $625. Not bad for a round trip of 8 hours! Also, the entrance fee to the ruins is $50.00 each. Our total cost for three tours: $540.00, still less than the “Hiram Bingham” and that included several meals, bus transfers, and all the entrance fees. The tour man also arranged for our flight tickets from Cusco to Lima. The three tours did include all the ruins and valleys in the area so we were able to see all that we wanted.
First about tourists in Cusco. Over a million tourists visit Cusco every year. The industry is run very efficiently. Someone from the “Visitor’s Information” office is at the bus station or airport to greet arrivals, help with luggage and go with the visitors to their hotel. After seeing them to their rooms, they set up an appointment with the tour companies. Early the next morning, the tour company makes arrangements for visiting each of the ruins and the city tour. The tours could be done without the tour companies but are more difficult and take more time. The tourist busses line up and leave from the Plaza de Armas every few minutes, each full with their load of passengers and a local guide. When the tour is long, meals are included at very nice restaurants. Finally, the tour company sends a taxi for departure from Cusco and the person who greeted the tourist at the bus station is there to see him off at either the bus station or the airport. Everything is arranged to insure that the visitor is comfortable, sees everything and has had ample opportunity to spend lots of money in the local community.
Climbing the surrounding hills, the city itself is very pretty, clean and charming with cobblestone streets, walls made of old Inca stones, lots of eye catching merchandise, friendly people and every class of restaurant possible, lovely gardens with well kept flower plots, fountains sparkling in the sun, impressive old churches and a history complete with greed, power, rape and ravishment. What more could a visitor want, besides, at 12,000 ft., more oxygen!
There are four classes of visitors. First the “do it themselves” backpackers who go on local buses and arrange lodging on the fly. Most of them end up on the arranged tours anyway. Second are those, like us, who stay in budget hotels and take the Backpackers train and all the tours. Third are those with more cash who take the Vistadome train, and finally those with gobs of money who stay in the 5 star hotels and take the “Hiram Bingham Train” at $625 a day, per person.
The Inca Ruins.
The Incas themselves were late comers in the New World, lasting only a hundred years before the Spanish arrived. Compared with the Aztecs and the Mayans, they were less advanced. They didn’t develop writing or as fine an architecture but had gold and silver in abundance. They had developed a good army and controlled a huge area from Ecuador to Chile, always having to defend themselves from the fierce Indians of the Amazon Basin.
As far as archeologists can determine, they had a religion full of myths, mysticisms and miracles, not too unlike the religion brought over by the Spaniards with a belief in the afterlife. Indian tribes that had been conquered by the Incas were more than willing to join the Spanish and overthrow the hated rulers. But like the Indians to the north, they knew excellent real estate. The locations of the cities are some of the most beautiful in the world, from large food producing plateaus to tropical rainforest valleys to breathtaking heights. A vast network of paths and troops of runners insured fresh fish from the sea and rivers, produce from many different locations, and gold aplenty to decorate themselves and their houses. All these places had been inhabited for centuries by different Indian farming tribes who hadn’t developed armies capable of defending themselves from the Incas. Only the fierce, head hunting Indians in the jungles could or did resist.
The Inca rulers lived in Cusco, in a large valley surrounded by vast growing areas. Since they imported so much, a network of relay stations was developed, each about 6 miles apart, the distance a runner could make easily where another runner would take over. Llamas did most of the transport but unlike donkeys, would not carry heavy loads so necessitated many animals. Llamas also provided food and warm clothing.
The buildings of un-mortared stones, some weighing over 50 tons each, had to be quarried and transported by human effort. These huge stones made up the bases of the walls. The higher up the wall construction went, the smaller the stones and these were worked into more or less square shapes without the use of metal tools. The magnificent walls with huge rocks were built in the valleys taking advantage of natural outcroppings and caves. Most of the defensive walls were built in the Cusco valley, some with three sets of walls as high as 50 feet. The better, square cut stones, were later pillaged and used by the Spanish to construct the churches and homes they built in Cusco and other towns. One marvels at the incredible workmanship which fit the stones together so closely that mortar was not needed; which was a good thing since they never invented it.
What they did invent, though, was a system of building which canted the walls at a 15 degree angle to each other, perfect for preventing collapse during the frequently violent earthquakes which pummel the region regularly. In many places, you can see where the stones have separated, often leaving large gaps between, yet the walls have remained standing.
Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca, March 27, 2008
We finally left for Copacabana, the city on Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca shore on the next Thursday with our guide, Cathy, a thoroughly modern Aymara Indian woman. As our bus climbed up and out of La Paz we passed through El Alto situated on the rim of the crater, the fastest growing city in South America. Filled with ugly square brick houses looking half finished, and dirt streets, this is home to hundred of thousands of people who flock to the city looking for work. Most will find out that the streets are not paved with gold.
After an hour or so, the road cuts across a flat plain of farms and small poor villages with the spectacular, glacier covered volcanos of Illimani and Illampu looming above the horizon. There are two ways of reaching Copacabana, a very long road around the perimeter of the lake, or a much shorter boat crossing of the Strait of Tiquina, a mile wide, which separates the smaller, southern part of the lake from the larger northern section. Most travelers, whether tourists or commercial, take the shorter way. On one side of the strait is the town of San Pedro de Tiquina. Here passengers leave the buses to take small boats across. The buses are driven onto flat boats and ferried across. Four years ago passengers could stay on the buses during the crossing but an accident and sinking of a bus has now meant that no passengers are allowed on the bus while the bus is floating. On the other side of the strait, we re-boarded the bus at San Pablo de Tiquina and continued our journey.
After the crossing is a twisty mountain road with absolutely spectacular views down to the lake below, which reawakened Maria’s motion sickness. With a lot of effort she endured the bus speeding around the turns, and we finally pulled into Copacabana, a hilly town of about 15,000 inhabitants located on a lovely semi-circular bay with a white sandy beach. When the early Portuguese settlers moved to Brazil and founded the City of Rio, they named their beach after the one at Lake Titicaca, Copacabana.
Lake Titicaca straddles the border between Bolivia and Peru with 40 % in Bolivia and 60% in Peru. The lake is the highest navigable body of water in the world, over 2 miles above sea level, about 13,000 ft, with the surrounding hilltops rising some 1000 to 3000 feet higher. It is also huge, some 150 miles long and 60 miles wide, and once away from the mountainous shorelines, the other side is not visible. It seems like an ocean. The lake is fed by 40 small rivers, many of which carry water down from the glacier covered mountains along its flanks. Strangely, it has only one outlet but a high rate of evaporation in the thin atmosphere keeps it from overflowing its banks and, more or less, maintains its size though it has risen somewhat over the centuries. The water is less than 1% saline, remarkably clear, and delicious. Oxygen here is less than 50% of that at sea level. This means that even the fittest of people are panting with every climb. The sun is immensely hot but the air is chilly.
Our first day was spent mostly sleeping. The hotel we stayed at is only a few years old, very nice with clean but chilly rooms, although they did provide us with a propane heater for several hours in the evening. The second night, they forgot to collect the heater, which we had turned off when we went to bed. Suddenly, at 4 am, the staff remembered us and, afraid that we might have been asphyxiated, woke us up to get it. Downstairs was a restaurant which served chicken and local fish. Neither of us was up to hiking so after our nap, we wandered a few streets to the town square. At the local market we saw a few of the 4000 types of potatoes that grow in Peru and Bolivia. (Later we had a chance to taste several types of potatoes when Cathy, our guide invited us to her home for typical Bolivian meals. Some of the potatoes are delicious but others must be an acquired taste as neither of us could swallow them). We had already seen the lovely white corn grown here in the markets of La Paz. Each kernel of corn is very large, almost the size of marbles. On each occasion we tried eating corn we found it chewy and dry. Not at all like the sweet corn we are used to. Next we saw the local version of popcorn, maybe an inch across and sweetened. It isn’t crisp but rather chewy, a type of candy. Locals and a few tourists wandered about eating bags of the popcorn. We tried it but weren’t impressed.
The town square is small but lovely. At one side sits a large and beautiful church. Here is a statue of the Virgin that faces out looking over the lake, supposedly to warn and protect against approaching storms and pirates. During mass, the statue is turned toward the congregation. At one side of the church is a door that leads to a large dark room where hundreds of pilgrims light candles in offering. In front of the church, vendors sell flowers and religious items. On certain days, people park their cars and the cars are blessed. Others bring small models of cars, hoping that the blessings will bring them a real car. Originally, during colonial times, Indians weren’t allowed inside the church and heard mass in the large courtyard. It is a lovely church, filled with statues and elaborate gold niches. By entering another chapel upstairs, the virgin facing the lake can be seen, surrounded by gladiolas which are grown in the surrounding areas.
Early the next morning we boarded a boat for a tour of the lake and the Isla del Sol, largest of some 40 or so islands which dot the lake. We had originally planned to stay on the island for a night. However, the hotel our tourist agency had us booked into is reached by a 45 minute climb to an altitude exceeding 14,000 ft. Though our minimal luggage could be carried up by donkeys, we would still have to hoof it. Our guide Cathy, very perspicacious after observing us old folks on the first day, suggested that we take just the boat tour and return to Copacabana for the night rather than attempt the climb. Both of us agreed without any hesitation. Actually, Cathy proved to be invaluable, both as a source of information and for arranging all kinds perks, perfect for coddling us ancients.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of tourists make this trip every day. Dozens of boats, each carrying at least 50 or 60 people ply the lake between Copacabana and the Isla del Sol, as well as the somewhat smaller Isla de la Luna, either to visit the ancient ruins of the Tiwanaku, a pre-Incan civilization, or simply to climb up and down the hills like mountain goats. God only knows why.
The boat trip of about 3 hours to our landing on the Isla del Sol skirts the shores of the lake along which rise lovely green vegetation covered hills as well as a few rather spectacularly distorted and deformed cliffs; signs of the tremendous upthrust which is still today creating the Andes. Far away, on the horizon, the glacier covered peaks of those mountains could be seen rising above the clouds which occasionally obscured them from our sight. It was the creation of the Andes which also created this magnificent lake. Millions of years ago, this area was covered by an inland sea. When the mountains rose, the sea disappeared leaving behind the lake as well as the Uyuni salt flats we had visited weeks earlier, and the whole of the Bolivian Altiplano, the high plains, the second highest inhabited plateau on earth after Tibet.
The sun shone during the first part of our trip and, though the air was quite cold, maybe 50 degrees F., about 10 degrees C., it was quite comfortable sitting on the upper, outside deck of our boat. At one point, however, the sun disappeared behind some high cloud cover and the temperature dropped quite precipitously. The weaker sisters (and the less well dressed) among us headed below to the covered cabin. We, however, were well prepared with heavy coats, mufflers, hats, and gloves and remained above. One girl, who had begun the trip in a mini skirt and halter top, eventually donned a sweater and stuck it out, though the goose bumps on her bare legs eventually grew to something like ostrich egg size. Just before we reached the island though, the sun came back out and the weather was lovely.
This area has been settled for over 4000 years and is the birth place of the first Inca ruler. It is also believed to be the birthplace of the sun. At least that is the myth. Archeologists have found lots of pre-Inca items, some under water as the level of the lake has risen over the years. For 3500 years the Indians lived peacefully, terracing all the hills and growing their crops. The Incas, a very war loving group subjugated all the people from Colombia to Chile, building large cities and an empire for about 100 years. The Spanish ended the empire with their quest for gold. For a few years the Incas tried fighting back but finally their empire ended in civil war and defeat. Ruins, named for the Incas, actually belonged to the culture of Tiwanaku, an earlier empire whose capital was not far from La Paz. Among these are the Inca Palace, reached via a high flight of steps which we skipped, and the Inca Steps, an even higher stairway which leads to the Inca Fountain, a natural artesian spring fed by the lake itself. The fountain flows down alongside the stairs in a waterfall, so we didn’t have to climb up to enjoy it. Cathy climbed up with an empty bottle to collect some water from the top of the spring. It was ice cold and delicious.
The island itself is home to a few villages and about 8000 inhabitants. Farming and tourism are the only two sources of income. At one village, on the north side of the island, we got off of the boat in search of a toilet. A woman who was cooking collected our two Bolivianos (less than a dime) for the use of her toilet and a handful of toilet paper. After the three hour trip, there was quite a long line waiting for the one toilet. Her small outdoor kitchen came complete with a small open pit filled with all sizes of Ki, otherwise known to us as Guinea Pigs; dinner for her and her family. These cute little guys were living quite happily in their pen, munching away on the endless supply of leaves being fed to them, totally oblivious of their ultimate and ignoble fate. She gave us a bit of golden potato, a very buttery and delicious taste.
Most of the day the sun shone brightly, and we were quite warm. When clouds hid the sun, it was bitter. Pigs with numerous piglets roam the island with a few cattle and a handful of llamas and donkeys, mostly used for transport.
We ate lunch at a small restaurant and visited the small local museum before re-boarding the boat for the return trip. Several people had left the boat for the four hour hike across the island to catch it on its return to a village on the southern side. Others chose to spend the night on the island.
We ended our day quite happy for the trip. The next morning we woke to rain and cold. Not a good day for a lake trip. Our return to La Paz was uneventful except for the short boat trip back across the strait. Now the water was choppy and the boat rising and falling threatened to upset the steadiest of stomachs. Back in La Paz we felt like we had returned home, glad to be back in the hotel we’ve lived in for three weeks, and our little heater.
We finally left for Copacabana, the city on Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca shore on the next Thursday with our guide, Cathy, a thoroughly modern Aymara Indian woman. As our bus climbed up and out of La Paz we passed through El Alto situated on the rim of the crater, the fastest growing city in South America. Filled with ugly square brick houses looking half finished, and dirt streets, this is home to hundred of thousands of people who flock to the city looking for work. Most will find out that the streets are not paved with gold.
After an hour or so, the road cuts across a flat plain of farms and small poor villages with the spectacular, glacier covered volcanos of Illimani and Illampu looming above the horizon. There are two ways of reaching Copacabana, a very long road around the perimeter of the lake, or a much shorter boat crossing of the Strait of Tiquina, a mile wide, which separates the smaller, southern part of the lake from the larger northern section. Most travelers, whether tourists or commercial, take the shorter way. On one side of the strait is the town of San Pedro de Tiquina. Here passengers leave the buses to take small boats across. The buses are driven onto flat boats and ferried across. Four years ago passengers could stay on the buses during the crossing but an accident and sinking of a bus has now meant that no passengers are allowed on the bus while the bus is floating. On the other side of the strait, we re-boarded the bus at San Pablo de Tiquina and continued our journey.
After the crossing is a twisty mountain road with absolutely spectacular views down to the lake below, which reawakened Maria’s motion sickness. With a lot of effort she endured the bus speeding around the turns, and we finally pulled into Copacabana, a hilly town of about 15,000 inhabitants located on a lovely semi-circular bay with a white sandy beach. When the early Portuguese settlers moved to Brazil and founded the City of Rio, they named their beach after the one at Lake Titicaca, Copacabana.
Lake Titicaca straddles the border between Bolivia and Peru with 40 % in Bolivia and 60% in Peru. The lake is the highest navigable body of water in the world, over 2 miles above sea level, about 13,000 ft, with the surrounding hilltops rising some 1000 to 3000 feet higher. It is also huge, some 150 miles long and 60 miles wide, and once away from the mountainous shorelines, the other side is not visible. It seems like an ocean. The lake is fed by 40 small rivers, many of which carry water down from the glacier covered mountains along its flanks. Strangely, it has only one outlet but a high rate of evaporation in the thin atmosphere keeps it from overflowing its banks and, more or less, maintains its size though it has risen somewhat over the centuries. The water is less than 1% saline, remarkably clear, and delicious. Oxygen here is less than 50% of that at sea level. This means that even the fittest of people are panting with every climb. The sun is immensely hot but the air is chilly.
Our first day was spent mostly sleeping. The hotel we stayed at is only a few years old, very nice with clean but chilly rooms, although they did provide us with a propane heater for several hours in the evening. The second night, they forgot to collect the heater, which we had turned off when we went to bed. Suddenly, at 4 am, the staff remembered us and, afraid that we might have been asphyxiated, woke us up to get it. Downstairs was a restaurant which served chicken and local fish. Neither of us was up to hiking so after our nap, we wandered a few streets to the town square. At the local market we saw a few of the 4000 types of potatoes that grow in Peru and Bolivia. (Later we had a chance to taste several types of potatoes when Cathy, our guide invited us to her home for typical Bolivian meals. Some of the potatoes are delicious but others must be an acquired taste as neither of us could swallow them). We had already seen the lovely white corn grown here in the markets of La Paz. Each kernel of corn is very large, almost the size of marbles. On each occasion we tried eating corn we found it chewy and dry. Not at all like the sweet corn we are used to. Next we saw the local version of popcorn, maybe an inch across and sweetened. It isn’t crisp but rather chewy, a type of candy. Locals and a few tourists wandered about eating bags of the popcorn. We tried it but weren’t impressed.
The town square is small but lovely. At one side sits a large and beautiful church. Here is a statue of the Virgin that faces out looking over the lake, supposedly to warn and protect against approaching storms and pirates. During mass, the statue is turned toward the congregation. At one side of the church is a door that leads to a large dark room where hundreds of pilgrims light candles in offering. In front of the church, vendors sell flowers and religious items. On certain days, people park their cars and the cars are blessed. Others bring small models of cars, hoping that the blessings will bring them a real car. Originally, during colonial times, Indians weren’t allowed inside the church and heard mass in the large courtyard. It is a lovely church, filled with statues and elaborate gold niches. By entering another chapel upstairs, the virgin facing the lake can be seen, surrounded by gladiolas which are grown in the surrounding areas.
Early the next morning we boarded a boat for a tour of the lake and the Isla del Sol, largest of some 40 or so islands which dot the lake. We had originally planned to stay on the island for a night. However, the hotel our tourist agency had us booked into is reached by a 45 minute climb to an altitude exceeding 14,000 ft. Though our minimal luggage could be carried up by donkeys, we would still have to hoof it. Our guide Cathy, very perspicacious after observing us old folks on the first day, suggested that we take just the boat tour and return to Copacabana for the night rather than attempt the climb. Both of us agreed without any hesitation. Actually, Cathy proved to be invaluable, both as a source of information and for arranging all kinds perks, perfect for coddling us ancients.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of tourists make this trip every day. Dozens of boats, each carrying at least 50 or 60 people ply the lake between Copacabana and the Isla del Sol, as well as the somewhat smaller Isla de la Luna, either to visit the ancient ruins of the Tiwanaku, a pre-Incan civilization, or simply to climb up and down the hills like mountain goats. God only knows why.
The boat trip of about 3 hours to our landing on the Isla del Sol skirts the shores of the lake along which rise lovely green vegetation covered hills as well as a few rather spectacularly distorted and deformed cliffs; signs of the tremendous upthrust which is still today creating the Andes. Far away, on the horizon, the glacier covered peaks of those mountains could be seen rising above the clouds which occasionally obscured them from our sight. It was the creation of the Andes which also created this magnificent lake. Millions of years ago, this area was covered by an inland sea. When the mountains rose, the sea disappeared leaving behind the lake as well as the Uyuni salt flats we had visited weeks earlier, and the whole of the Bolivian Altiplano, the high plains, the second highest inhabited plateau on earth after Tibet.
The sun shone during the first part of our trip and, though the air was quite cold, maybe 50 degrees F., about 10 degrees C., it was quite comfortable sitting on the upper, outside deck of our boat. At one point, however, the sun disappeared behind some high cloud cover and the temperature dropped quite precipitously. The weaker sisters (and the less well dressed) among us headed below to the covered cabin. We, however, were well prepared with heavy coats, mufflers, hats, and gloves and remained above. One girl, who had begun the trip in a mini skirt and halter top, eventually donned a sweater and stuck it out, though the goose bumps on her bare legs eventually grew to something like ostrich egg size. Just before we reached the island though, the sun came back out and the weather was lovely.
This area has been settled for over 4000 years and is the birth place of the first Inca ruler. It is also believed to be the birthplace of the sun. At least that is the myth. Archeologists have found lots of pre-Inca items, some under water as the level of the lake has risen over the years. For 3500 years the Indians lived peacefully, terracing all the hills and growing their crops. The Incas, a very war loving group subjugated all the people from Colombia to Chile, building large cities and an empire for about 100 years. The Spanish ended the empire with their quest for gold. For a few years the Incas tried fighting back but finally their empire ended in civil war and defeat. Ruins, named for the Incas, actually belonged to the culture of Tiwanaku, an earlier empire whose capital was not far from La Paz. Among these are the Inca Palace, reached via a high flight of steps which we skipped, and the Inca Steps, an even higher stairway which leads to the Inca Fountain, a natural artesian spring fed by the lake itself. The fountain flows down alongside the stairs in a waterfall, so we didn’t have to climb up to enjoy it. Cathy climbed up with an empty bottle to collect some water from the top of the spring. It was ice cold and delicious.
The island itself is home to a few villages and about 8000 inhabitants. Farming and tourism are the only two sources of income. At one village, on the north side of the island, we got off of the boat in search of a toilet. A woman who was cooking collected our two Bolivianos (less than a dime) for the use of her toilet and a handful of toilet paper. After the three hour trip, there was quite a long line waiting for the one toilet. Her small outdoor kitchen came complete with a small open pit filled with all sizes of Ki, otherwise known to us as Guinea Pigs; dinner for her and her family. These cute little guys were living quite happily in their pen, munching away on the endless supply of leaves being fed to them, totally oblivious of their ultimate and ignoble fate. She gave us a bit of golden potato, a very buttery and delicious taste.
Most of the day the sun shone brightly, and we were quite warm. When clouds hid the sun, it was bitter. Pigs with numerous piglets roam the island with a few cattle and a handful of llamas and donkeys, mostly used for transport.
We ate lunch at a small restaurant and visited the small local museum before re-boarding the boat for the return trip. Several people had left the boat for the four hour hike across the island to catch it on its return to a village on the southern side. Others chose to spend the night on the island.
We ended our day quite happy for the trip. The next morning we woke to rain and cold. Not a good day for a lake trip. Our return to La Paz was uneventful except for the short boat trip back across the strait. Now the water was choppy and the boat rising and falling threatened to upset the steadiest of stomachs. Back in La Paz we felt like we had returned home, glad to be back in the hotel we’ve lived in for three weeks, and our little heater.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Bolivia March 23
Easter in La Paz March 23, 2008
La Paz March 8, 2008
The whole Easter week, Semana Santa, is a very big occasion in Latin American countries. All week long, people go to their churches and many offices are closed. Flowers are brought in from all over the country and many pilgrims flock to sacred places, some asking for miracles and some for favors. Many take miniatures of items, like cars or houses, asking for a blessing and hoping for the real thing in the coming year. Animals are blessed and services continue.
Buses leave Uyuni every day but the best one, the luxury bus leaves four times per week for La Paz. Trains leave for Oruru twice a week where travelers must then transfer to a bus for La Paz. The books warn travelers that during the transfer many items are stolen. Not a selling point to visiting Oruru at this time. We had arrived in Uyuni on Thursday and the luxury bus leaves on Friday, so we bought tickets for the 10 hour trip leaving at 8 pm. Todo Turisismo buses are clean, toilets are the best we’ve seen and the dinner of fried chicken and French fries was good. During the coldest part of the trip the heaters came on. Since the bus was only half full, we got to use an empty pair of seats and I almost got a full night’s sleep. Ted, however, too large to lie down, didn’t.
On Easter Sunday we wandered around the San Francisco church, the oldest and most beautiful in La Paz. Outside in the huge courtyard, vendors were selling traditional Easter candies, heavy on the chocolate eggs of various sizes from tiny to Ostrich sized. Everyone was dressed in their Easter finest. Inside the church, at the end of the mass, the congregation began to sing “When the Saints go Marching In.”, though the words were not the same as the familiar version from New Orleans. There was even a song sung to the melody of “Michael Row the Boat Ashore”. Even the dogs were dressed up to parade around the large courtyard, and the smallest children were having a good time trying to catch the pigeons. There were also a few beggars, but not as many as we would have thought. There was a general feeling of excitement and the whole spectacle was very colorful.
For the first six hours of the trip, the bus traveled on the typical dirt road, reaching pavement only at Oruru. On the dirt road the bus bounced around so much, coats dropped from the overhead storage. I had taken off my shoes and for a short stop along the way, had to get down on my knees and search for them, eventually finding one about three seats forward and the other four seats back. At Oruru we stopped for about 20 minutes while driver and steward were changed. It was raining and cold.
This year Easter fell on March 23 which is also the anniversary of Bolivia’s defeat by Chile in the War of the Pacific in 1883 which resulted in Bolivia losing her access to the sea. Strangely enough, the defeat is remembered annually as the Dia del Mar with military parades and ceremonies. Just down the street from the San Francisco Church, on La Paz’s main boulevard, is the monument to the unknown soldier, marked by a tall obelisk. Here, crowds gathered to watch several marching bands as well as troops of soldiers marching in the uniform of 1883. There was also a parade of the Bolivian SWAT troops marching in their olive drab camouflage outfits; nowhere near as colorful, but a lot more intimidating. All these parades were ultimately heading up the hill to the city’s main square lined by the Cathedral and various government buildings. We were still suffering from the effects of the high altitude and decided not to follow them up.
Upon arriving in La Paz, which at first glance appears to be all up or down hills, it was raining. On the way to the hostel we saw Indian women setting up stalls, hanging up clothes or setting out shoes and wares for what we discovered was a daily morning market on Illampu Street. Since we had been unable to reserve a room ahead of time, we were anxious about finding one, especially as the bus arrived at 6:30 a.m. still dark. But we were lucky and found one at the first place we stopped.
Bolivia’s most colorful Semana Santa celebration is at Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. We had planned to go up there for the weekend, but Ted’s Video camera was on the fritz and in the shop, so we decided to simply wait a while to make the trip.
A city of a million and a half people, built in the crater of a volcano, its cobbled streets run up or down with only a handful of more or less level ones. The highest capital in the world, 13,000 feet above sea level, it is cold. Our first hotel was cold with saggy beds, extra charges for everything and not a good place for us to spend three weeks. We planned to stay here for three weeks to explore, get some laundry done and acclimate before heading to Peru. So the next day we looked at six or seven other hotels. We found the Hotel Alem, with a large room on a busy street that would suit our purposes. Unfortunately, the street is nearly vertical and the hotel, like most of the budget accommodations, is also unheated. The next day we bought a small heater and made life so much better, though, still not completely acclimated, we still get easily fatigued doing anything at all, let alone climb up and down the street.
Among some of the interesting sights in La Paz is the Street of Ghosts. The story is that when the Spanish were building homes they used the bones of dead Indians in the foundations. Subsequent residents complained that they were being haunted, so the city counsel ordered the installation of a green cross on one of the walls. It must have worked because today elderly citizens sit in the sun without any celestial visitors.
Luckily, our street, Sagarnaga, is a major tourist area filled with souvenir shops, Alpaca clothing stores, tourist agencies, internets, and restaurants; dozens of them all side by side on both sides of a street not much more than a single vehicle wide. The line of cars, trucks, and busses passes by all day but, also luckily, the cross traffic is so heavy, that they are slow and often stalled so it’s not too hard to cross the street.
Another fun sight is the school children’s pedestrian traffic guards, dressed in zebra suits. They prance their charges across the streets, amusing both walkers and drivers.
Just across the street is our favorite restaurant, called 100% Organic, which serves up delicious soups and great sandwiches as well as huge entrees of steaks, chops, and chicken. They also have Llama steaks, which taste mostly like barbecue sauce.
Another great feature of the restaurant is that it’s heated. Next door to that is a Cuban restaurant, also pretty good, which offers live Cuban music on Thursday nights. Also heated. A couple of Pizza and Pasta joints are also quite close, but they aren’t heated, and with ambient temperatures in the 60’s, eating there can be uncomfortable. There’s also a decent Chinese restaurant in the area, and most incredible of all, an Israeli joint usually packed with kids on their travels after having just gotten out of the Israeli army. There are more Israelis here than we saw even in Buenos Aires and signs in Hebrew are to be seen everywhere in the neighborhood. In fact, every where in South America, we’ve seen many Israeli kids. Hebrew signs are all over in even the smallest towns. One Brazilian lady on seeing a world map for the first time and seeing how small Israel is, exclaimed “No wonder there are so many Israeli travelers. There isn’t enough room for you all to stay there.”
There’s also a Turkish Bath and pool in the area. Ted checked it out today and decided that it would probably be a great place to pick up some kind of infection or other.
Illampu, the main street in the area, only a half a block up the mountainside from our hotel, is the site of a morning market, which extends well into the afternoon. People, mostly women, set up booths along the sidewalks selling everything from fruits and nuts to eggs, clothing, watches, CDs and DVDs, and just about anything else you could possibly think of. It’s an amazingly colorful affair, though the sidewalks are so crowded that it’s easier to walk in the street. Our hotel includes a breakfast of juice, rolls, and coffee, but we found an ancient Indian woman selling eggs on the street, so every few days we buy a dozen and the hotel cook scrambles them up for us in the morning.
Bolivian women adopted wearing Bowler hats sometime ago. I don’t know why but they look so charming, perched on top of their heads, usually 2 sizes too small, much in the manner of vaudeville comedians of nearly a century ago. When it rains, they cover the felt hats with plastic bags. The women all seem to be as wide as they are tall but I think that is because they are wearing everything they own in order to stay warm. Most wear colorful shawls, tied in front and holding bundles of goods or babies, and their voluminous skirts( made with 7 yards of fabric) are color matched to the shawls and embroidered with shiny thread and glitter in the sun, when there is sun, which is very rare. On the other hand, the men dress in western clothes, very drab.
On our tour we had been introduced to coca leaves. Sucking on the folded leaves is said to relieve altitude problems. Also, drinking coca tea. However during the first night here, I suffered paralysis of the left side of my face and left arm. Gladly, that seems to be passing and I don’t have to look like a bad Halloween mask forever; another side effect of altitude. Another is loss of appetite. A real shame where food is plentiful, good and cheap.
While in Africa, we saw a program about the pygmy armadillo, a rare and furry little thing. The show claimed that they only occurred in the desert near Mendoza, Argentina which is known as the wine growing region of Argentina. Since we have seen wine regions around the world, we didn’t stop in Mendoza on our way to Chile. But while in San Pedro de Atacama, we spotted the mummy of a pygmy armadillo in a small grocery store, high on a shelf. Now in La Paz, the hotel across the street has one in the reception area. They were kind enough to show it to us, a cute little thing with lots of fur on its belly and on its back. I did get some pictures and found out it is common around the area, the mummy is supposed to bring good luck.
La Paz has hundreds of shoe shine men and boys, most wearing ski masks and looking a bit scary. For about a dime, they will shine your shoes. One day while visiting the cathedral park, two young boys asked to polish my shoes. Cathy, our guide also got hers polished. Then it was up to Ted to choose one of the boys to polish his. Being an equal opportunity employer; he gave one shoe each to both boys. At first, they were confused but with laughter from some of the onlookers, they bent to the job and were rewarded with a dime for each shoe.
La Paz March 8, 2008
The whole Easter week, Semana Santa, is a very big occasion in Latin American countries. All week long, people go to their churches and many offices are closed. Flowers are brought in from all over the country and many pilgrims flock to sacred places, some asking for miracles and some for favors. Many take miniatures of items, like cars or houses, asking for a blessing and hoping for the real thing in the coming year. Animals are blessed and services continue.
Buses leave Uyuni every day but the best one, the luxury bus leaves four times per week for La Paz. Trains leave for Oruru twice a week where travelers must then transfer to a bus for La Paz. The books warn travelers that during the transfer many items are stolen. Not a selling point to visiting Oruru at this time. We had arrived in Uyuni on Thursday and the luxury bus leaves on Friday, so we bought tickets for the 10 hour trip leaving at 8 pm. Todo Turisismo buses are clean, toilets are the best we’ve seen and the dinner of fried chicken and French fries was good. During the coldest part of the trip the heaters came on. Since the bus was only half full, we got to use an empty pair of seats and I almost got a full night’s sleep. Ted, however, too large to lie down, didn’t.
On Easter Sunday we wandered around the San Francisco church, the oldest and most beautiful in La Paz. Outside in the huge courtyard, vendors were selling traditional Easter candies, heavy on the chocolate eggs of various sizes from tiny to Ostrich sized. Everyone was dressed in their Easter finest. Inside the church, at the end of the mass, the congregation began to sing “When the Saints go Marching In.”, though the words were not the same as the familiar version from New Orleans. There was even a song sung to the melody of “Michael Row the Boat Ashore”. Even the dogs were dressed up to parade around the large courtyard, and the smallest children were having a good time trying to catch the pigeons. There were also a few beggars, but not as many as we would have thought. There was a general feeling of excitement and the whole spectacle was very colorful.
For the first six hours of the trip, the bus traveled on the typical dirt road, reaching pavement only at Oruru. On the dirt road the bus bounced around so much, coats dropped from the overhead storage. I had taken off my shoes and for a short stop along the way, had to get down on my knees and search for them, eventually finding one about three seats forward and the other four seats back. At Oruru we stopped for about 20 minutes while driver and steward were changed. It was raining and cold.
This year Easter fell on March 23 which is also the anniversary of Bolivia’s defeat by Chile in the War of the Pacific in 1883 which resulted in Bolivia losing her access to the sea. Strangely enough, the defeat is remembered annually as the Dia del Mar with military parades and ceremonies. Just down the street from the San Francisco Church, on La Paz’s main boulevard, is the monument to the unknown soldier, marked by a tall obelisk. Here, crowds gathered to watch several marching bands as well as troops of soldiers marching in the uniform of 1883. There was also a parade of the Bolivian SWAT troops marching in their olive drab camouflage outfits; nowhere near as colorful, but a lot more intimidating. All these parades were ultimately heading up the hill to the city’s main square lined by the Cathedral and various government buildings. We were still suffering from the effects of the high altitude and decided not to follow them up.
Upon arriving in La Paz, which at first glance appears to be all up or down hills, it was raining. On the way to the hostel we saw Indian women setting up stalls, hanging up clothes or setting out shoes and wares for what we discovered was a daily morning market on Illampu Street. Since we had been unable to reserve a room ahead of time, we were anxious about finding one, especially as the bus arrived at 6:30 a.m. still dark. But we were lucky and found one at the first place we stopped.
Bolivia’s most colorful Semana Santa celebration is at Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. We had planned to go up there for the weekend, but Ted’s Video camera was on the fritz and in the shop, so we decided to simply wait a while to make the trip.
A city of a million and a half people, built in the crater of a volcano, its cobbled streets run up or down with only a handful of more or less level ones. The highest capital in the world, 13,000 feet above sea level, it is cold. Our first hotel was cold with saggy beds, extra charges for everything and not a good place for us to spend three weeks. We planned to stay here for three weeks to explore, get some laundry done and acclimate before heading to Peru. So the next day we looked at six or seven other hotels. We found the Hotel Alem, with a large room on a busy street that would suit our purposes. Unfortunately, the street is nearly vertical and the hotel, like most of the budget accommodations, is also unheated. The next day we bought a small heater and made life so much better, though, still not completely acclimated, we still get easily fatigued doing anything at all, let alone climb up and down the street.
Among some of the interesting sights in La Paz is the Street of Ghosts. The story is that when the Spanish were building homes they used the bones of dead Indians in the foundations. Subsequent residents complained that they were being haunted, so the city counsel ordered the installation of a green cross on one of the walls. It must have worked because today elderly citizens sit in the sun without any celestial visitors.
Luckily, our street, Sagarnaga, is a major tourist area filled with souvenir shops, Alpaca clothing stores, tourist agencies, internets, and restaurants; dozens of them all side by side on both sides of a street not much more than a single vehicle wide. The line of cars, trucks, and busses passes by all day but, also luckily, the cross traffic is so heavy, that they are slow and often stalled so it’s not too hard to cross the street.
Another fun sight is the school children’s pedestrian traffic guards, dressed in zebra suits. They prance their charges across the streets, amusing both walkers and drivers.
Just across the street is our favorite restaurant, called 100% Organic, which serves up delicious soups and great sandwiches as well as huge entrees of steaks, chops, and chicken. They also have Llama steaks, which taste mostly like barbecue sauce.
Another great feature of the restaurant is that it’s heated. Next door to that is a Cuban restaurant, also pretty good, which offers live Cuban music on Thursday nights. Also heated. A couple of Pizza and Pasta joints are also quite close, but they aren’t heated, and with ambient temperatures in the 60’s, eating there can be uncomfortable. There’s also a decent Chinese restaurant in the area, and most incredible of all, an Israeli joint usually packed with kids on their travels after having just gotten out of the Israeli army. There are more Israelis here than we saw even in Buenos Aires and signs in Hebrew are to be seen everywhere in the neighborhood. In fact, every where in South America, we’ve seen many Israeli kids. Hebrew signs are all over in even the smallest towns. One Brazilian lady on seeing a world map for the first time and seeing how small Israel is, exclaimed “No wonder there are so many Israeli travelers. There isn’t enough room for you all to stay there.”
There’s also a Turkish Bath and pool in the area. Ted checked it out today and decided that it would probably be a great place to pick up some kind of infection or other.
Illampu, the main street in the area, only a half a block up the mountainside from our hotel, is the site of a morning market, which extends well into the afternoon. People, mostly women, set up booths along the sidewalks selling everything from fruits and nuts to eggs, clothing, watches, CDs and DVDs, and just about anything else you could possibly think of. It’s an amazingly colorful affair, though the sidewalks are so crowded that it’s easier to walk in the street. Our hotel includes a breakfast of juice, rolls, and coffee, but we found an ancient Indian woman selling eggs on the street, so every few days we buy a dozen and the hotel cook scrambles them up for us in the morning.
Bolivian women adopted wearing Bowler hats sometime ago. I don’t know why but they look so charming, perched on top of their heads, usually 2 sizes too small, much in the manner of vaudeville comedians of nearly a century ago. When it rains, they cover the felt hats with plastic bags. The women all seem to be as wide as they are tall but I think that is because they are wearing everything they own in order to stay warm. Most wear colorful shawls, tied in front and holding bundles of goods or babies, and their voluminous skirts( made with 7 yards of fabric) are color matched to the shawls and embroidered with shiny thread and glitter in the sun, when there is sun, which is very rare. On the other hand, the men dress in western clothes, very drab.
On our tour we had been introduced to coca leaves. Sucking on the folded leaves is said to relieve altitude problems. Also, drinking coca tea. However during the first night here, I suffered paralysis of the left side of my face and left arm. Gladly, that seems to be passing and I don’t have to look like a bad Halloween mask forever; another side effect of altitude. Another is loss of appetite. A real shame where food is plentiful, good and cheap.
While in Africa, we saw a program about the pygmy armadillo, a rare and furry little thing. The show claimed that they only occurred in the desert near Mendoza, Argentina which is known as the wine growing region of Argentina. Since we have seen wine regions around the world, we didn’t stop in Mendoza on our way to Chile. But while in San Pedro de Atacama, we spotted the mummy of a pygmy armadillo in a small grocery store, high on a shelf. Now in La Paz, the hotel across the street has one in the reception area. They were kind enough to show it to us, a cute little thing with lots of fur on its belly and on its back. I did get some pictures and found out it is common around the area, the mummy is supposed to bring good luck.
La Paz has hundreds of shoe shine men and boys, most wearing ski masks and looking a bit scary. For about a dime, they will shine your shoes. One day while visiting the cathedral park, two young boys asked to polish my shoes. Cathy, our guide also got hers polished. Then it was up to Ted to choose one of the boys to polish his. Being an equal opportunity employer; he gave one shoe each to both boys. At first, they were confused but with laughter from some of the onlookers, they bent to the job and were rewarded with a dime for each shoe.
Bolivia March 16
La Paz March 16, 2008
La Paz March 8, 2008
On Palm Sunday we took a sightseeing bus trip around La Paz. Every church was bustling with activity. In front and on the steps, ladies were selling elaborately braided palm fronds, people were dressed in their very best clothes and everywhere there was a feeling of excitement.
Buses leave Uyuni every day but the best one, the luxury bus leaves four times per week for La Paz. Trains leave for Oruru twice a week where travelers must then transfer to a bus for La Paz. The books warn travelers that during the transfer many items are stolen. Not a selling point to visiting Oruru at this time. We had arrived in Uyuni on Thursday and the luxury bus leaves on Friday, so we bought tickets for the 10 hour trip leaving at 8 pm. Todo Turisismo buses are clean, toilets are the best we’ve seen and the dinner of fried chicken and French fries was good. During the coldest part of the trip the heaters came on. Since the bus was only half full, we got to use an empty pair of seats and I almost got a full night’s sleep. Ted, however, too large to lie down, didn’t.
Our bus guide first described the layout of the city, built in a 5 km. wide volcanic crater with very few level streets, which we had already figured out. The wealthier citizens live at the lower and flatter areas and the poorer ones live on the steep upper streets most of which are cobbled or even dirt.
For the first six hours of the trip, the bus traveled on the typical dirt road, reaching pavement only at Oruru. On the dirt road the bus bounced around so much, coats dropped from the overhead storage. I had taken off my shoes and for a short stop along the way, had to get down on my knees and search for them, eventually finding one about three seats forward and the other four seats back. At Oruru we stopped for about 20 minutes while driver and steward were changed. It was raining and cold.
In the very center of La Paz is a hill at the top of which one can get a panoramic view of the city spread out below and climbing up the sides of the crater. Above the crater rim looms the glacier covered Volcano Illimani, almost 22,000 ft. high, and scattered around the city below are numerous high rises sprouting like tall weeds among the lower buildings which cover the city.
Upon arriving in La Paz, which at first glance appears to be all up or down hills, it was raining. On the way to the hostel we saw Indian women setting up stalls, hanging up clothes or setting out shoes and wares for what we discovered was a daily morning market on Illampu Street. Since we had been unable to reserve a room ahead of time, we were anxious about finding one, especially as the bus arrived at 6:30 a.m. still dark. But we were lucky and found one at the first place we stopped.La Paz has many lovely colonial style buildings characterized by carved facades and painted in bright, gay colors. The central square is surrounded by official buildings, the largest of which is the neo-classical cathedral which we plan to visit on Easter Sunday.
A city of a million and a half people, built in the crater of a volcano, its cobbled streets run up or down with only a handful of more or less level ones. The highest capital in the world, 13,000 feet above sea level, it is cold. Our first hotel was cold with saggy beds, extra charges for everything and not a good place for us to spend three weeks. We planned to stay here for three weeks to explore, get some laundry done and acclimate before heading to Peru. So the next day we looked at six or seven other hotels. We found the Hotel Alem, with a large room on a busy street that would suit our purposes. Unfortunately, the street is nearly vertical and the hotel, like most of the budget accommodations, is also unheated. The next day we bought a small heater and made life so much better, though, still not completely acclimated, we still get easily fatigued doing anything at all, let alone climb up and down the street.
Bolivia had at one time, a sea coast and was about three times bigger than today. But, like Paraguay, its larger neighboring countries had whittled it down. Chile took the sea coast, which had been the route to transporting silver to Spain.
Luckily, our street, Sagarnaga, is a major tourist area filled with souvenir shops, Alpaca clothing stores, tourist agencies, internets, and restaurants; dozens of them all side by side on both sides of a street not much more than a single vehicle wide. The line of cars, trucks, and busses passes by all day but, also luckily, the cross traffic is so heavy, that they are slow and often stalled so it’s not too hard to cross the street.
La Paz had been a major stopping point on the silver route. After gaining independence, 175 years ago, Bolivia has had 175 presidents, all corrupt with one serving 30 years in jail for his creative accounting. Another gave away a large parcel of land to a Chilean general in return for a horse. Finally a few years ago, Chile ceded a small access path to the sea to Bolivia.
Just across the street is our favorite restaurant, called 100% Organic, which serves up delicious soups and great sandwiches as well as huge entrees of steaks, chops, and chicken. They also have Llama steaks, which taste mostly like barbecue sauce.
Another great feature of the restaurant is that it’s heated. Next door to that is a Cuban restaurant, also pretty good, which offers live Cuban music on Thursday nights. Also heated. A couple of Pizza and Pasta joints are also quite close, but they aren’t heated, and with ambient temperatures in the 60’s, eating there can be uncomfortable. There’s also a decent Chinese restaurant in the area, and most incredible of all, an Israeli joint usually packed with kids on their travels after having just gotten out of the Israeli army. There are more Israelis here than we saw even in Buenos Aires and signs in Hebrew are to be seen everywhere in the neighborhood. In fact, every where in South America, we’ve seen many Israeli kids. Hebrew signs are all over in even the smallest towns. One Brazilian lady on seeing a world map for the first time and seeing how small Israel is, exclaimed “No wonder there are so many Israeli travelers. There isn’t enough room for you all to stay there.”
Bolivia remains the poorest nation in South America, though it is rich in oil and natural gas. For whatever misplaced reasons, the government will simply not allow this natural wealth to flow out of the country, though it could make them wealthy. The result is widespread poverty, ignorance, and disease. More than half the population of 9 million claims to be indigenous Indians and the average mother has 5 children. In fact, 42% of the population is under 14 years of age, a time bomb which will explode eventually. Political and social unrest is rife. In the week we have been here, we have seen 4 major demonstrations, the largest of which by the miners, managed to make the city’s already huge traffic problem even worse.
There’s also a Turkish Bath and pool in the area. Ted checked it out today and decided that it would probably be a great place to pick up some kind of infection or other.
Bad as it is, the economic situation is not dire due to the underground economy based on the cultivation of coca, though the US government has been pressuring Bolivia to crack down. For awhile, the government was paying the farmers $2500 per hectare not to grow the crop. What happened was that the government nearly went broke when the farmers added more hectares in order to claim they stopped the growing and collect the bribe. Of course, they continued to grow coca as well, which paid considerably more than $2500 per hectare. The net result is that the coca growing regions have come under the control of drug cartels supported by various armed guerrilla organizations and violence has become a standard practice, a la Colombia. Just another example of the US’s totally stupid drug war.
Illampu, the main street in the area, only a half a block up the mountainside from our hotel, is the site of a morning market, which extends well into the afternoon. People, mostly women, set up booths along the sidewalks selling everything from fruits and nuts to eggs, clothing, watches, CDs and DVDs, and just about anything else you could possibly think of. It’s an amazingly colorful affair, though the sidewalks are so crowded that it’s easier to walk in the street. Our hotel includes a breakfast of juice, rolls, and coffee, but we found an ancient Indian woman selling eggs on the street, so every few days we buy a dozen and the hotel cook scrambles them up for us in the morning.
We also learned about Bolivia’s most interesting fashion. Sometime in the late 1800’s an English hatter imported hundreds of Bowler hats into La Paz. The hats were too small for the gentlemen of La Paz so he convinced the female Spanish aristocracy that wearing Bowler hats was the latest thing in European fashion. And as the Indian women copied the gentry in fashion, the Bowler hat craze took off. Bowler hats, usually two sizes too small, are still a common sight among the Indian women of Bolivia. Today, the hat worn on a slant signifies a single woman or worn straight means a married one. The long full skirts worn by the Spanish ladies and adopted by the Indian women, have over the years, been shortened until they are now mid-calf with over 7 yards of fabric and the shawls of Spain are still seen everywhere usually matching the skirts.
Bolivian women adopted wearing Bowler hats sometime ago. I don’t know why but they look so charming, perched on top of their heads, usually 2 sizes too small, much in the manner of vaudeville comedians of nearly a century ago. When it rains, they cover the felt hats with plastic bags. The women all seem to be as wide as they are tall but I think that is because they are wearing everything they own in order to stay warm. Most wear colorful shawls, tied in front and holding bundles of goods or babies, and their voluminous skirts( made with 7 yards of fabric) are color matched to the shawls and embroidered with shiny thread and glitter in the sun, when there is sun, which is very rare. On the other hand, the men dress in western clothes, very drab.
Women wear their hair in long braids tied together in the back with some sort of tassel that makes the braids about six inches longer. Modern girls are choosing to wear their hair loose or tied in pony tails. Some are even cutting it short. That coupled with blue jeans, IPODs and tennis shoes make them blend in with girls anywhere in the world.
On our tour we had been introduced to coca leaves. Sucking on the folded leaves is said to relieve altitude problems. Also, drinking coca tea. However during the first night here, I suffered paralysis of the left side of my face and left arm. Gladly, that seems to be passing and I don’t have to look like a bad Halloween mask forever; another side effect of altitude. Another is lossAfter touring the major downtown area, our bus then turned to the southern route where the very wealthy have built. The upper part of La Paz is at an average altitude of 12,000 ft., the highest capitol in the world. The southern part of the city is almost 3,000 feet lower, and considerably warmer. Here, the houses are built on very strong and expensive foundations because there is no bed-rock, only clay which has a tendency to slip when wet. Sometimes the cost of appetite. A real shame where food is plentiful, goodthe foundation is many times the cost of the house, which can be several hundred thousand dollars and cheapmore.
While in Africa, we saw a program about the pygmy armadillo, a rare and furry little thing. The show claimed that they only occurred in the desert near Mendoza, Argentina which is known as the wine growing region of Argentina. Since we have seen wine regions around the world, we didn’t stop in Mendoza on our way to Chile. But while in San Pedro de Atacama, we spotted the mummy of a pygmy armadillo in a small grocery store, high on a shelf. Now in La Paz, the hotel across the street has one in the reception area. They were kind enough to show it to us, a cute little thing with lots of fur on its belly and on its back. I did get some pictures and found out it is common around the area, the mummy is supposed to bring good luck.
It is very picturesque with modern subdivisions perched below towering cliffs of multicolored rock. Try to imagine a city built in the Painted Desert of Arizona and you begin to get the picture.
Just outside of this area is the“Moon Valley”, a strange place where the clay has been eroded by rain, leaving a large dry mud pile, characterized by weird stalagmitic shapes, some reaching heights of 20 ft. or more. A few cacti have taken hold on some of the piles. Today the area is a national park with a small entrance fee.
From there, we returned to our starting point at the Plaza Isobel La Catolica, named for the Spanish Queen who funded Columbus’ voyage and was therefore, at least symbolically, responsible for everything that has happened since concerning the New World and the fate of its indigenous people.
We returned to our hotel via taxi. Taxis in La Paz are the cheapest we’ve encountered anywhere in the world. They are not metered, but one can travel for long distances for little more than a dollar. We have continued to be surprised by the low fares which make bargaining superfluous.
On another day we walked the two blocks to the “Witch’s Market” where we found the “rare and elusive” pygmy armadillo for sale. At least a dozen of them. For less than $20. Some had been stuffed but others still had the insides and smelled like decay. Not very pleasant. Hundreds of dried fetal llamas for sale, some with fur, most without. Other potions for love, health, happiness are on display. One woman insisted for 15 cents, that we buy a “travelers” good luck rock. Herbal medicines advertise cures for any human ills. A disturbing sight was the furs of several small wild cats from the Amazon Basin. They may bring good luck to the buyers but they certainly bring bad luck to the wild cats of Bolivia. Once we actually saw a dried Jaguar skin hanging outside a shop.
La Paz March 8, 2008
On Palm Sunday we took a sightseeing bus trip around La Paz. Every church was bustling with activity. In front and on the steps, ladies were selling elaborately braided palm fronds, people were dressed in their very best clothes and everywhere there was a feeling of excitement.
Buses leave Uyuni every day but the best one, the luxury bus leaves four times per week for La Paz. Trains leave for Oruru twice a week where travelers must then transfer to a bus for La Paz. The books warn travelers that during the transfer many items are stolen. Not a selling point to visiting Oruru at this time. We had arrived in Uyuni on Thursday and the luxury bus leaves on Friday, so we bought tickets for the 10 hour trip leaving at 8 pm. Todo Turisismo buses are clean, toilets are the best we’ve seen and the dinner of fried chicken and French fries was good. During the coldest part of the trip the heaters came on. Since the bus was only half full, we got to use an empty pair of seats and I almost got a full night’s sleep. Ted, however, too large to lie down, didn’t.
Our bus guide first described the layout of the city, built in a 5 km. wide volcanic crater with very few level streets, which we had already figured out. The wealthier citizens live at the lower and flatter areas and the poorer ones live on the steep upper streets most of which are cobbled or even dirt.
For the first six hours of the trip, the bus traveled on the typical dirt road, reaching pavement only at Oruru. On the dirt road the bus bounced around so much, coats dropped from the overhead storage. I had taken off my shoes and for a short stop along the way, had to get down on my knees and search for them, eventually finding one about three seats forward and the other four seats back. At Oruru we stopped for about 20 minutes while driver and steward were changed. It was raining and cold.
In the very center of La Paz is a hill at the top of which one can get a panoramic view of the city spread out below and climbing up the sides of the crater. Above the crater rim looms the glacier covered Volcano Illimani, almost 22,000 ft. high, and scattered around the city below are numerous high rises sprouting like tall weeds among the lower buildings which cover the city.
Upon arriving in La Paz, which at first glance appears to be all up or down hills, it was raining. On the way to the hostel we saw Indian women setting up stalls, hanging up clothes or setting out shoes and wares for what we discovered was a daily morning market on Illampu Street. Since we had been unable to reserve a room ahead of time, we were anxious about finding one, especially as the bus arrived at 6:30 a.m. still dark. But we were lucky and found one at the first place we stopped.La Paz has many lovely colonial style buildings characterized by carved facades and painted in bright, gay colors. The central square is surrounded by official buildings, the largest of which is the neo-classical cathedral which we plan to visit on Easter Sunday.
A city of a million and a half people, built in the crater of a volcano, its cobbled streets run up or down with only a handful of more or less level ones. The highest capital in the world, 13,000 feet above sea level, it is cold. Our first hotel was cold with saggy beds, extra charges for everything and not a good place for us to spend three weeks. We planned to stay here for three weeks to explore, get some laundry done and acclimate before heading to Peru. So the next day we looked at six or seven other hotels. We found the Hotel Alem, with a large room on a busy street that would suit our purposes. Unfortunately, the street is nearly vertical and the hotel, like most of the budget accommodations, is also unheated. The next day we bought a small heater and made life so much better, though, still not completely acclimated, we still get easily fatigued doing anything at all, let alone climb up and down the street.
Bolivia had at one time, a sea coast and was about three times bigger than today. But, like Paraguay, its larger neighboring countries had whittled it down. Chile took the sea coast, which had been the route to transporting silver to Spain.
Luckily, our street, Sagarnaga, is a major tourist area filled with souvenir shops, Alpaca clothing stores, tourist agencies, internets, and restaurants; dozens of them all side by side on both sides of a street not much more than a single vehicle wide. The line of cars, trucks, and busses passes by all day but, also luckily, the cross traffic is so heavy, that they are slow and often stalled so it’s not too hard to cross the street.
La Paz had been a major stopping point on the silver route. After gaining independence, 175 years ago, Bolivia has had 175 presidents, all corrupt with one serving 30 years in jail for his creative accounting. Another gave away a large parcel of land to a Chilean general in return for a horse. Finally a few years ago, Chile ceded a small access path to the sea to Bolivia.
Just across the street is our favorite restaurant, called 100% Organic, which serves up delicious soups and great sandwiches as well as huge entrees of steaks, chops, and chicken. They also have Llama steaks, which taste mostly like barbecue sauce.
Another great feature of the restaurant is that it’s heated. Next door to that is a Cuban restaurant, also pretty good, which offers live Cuban music on Thursday nights. Also heated. A couple of Pizza and Pasta joints are also quite close, but they aren’t heated, and with ambient temperatures in the 60’s, eating there can be uncomfortable. There’s also a decent Chinese restaurant in the area, and most incredible of all, an Israeli joint usually packed with kids on their travels after having just gotten out of the Israeli army. There are more Israelis here than we saw even in Buenos Aires and signs in Hebrew are to be seen everywhere in the neighborhood. In fact, every where in South America, we’ve seen many Israeli kids. Hebrew signs are all over in even the smallest towns. One Brazilian lady on seeing a world map for the first time and seeing how small Israel is, exclaimed “No wonder there are so many Israeli travelers. There isn’t enough room for you all to stay there.”
Bolivia remains the poorest nation in South America, though it is rich in oil and natural gas. For whatever misplaced reasons, the government will simply not allow this natural wealth to flow out of the country, though it could make them wealthy. The result is widespread poverty, ignorance, and disease. More than half the population of 9 million claims to be indigenous Indians and the average mother has 5 children. In fact, 42% of the population is under 14 years of age, a time bomb which will explode eventually. Political and social unrest is rife. In the week we have been here, we have seen 4 major demonstrations, the largest of which by the miners, managed to make the city’s already huge traffic problem even worse.
There’s also a Turkish Bath and pool in the area. Ted checked it out today and decided that it would probably be a great place to pick up some kind of infection or other.
Bad as it is, the economic situation is not dire due to the underground economy based on the cultivation of coca, though the US government has been pressuring Bolivia to crack down. For awhile, the government was paying the farmers $2500 per hectare not to grow the crop. What happened was that the government nearly went broke when the farmers added more hectares in order to claim they stopped the growing and collect the bribe. Of course, they continued to grow coca as well, which paid considerably more than $2500 per hectare. The net result is that the coca growing regions have come under the control of drug cartels supported by various armed guerrilla organizations and violence has become a standard practice, a la Colombia. Just another example of the US’s totally stupid drug war.
Illampu, the main street in the area, only a half a block up the mountainside from our hotel, is the site of a morning market, which extends well into the afternoon. People, mostly women, set up booths along the sidewalks selling everything from fruits and nuts to eggs, clothing, watches, CDs and DVDs, and just about anything else you could possibly think of. It’s an amazingly colorful affair, though the sidewalks are so crowded that it’s easier to walk in the street. Our hotel includes a breakfast of juice, rolls, and coffee, but we found an ancient Indian woman selling eggs on the street, so every few days we buy a dozen and the hotel cook scrambles them up for us in the morning.
We also learned about Bolivia’s most interesting fashion. Sometime in the late 1800’s an English hatter imported hundreds of Bowler hats into La Paz. The hats were too small for the gentlemen of La Paz so he convinced the female Spanish aristocracy that wearing Bowler hats was the latest thing in European fashion. And as the Indian women copied the gentry in fashion, the Bowler hat craze took off. Bowler hats, usually two sizes too small, are still a common sight among the Indian women of Bolivia. Today, the hat worn on a slant signifies a single woman or worn straight means a married one. The long full skirts worn by the Spanish ladies and adopted by the Indian women, have over the years, been shortened until they are now mid-calf with over 7 yards of fabric and the shawls of Spain are still seen everywhere usually matching the skirts.
Bolivian women adopted wearing Bowler hats sometime ago. I don’t know why but they look so charming, perched on top of their heads, usually 2 sizes too small, much in the manner of vaudeville comedians of nearly a century ago. When it rains, they cover the felt hats with plastic bags. The women all seem to be as wide as they are tall but I think that is because they are wearing everything they own in order to stay warm. Most wear colorful shawls, tied in front and holding bundles of goods or babies, and their voluminous skirts( made with 7 yards of fabric) are color matched to the shawls and embroidered with shiny thread and glitter in the sun, when there is sun, which is very rare. On the other hand, the men dress in western clothes, very drab.
Women wear their hair in long braids tied together in the back with some sort of tassel that makes the braids about six inches longer. Modern girls are choosing to wear their hair loose or tied in pony tails. Some are even cutting it short. That coupled with blue jeans, IPODs and tennis shoes make them blend in with girls anywhere in the world.
On our tour we had been introduced to coca leaves. Sucking on the folded leaves is said to relieve altitude problems. Also, drinking coca tea. However during the first night here, I suffered paralysis of the left side of my face and left arm. Gladly, that seems to be passing and I don’t have to look like a bad Halloween mask forever; another side effect of altitude. Another is lossAfter touring the major downtown area, our bus then turned to the southern route where the very wealthy have built. The upper part of La Paz is at an average altitude of 12,000 ft., the highest capitol in the world. The southern part of the city is almost 3,000 feet lower, and considerably warmer. Here, the houses are built on very strong and expensive foundations because there is no bed-rock, only clay which has a tendency to slip when wet. Sometimes the cost of appetite. A real shame where food is plentiful, goodthe foundation is many times the cost of the house, which can be several hundred thousand dollars and cheapmore.
While in Africa, we saw a program about the pygmy armadillo, a rare and furry little thing. The show claimed that they only occurred in the desert near Mendoza, Argentina which is known as the wine growing region of Argentina. Since we have seen wine regions around the world, we didn’t stop in Mendoza on our way to Chile. But while in San Pedro de Atacama, we spotted the mummy of a pygmy armadillo in a small grocery store, high on a shelf. Now in La Paz, the hotel across the street has one in the reception area. They were kind enough to show it to us, a cute little thing with lots of fur on its belly and on its back. I did get some pictures and found out it is common around the area, the mummy is supposed to bring good luck.
It is very picturesque with modern subdivisions perched below towering cliffs of multicolored rock. Try to imagine a city built in the Painted Desert of Arizona and you begin to get the picture.
Just outside of this area is the“Moon Valley”, a strange place where the clay has been eroded by rain, leaving a large dry mud pile, characterized by weird stalagmitic shapes, some reaching heights of 20 ft. or more. A few cacti have taken hold on some of the piles. Today the area is a national park with a small entrance fee.
From there, we returned to our starting point at the Plaza Isobel La Catolica, named for the Spanish Queen who funded Columbus’ voyage and was therefore, at least symbolically, responsible for everything that has happened since concerning the New World and the fate of its indigenous people.
We returned to our hotel via taxi. Taxis in La Paz are the cheapest we’ve encountered anywhere in the world. They are not metered, but one can travel for long distances for little more than a dollar. We have continued to be surprised by the low fares which make bargaining superfluous.
On another day we walked the two blocks to the “Witch’s Market” where we found the “rare and elusive” pygmy armadillo for sale. At least a dozen of them. For less than $20. Some had been stuffed but others still had the insides and smelled like decay. Not very pleasant. Hundreds of dried fetal llamas for sale, some with fur, most without. Other potions for love, health, happiness are on display. One woman insisted for 15 cents, that we buy a “travelers” good luck rock. Herbal medicines advertise cures for any human ills. A disturbing sight was the furs of several small wild cats from the Amazon Basin. They may bring good luck to the buyers but they certainly bring bad luck to the wild cats of Bolivia. Once we actually saw a dried Jaguar skin hanging outside a shop.
Bolivia March 8
La Paz March 8, 2008
Buses leave Uyuni every day but the best one, the luxury bus leaves four times per week for La Paz. Trains leave for Oruru twice a week where travelers must then transfer to a bus for La Paz. The books warn travelers that during the transfer many items are stolen. Not a selling point to visiting Oruru at this time. We had arrived in Uyuni on Thursday and the luxury bus leaves on Friday, so we bought tickets for the 10 hour trip leaving at 8 pm. Todo Turisismo buses are clean, toilets are the best we’ve seen and the dinner of fried chicken and French fries was good. During the coldest part of the trip the heaters came on. Since the bus was only half full, we got to use an empty pair of seats and I almost got a full night’s sleep. Ted, however, too large to lie down, didn’t.
For the first six hours of the trip, the bus traveled on the typical dirt road, reaching pavement only at Oruru. On the dirt road the bus bounced around so much, coats dropped from the overhead storage. I had taken off my shoes and for a short stop along the way, had to get down on my knees and search for them, eventually finding one about three seats forward and the other four seats back. At Oruru we stopped for about 20 minutes while driver and steward were changed. It was raining and cold.
Upon arriving in La Paz, which at first glance appears to be all up or down hills, it was raining. On the way to the hostel we saw Indian women setting up stalls, hanging up clothes or setting out shoes and wares for what we discovered was a daily morning market on Illampu Street. Since we had been unable to reserve a room ahead of time, we were anxious about finding one, especially as the bus arrived at 6:30 a.m. still dark. But we were lucky and found one at the first place we stopped.
A city of a million and a half people, built in the crater of a volcano, its cobbled streets run up or down with only a handful of more or less level ones. The highest capital in the world, 13,000 feet above sea level, it is cold. Our first hotel was cold with saggy beds, extra charges for everything and not a good place for us to spend three weeks. We planned to stay here for three weeks to explore, get some laundry done and acclimate before heading to Peru. So the next day we looked at six or seven other hotels. We found the Hotel Alem, with a large room on a busy street that would suit our purposes. Unfortunately, the street is nearly vertical and the hotel, like most of the budget accommodations, is also unheated. The next day we bought a small heater and made life so much better, though, still not completely acclimated, we still get easily fatigued doing anything at all, let alone climb up and down the street.
Luckily, our street, Sagarnaga, is a major tourist area filled with souvenir shops, Alpaca clothing stores, tourist agencies, internets, and restaurants; dozens of them all side by side on both sides of a street not much more than a single vehicle wide. The line of cars, trucks, and busses passes by all day but, also luckily, the cross traffic is so heavy, that they are slow and often stalled so it’s not too hard to cross the street.
Just across the street is our favorite restaurant, called 100% Organic, which serves up delicious soups and great sandwiches as well as huge entrees of steaks, chops, and chicken. They also have Llama steaks, which taste mostly like barbecue sauce.
Another great feature of the restaurant is that it’s heated. Next door to that is a Cuban restaurant, also pretty good, which offers live Cuban music on Thursday nights. Also heated. A couple of Pizza and Pasta joints are also quite close, but they aren’t heated, and with ambient temperatures in the 60’s, eating there can be uncomfortable. There’s also a decent Chinese restaurant in the area, and most incredible of all, an Israeli joint usually packed with kids on their travels after having just gotten out of the Israeli army. There are more Israelis here than we saw even in Buenos Aires and signs in Hebrew are to be seen everywhere in the neighborhood. In fact, every where in South America, we’ve seen many Israeli kids. Hebrew signs are all over in even the smallest towns. One Brazilian lady on seeing a world map for the first time and seeing how small Israel is, exclaimed “No wonder there are so many Israeli travelers. There isn’t enough room for you all to stay there.”
There’s also a Turkish Bath and pool in the area. Ted checked it out today and decided that it would probably be a great place to pick up some kind of infection or other.
Illampu, the main street in the area, only a half a block up the mountainside from our hotel, is the site of a morning market, which extends well into the afternoon. People, mostly women, set up booths along the sidewalks selling everything from fruits and nuts to eggs, clothing, watches, CDs and DVDs, and just about anything else you could possibly think of. It’s an amazingly colorful affair, though the sidewalks are so crowded that it’s easier to walk in the street. Our hotel includes a breakfast of juice, rolls, and coffee, but we found an ancient Indian woman selling eggs on the street, so every few days we buy a dozen and the hotel cook scrambles them up for us in the morning.
Bolivian women adopted wearing Bowler hats sometime ago. I don’t know why but they look so charming, perched on top of their heads, usually 2 sizes too small, much in the manner of vaudeville comedians of nearly a century ago. When it rains, they cover the felt hats with plastic bags. The women all seem to be as wide as they are tall but I think that is because they are wearing everything they own in order to stay warm. Most wear colorful shawls, tied in front and holding bundles of goods or babies, and their voluminous skirts( made with 7 yards of fabric) are color matched to the shawls and embroidered with shiny thread and glitter in the sun, when there is sun, which is very rare. On the other hand, the men dress in western clothes, very drab.
On our tour we had been introduced to coca leaves. Sucking on the folded leaves is said to relieve altitude problems. Also, drinking coca tea. However during the first night here, I suffered paralysis of the left side of my face and left arm. Gladly, that seems to be passing and I don’t have to look like a bad Halloween mask forever; another side effect of altitude. Another is loss of appetite. A real shame where food is plentiful, good and cheap.
While in Africa, we saw a program about the pygmy armadillo, a rare and furry little thing. The show claimed that they only occurred in the desert near Mendoza, Argentina which is known as the wine growing region of Argentina. Since we have seen wine regions around the world, we didn’t stop in Mendoza on our way to Chile. But while in San Pedro de Atacama, we spotted the mummy of a pygmy armadillo in a small grocery store, high on a shelf. Now in La Paz, the hotel across the street has one in the reception area. They were kind enough to show it to us, a cute little thing with lots of fur on its belly and on its back. I did get some pictures and found out it is common around the area, the mummy is supposed to bring good luck.
Buses leave Uyuni every day but the best one, the luxury bus leaves four times per week for La Paz. Trains leave for Oruru twice a week where travelers must then transfer to a bus for La Paz. The books warn travelers that during the transfer many items are stolen. Not a selling point to visiting Oruru at this time. We had arrived in Uyuni on Thursday and the luxury bus leaves on Friday, so we bought tickets for the 10 hour trip leaving at 8 pm. Todo Turisismo buses are clean, toilets are the best we’ve seen and the dinner of fried chicken and French fries was good. During the coldest part of the trip the heaters came on. Since the bus was only half full, we got to use an empty pair of seats and I almost got a full night’s sleep. Ted, however, too large to lie down, didn’t.
For the first six hours of the trip, the bus traveled on the typical dirt road, reaching pavement only at Oruru. On the dirt road the bus bounced around so much, coats dropped from the overhead storage. I had taken off my shoes and for a short stop along the way, had to get down on my knees and search for them, eventually finding one about three seats forward and the other four seats back. At Oruru we stopped for about 20 minutes while driver and steward were changed. It was raining and cold.
Upon arriving in La Paz, which at first glance appears to be all up or down hills, it was raining. On the way to the hostel we saw Indian women setting up stalls, hanging up clothes or setting out shoes and wares for what we discovered was a daily morning market on Illampu Street. Since we had been unable to reserve a room ahead of time, we were anxious about finding one, especially as the bus arrived at 6:30 a.m. still dark. But we were lucky and found one at the first place we stopped.
A city of a million and a half people, built in the crater of a volcano, its cobbled streets run up or down with only a handful of more or less level ones. The highest capital in the world, 13,000 feet above sea level, it is cold. Our first hotel was cold with saggy beds, extra charges for everything and not a good place for us to spend three weeks. We planned to stay here for three weeks to explore, get some laundry done and acclimate before heading to Peru. So the next day we looked at six or seven other hotels. We found the Hotel Alem, with a large room on a busy street that would suit our purposes. Unfortunately, the street is nearly vertical and the hotel, like most of the budget accommodations, is also unheated. The next day we bought a small heater and made life so much better, though, still not completely acclimated, we still get easily fatigued doing anything at all, let alone climb up and down the street.
Luckily, our street, Sagarnaga, is a major tourist area filled with souvenir shops, Alpaca clothing stores, tourist agencies, internets, and restaurants; dozens of them all side by side on both sides of a street not much more than a single vehicle wide. The line of cars, trucks, and busses passes by all day but, also luckily, the cross traffic is so heavy, that they are slow and often stalled so it’s not too hard to cross the street.
Just across the street is our favorite restaurant, called 100% Organic, which serves up delicious soups and great sandwiches as well as huge entrees of steaks, chops, and chicken. They also have Llama steaks, which taste mostly like barbecue sauce.
Another great feature of the restaurant is that it’s heated. Next door to that is a Cuban restaurant, also pretty good, which offers live Cuban music on Thursday nights. Also heated. A couple of Pizza and Pasta joints are also quite close, but they aren’t heated, and with ambient temperatures in the 60’s, eating there can be uncomfortable. There’s also a decent Chinese restaurant in the area, and most incredible of all, an Israeli joint usually packed with kids on their travels after having just gotten out of the Israeli army. There are more Israelis here than we saw even in Buenos Aires and signs in Hebrew are to be seen everywhere in the neighborhood. In fact, every where in South America, we’ve seen many Israeli kids. Hebrew signs are all over in even the smallest towns. One Brazilian lady on seeing a world map for the first time and seeing how small Israel is, exclaimed “No wonder there are so many Israeli travelers. There isn’t enough room for you all to stay there.”
There’s also a Turkish Bath and pool in the area. Ted checked it out today and decided that it would probably be a great place to pick up some kind of infection or other.
Illampu, the main street in the area, only a half a block up the mountainside from our hotel, is the site of a morning market, which extends well into the afternoon. People, mostly women, set up booths along the sidewalks selling everything from fruits and nuts to eggs, clothing, watches, CDs and DVDs, and just about anything else you could possibly think of. It’s an amazingly colorful affair, though the sidewalks are so crowded that it’s easier to walk in the street. Our hotel includes a breakfast of juice, rolls, and coffee, but we found an ancient Indian woman selling eggs on the street, so every few days we buy a dozen and the hotel cook scrambles them up for us in the morning.
Bolivian women adopted wearing Bowler hats sometime ago. I don’t know why but they look so charming, perched on top of their heads, usually 2 sizes too small, much in the manner of vaudeville comedians of nearly a century ago. When it rains, they cover the felt hats with plastic bags. The women all seem to be as wide as they are tall but I think that is because they are wearing everything they own in order to stay warm. Most wear colorful shawls, tied in front and holding bundles of goods or babies, and their voluminous skirts( made with 7 yards of fabric) are color matched to the shawls and embroidered with shiny thread and glitter in the sun, when there is sun, which is very rare. On the other hand, the men dress in western clothes, very drab.
On our tour we had been introduced to coca leaves. Sucking on the folded leaves is said to relieve altitude problems. Also, drinking coca tea. However during the first night here, I suffered paralysis of the left side of my face and left arm. Gladly, that seems to be passing and I don’t have to look like a bad Halloween mask forever; another side effect of altitude. Another is loss of appetite. A real shame where food is plentiful, good and cheap.
While in Africa, we saw a program about the pygmy armadillo, a rare and furry little thing. The show claimed that they only occurred in the desert near Mendoza, Argentina which is known as the wine growing region of Argentina. Since we have seen wine regions around the world, we didn’t stop in Mendoza on our way to Chile. But while in San Pedro de Atacama, we spotted the mummy of a pygmy armadillo in a small grocery store, high on a shelf. Now in La Paz, the hotel across the street has one in the reception area. They were kind enough to show it to us, a cute little thing with lots of fur on its belly and on its back. I did get some pictures and found out it is common around the area, the mummy is supposed to bring good luck.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Bolivia 2
Bolivia March 4, 2008
Early on Tuesday morning we waited at the hostel in San Pedro Atacama, Chile for our tour bus to pick us up at 7:30. It was late and Ted went off to see what the problem was. We didn’t worry about being separated since there were only a couple of streets in town. About 8:30 a bus came and picked us up, drove about a mile and dropped us off at the Chile border. There we had our exit stamped into our passports, loaded all our stuff onto one of three jeeps and with 16 other travelers, began our Bolivian adventure.
A few miles into Bolivia we came upon two small buildings set in the middle of nowhere. The Bolivian immigration station. Our party was composed of 17 people, some from Switzerland, from Ireland, Spain and Japan. Our jeep held us, three other Americans and one German man. The immigration man took all American passports, explaining that a police would deliver them to Uyuni, Bolivia waiting for our arrival. Traveling without our passports was a bit un-nerving for us all, but since there was nothing between us and Uyuni but empty space for the next 3 days, we didn’t worry overly.
Our driver then proceeded to start driving across the desert with nothing visible except tracks in the sand. This was our introduction to Bolivian roads, at least in the south. The first stop was at a National Park Reserve where we visited several salt lakes. One of them was green from the dissolved copper, and one was white. Three different species of Flamingos live in the salt lakes of the Atacama desert. The lakes are quite shallow and allow different types of algae and other organisisms to thrive, providing food for the flamingoes. The lakes mirror the mountains and the few scattered clouds with a wonderful brilliance.
The high altitude, the dryness and the blowing cold wind made us quite uncomfortable during most of the first day. As we continued to drive through miles and miles of dry desert, a few dwarf plants grew in patches here and there. Mostly the plants appeared slightly dead, growing a sickly yellow against the light brown of the ground and hills. We arrived at an area of active geysers and thermal pools. In the distance we could see several geysers blowing up but I couldn’t get any good pictures. Nearer to our parking lot there was one blowing smoke from the ground. A pool had been built so people could lounge in the warm waters. But eventually they had to leave the warm water and dry off in the very cold blowing air.
Driving again through miles and miles of dry land, we arrived at an area where boiling water and mud bubbled in pits, throwing yellow sulfur around some of the pits. In the distance we spotted several Vicunas grazing on the small yellow plants. Even though the landscape was barren and the mountains devoid of any living plants, the ground continually changed. From sand, to sand strewn with small rock, gravel, sand with a thin layer of gravel, back to sand. In most areas where plants did grow it appeared that they were growing around rocks where the rocks might have captured small amounts of morning dew. In other areas, a flat yellow type of plants looking almost like fungi grew in circles around the rocks. The different salt lakes have different colors depending on the concentration of minerals or algae. At the Colorado Lake (red lake) the red algae drifted back and forth with the wind while flamingoes peacefully grazed..
Finally we reached our “hotel” for the first night. The wind continued to blow and very few people ventured out to take a couple of pictures, then ran quickly back to escape the cold. A pet llama (or maybe next year’s meat) was feeding outside. She or he didn’t seem to want to be touched and no one was brave enough to try. Our beds were six to a room, meaning that the occupants of the three jeeps continued to be separated, meeting only at meals and tourist stops. The blanket on each bed was folded such that it was impossible to cover both the shoulders and the feet. The communal bath was down the tile hallway making for cold feet if one should have to use it in the night. Also, electricity was only on for about three hours from seven to ten. Everyone spent a rather sleepless night, each suffering from headaches because we were over 12,000 feet up from sea level.
Day 2 we headed across more flat dry land. Spotting a few vicunas grazing or standing in the lifeless plain. Our driver explained that they feed in the greener areas, and then move up to avoid predation by pumas. In the museum back in Chile we discovered that the llamas are a cross between the vicuna and the alpaca done by the Indians about 14,000 years before when they found that they could capture baby animals and raise them to insure future meat and the animals cross bred naturally.
The wind has carved large rocks into unreal shapes sitting in the middle of miles of sand. One tourist stop was at a rock that resembled a tree. Some of the group climbed on the rocks while most of us were content to stand in front of them and have our pictures taken.
Back in the jeeps we drove miles through the desert, spotting lakes filled with eating flamingoes. Arriving in a small village, devoid of either trees or people, we stopped for a lunch of soup, bread, rice, chopped wieners and coke, a typical meal.
Now the landscape changed again, through small green valleys filled with herds of llamas, up through volcanic rock and barren patches.
Small adobe houses appeared sometimes and lots of short rock walls, the rocks just lay upon one another, no mortar holding them in place. On one hillside it looked like a map had been drawn with short walls forming rectangles or very small territories, matching those in the valleys. Our driver told us they were Incan, but it was a bit hard to believe that unmortared walls have remained in perfect condition for five hundred years. But maybe. Small creeks meandered through the green valleys and large herds of llamas grazed. Most of the llamas had red ribbons wrapped around their ears and some wore ribbons stuck in their backs. There are some black, some white, some white and brown and some brown llamas, giving the whole herd a wonderful variety of the grazing animals.
One stop in a very small town built at the foot of some rock palisades seemed completely empty, as did most of the villages we passed. Our driver explained that the people of the village were either out with the llamas (we saw two) or minding their small crops of Quenoa bushes, gluten free grain that comes in three colors, red, yellow or green. Our jeep stopped to examine some of the low Quenoa plants.
Now we began to see sheep among the herds of lamas. Sheep were introduced a few years back and because they are cheaper to raise, more and more sheep’s wool is replacing the traditional lama and alpaca sweaters and shawls for sale by local women.
Now the areas were greener and on several occasions we had to drive across small streams. One time we drove up the stream until the road again moved onto dry land. Suddenly the landscape changed to an enormous salt flat, the largest in the world.
For Millions of years, this area of South America was covered by a salt sea. As the Andes were pushed up and the climate dried out over successive periods, layers of salt were deposited until the entire sea had finally dried up leaving the world’s largest salt shaker; pure sodium chloride covering an area of almost 5000 sq. mi, and some 400 ft. thick. This is the Salar de Uyuni, merely the largest of several huge salt pans left behind by the receding sea. While the Salar is irregular, it is roughly 50 by 100 miles along its perimeter, giving one some perspective on its huge size.
We drove for miles alongside the flat salt pan, finally arriving at the hotel for the night. This hotel is only three years old, has 27 rooms each having six beds and private baths. A suicide shower provides warm water and the electricity is on for four hours. Big windows face out looking at the back of a small village and mile upon mile of flat, white salt.
After breakfast, we drove out onto the salt. The three jeeps occasionally drove through shallow salt lakes produced by recent rains, reflecting the snow topped mountains along the edges of the salt flat, but. for the most part, the pan was dry and blindingly white. Isolated islands in the salt are home to small hare-like animals, Vizchayas, now beginning to evolve into separate species. At one, we stopped while tourists climbed up for the view of an ocean of white salt. The whole island was covered with large saguaro cactus and the buildings had been built out of ancient coral. The outside tables were salt blocks. On one building the chimney was a tall cactus skeleton. Because of the completely flat and white salt pan, photo perspective shots were amazing and the various groups of travelers spent many minutes posing. In one photo, Jesse. The American girl traveling with us, sits cross legged on the salt while a tiny Bryan and an equally tiny Joe appear to stand on her outstretched hands.
Now our jeeps continued across the Salar until we reached the “Salt Hotel”, a building made entirely out of salt blocks, standing in the middle of miles and miles of salt. Inside, the tables, the beds, the walls and walks were made of salt blocks, clearly showing the layers of salt sandwiched between layers of brown sediment. Sculptures filled the hall ways with even a standing clock, a salty Big Ben, all carved from salt.
Next mounds of white salt appeared, the salt mines of Bolivia. Trucks haul the salt to other small villages where it is loaded onto trains and taken to Ororu for processing. At one village where the train line begins, villagers sell small bowls and other small items made of salt. This was the first village we had seen that had people walking about and selling tourist items. But again, not a single sign of anything green, just brown adobe huts, a few television antennas leaning away from the wind, and brown ground with white mounds of salt with several houses made of salt blocks.
About 12 miles from the mines, Uyuni, 12,000 ft. above sea level, appeared and the end of the tour. It was Thursday and the weekly market with women selling everything from school supplies, clothes, lotions and soap, skirts and fruit, filled the main street. Bolivian women in colorful pleated skirts, aprons, bowler hats, long wool stockings, long braids hanging down their backs sit by their wares or shop for supplies. All the women that sell produce wear blue aprons over their clothes. Young Bolivian women don’t wear the old traditional clothes but have changed to Western clothes.
We were unloaded on a street corner after the driver drove by the immigration office (closed until 2:30) and left to fend for ourselves. While Ted went in one direction to see one Hostel, Joe (another American) went in the other direction to check out another. Finally, we decided on Joe’s hostel and dragged all our belongings a block and a half to the Hostel Marith, a very nice place.
After dumping all our stuff in the rooms, we headed back in a group of five, to hopefully find our passports waiting. All the information that we had gotten off of the internet, the photos without glasses, the copies of credit cards, etc. proved un-necessary. They stamped our passports, and after filling out a small form and paying our $100 each, we had our visas. So easy!
Now we had time to wander around, taking pictures, eating lunch and finding our bus or train schedules. Johann, the German man with us, took a train to Argentina to continue his trip. The three other Americans were going north to work in an Animal Reserve for two weeks before returning to Colorado. We bought our bus tickets to La Paz.
Near the bus terminal there was a street of stalls that sold nothing but used clothes. Shops for the poorer or toiling class.
Everywhere dogs roam, all seemingly in good health with some wearing collars. Big dogs with obvious German Shepherd heritage, little curly poodle like dogs, shaggy small dogs, even a few puppies, all well behaved but follow tourists around hoping for a hand-out. At dinner we watched as a tourist put her coat on the floor by her chair so a small puppy could lie down. After it rearranged the coat it rolled off while trying to lick it’s hind leg, it settled down for a warm and comfortable nap. It was still sleeping when we left at 9:00 p.m.
Friday morning the street was empty of the market people and it was easy to believe the city is home to only 14,000 people. The main industry of Uyuni is the many tourists that walk through the park or find their way to the half dozen internet places. Every tour company that has an office in San Pedro de Atacama has one here. Tours back to Chile or tours around the salt flats of Bolivia keep the industry well and happy. While eating lunch at an outdoor café, we were spotted by two Israeli girls that we had met in Buenos Aires over a month and a half ago. After catching up on the different trips each of us had taken, they left to ready themselves for the 3 day, 2 nights tour that we had just finished. A very interesting tour and one that we are so glad we had the chance to see.
Early on Tuesday morning we waited at the hostel in San Pedro Atacama, Chile for our tour bus to pick us up at 7:30. It was late and Ted went off to see what the problem was. We didn’t worry about being separated since there were only a couple of streets in town. About 8:30 a bus came and picked us up, drove about a mile and dropped us off at the Chile border. There we had our exit stamped into our passports, loaded all our stuff onto one of three jeeps and with 16 other travelers, began our Bolivian adventure.
A few miles into Bolivia we came upon two small buildings set in the middle of nowhere. The Bolivian immigration station. Our party was composed of 17 people, some from Switzerland, from Ireland, Spain and Japan. Our jeep held us, three other Americans and one German man. The immigration man took all American passports, explaining that a police would deliver them to Uyuni, Bolivia waiting for our arrival. Traveling without our passports was a bit un-nerving for us all, but since there was nothing between us and Uyuni but empty space for the next 3 days, we didn’t worry overly.
Our driver then proceeded to start driving across the desert with nothing visible except tracks in the sand. This was our introduction to Bolivian roads, at least in the south. The first stop was at a National Park Reserve where we visited several salt lakes. One of them was green from the dissolved copper, and one was white. Three different species of Flamingos live in the salt lakes of the Atacama desert. The lakes are quite shallow and allow different types of algae and other organisisms to thrive, providing food for the flamingoes. The lakes mirror the mountains and the few scattered clouds with a wonderful brilliance.
The high altitude, the dryness and the blowing cold wind made us quite uncomfortable during most of the first day. As we continued to drive through miles and miles of dry desert, a few dwarf plants grew in patches here and there. Mostly the plants appeared slightly dead, growing a sickly yellow against the light brown of the ground and hills. We arrived at an area of active geysers and thermal pools. In the distance we could see several geysers blowing up but I couldn’t get any good pictures. Nearer to our parking lot there was one blowing smoke from the ground. A pool had been built so people could lounge in the warm waters. But eventually they had to leave the warm water and dry off in the very cold blowing air.
Driving again through miles and miles of dry land, we arrived at an area where boiling water and mud bubbled in pits, throwing yellow sulfur around some of the pits. In the distance we spotted several Vicunas grazing on the small yellow plants. Even though the landscape was barren and the mountains devoid of any living plants, the ground continually changed. From sand, to sand strewn with small rock, gravel, sand with a thin layer of gravel, back to sand. In most areas where plants did grow it appeared that they were growing around rocks where the rocks might have captured small amounts of morning dew. In other areas, a flat yellow type of plants looking almost like fungi grew in circles around the rocks. The different salt lakes have different colors depending on the concentration of minerals or algae. At the Colorado Lake (red lake) the red algae drifted back and forth with the wind while flamingoes peacefully grazed..
Finally we reached our “hotel” for the first night. The wind continued to blow and very few people ventured out to take a couple of pictures, then ran quickly back to escape the cold. A pet llama (or maybe next year’s meat) was feeding outside. She or he didn’t seem to want to be touched and no one was brave enough to try. Our beds were six to a room, meaning that the occupants of the three jeeps continued to be separated, meeting only at meals and tourist stops. The blanket on each bed was folded such that it was impossible to cover both the shoulders and the feet. The communal bath was down the tile hallway making for cold feet if one should have to use it in the night. Also, electricity was only on for about three hours from seven to ten. Everyone spent a rather sleepless night, each suffering from headaches because we were over 12,000 feet up from sea level.
Day 2 we headed across more flat dry land. Spotting a few vicunas grazing or standing in the lifeless plain. Our driver explained that they feed in the greener areas, and then move up to avoid predation by pumas. In the museum back in Chile we discovered that the llamas are a cross between the vicuna and the alpaca done by the Indians about 14,000 years before when they found that they could capture baby animals and raise them to insure future meat and the animals cross bred naturally.
The wind has carved large rocks into unreal shapes sitting in the middle of miles of sand. One tourist stop was at a rock that resembled a tree. Some of the group climbed on the rocks while most of us were content to stand in front of them and have our pictures taken.
Back in the jeeps we drove miles through the desert, spotting lakes filled with eating flamingoes. Arriving in a small village, devoid of either trees or people, we stopped for a lunch of soup, bread, rice, chopped wieners and coke, a typical meal.
Now the landscape changed again, through small green valleys filled with herds of llamas, up through volcanic rock and barren patches.
Small adobe houses appeared sometimes and lots of short rock walls, the rocks just lay upon one another, no mortar holding them in place. On one hillside it looked like a map had been drawn with short walls forming rectangles or very small territories, matching those in the valleys. Our driver told us they were Incan, but it was a bit hard to believe that unmortared walls have remained in perfect condition for five hundred years. But maybe. Small creeks meandered through the green valleys and large herds of llamas grazed. Most of the llamas had red ribbons wrapped around their ears and some wore ribbons stuck in their backs. There are some black, some white, some white and brown and some brown llamas, giving the whole herd a wonderful variety of the grazing animals.
One stop in a very small town built at the foot of some rock palisades seemed completely empty, as did most of the villages we passed. Our driver explained that the people of the village were either out with the llamas (we saw two) or minding their small crops of Quenoa bushes, gluten free grain that comes in three colors, red, yellow or green. Our jeep stopped to examine some of the low Quenoa plants.
Now we began to see sheep among the herds of lamas. Sheep were introduced a few years back and because they are cheaper to raise, more and more sheep’s wool is replacing the traditional lama and alpaca sweaters and shawls for sale by local women.
Now the areas were greener and on several occasions we had to drive across small streams. One time we drove up the stream until the road again moved onto dry land. Suddenly the landscape changed to an enormous salt flat, the largest in the world.
For Millions of years, this area of South America was covered by a salt sea. As the Andes were pushed up and the climate dried out over successive periods, layers of salt were deposited until the entire sea had finally dried up leaving the world’s largest salt shaker; pure sodium chloride covering an area of almost 5000 sq. mi, and some 400 ft. thick. This is the Salar de Uyuni, merely the largest of several huge salt pans left behind by the receding sea. While the Salar is irregular, it is roughly 50 by 100 miles along its perimeter, giving one some perspective on its huge size.
We drove for miles alongside the flat salt pan, finally arriving at the hotel for the night. This hotel is only three years old, has 27 rooms each having six beds and private baths. A suicide shower provides warm water and the electricity is on for four hours. Big windows face out looking at the back of a small village and mile upon mile of flat, white salt.
After breakfast, we drove out onto the salt. The three jeeps occasionally drove through shallow salt lakes produced by recent rains, reflecting the snow topped mountains along the edges of the salt flat, but. for the most part, the pan was dry and blindingly white. Isolated islands in the salt are home to small hare-like animals, Vizchayas, now beginning to evolve into separate species. At one, we stopped while tourists climbed up for the view of an ocean of white salt. The whole island was covered with large saguaro cactus and the buildings had been built out of ancient coral. The outside tables were salt blocks. On one building the chimney was a tall cactus skeleton. Because of the completely flat and white salt pan, photo perspective shots were amazing and the various groups of travelers spent many minutes posing. In one photo, Jesse. The American girl traveling with us, sits cross legged on the salt while a tiny Bryan and an equally tiny Joe appear to stand on her outstretched hands.
Now our jeeps continued across the Salar until we reached the “Salt Hotel”, a building made entirely out of salt blocks, standing in the middle of miles and miles of salt. Inside, the tables, the beds, the walls and walks were made of salt blocks, clearly showing the layers of salt sandwiched between layers of brown sediment. Sculptures filled the hall ways with even a standing clock, a salty Big Ben, all carved from salt.
Next mounds of white salt appeared, the salt mines of Bolivia. Trucks haul the salt to other small villages where it is loaded onto trains and taken to Ororu for processing. At one village where the train line begins, villagers sell small bowls and other small items made of salt. This was the first village we had seen that had people walking about and selling tourist items. But again, not a single sign of anything green, just brown adobe huts, a few television antennas leaning away from the wind, and brown ground with white mounds of salt with several houses made of salt blocks.
About 12 miles from the mines, Uyuni, 12,000 ft. above sea level, appeared and the end of the tour. It was Thursday and the weekly market with women selling everything from school supplies, clothes, lotions and soap, skirts and fruit, filled the main street. Bolivian women in colorful pleated skirts, aprons, bowler hats, long wool stockings, long braids hanging down their backs sit by their wares or shop for supplies. All the women that sell produce wear blue aprons over their clothes. Young Bolivian women don’t wear the old traditional clothes but have changed to Western clothes.
We were unloaded on a street corner after the driver drove by the immigration office (closed until 2:30) and left to fend for ourselves. While Ted went in one direction to see one Hostel, Joe (another American) went in the other direction to check out another. Finally, we decided on Joe’s hostel and dragged all our belongings a block and a half to the Hostel Marith, a very nice place.
After dumping all our stuff in the rooms, we headed back in a group of five, to hopefully find our passports waiting. All the information that we had gotten off of the internet, the photos without glasses, the copies of credit cards, etc. proved un-necessary. They stamped our passports, and after filling out a small form and paying our $100 each, we had our visas. So easy!
Now we had time to wander around, taking pictures, eating lunch and finding our bus or train schedules. Johann, the German man with us, took a train to Argentina to continue his trip. The three other Americans were going north to work in an Animal Reserve for two weeks before returning to Colorado. We bought our bus tickets to La Paz.
Near the bus terminal there was a street of stalls that sold nothing but used clothes. Shops for the poorer or toiling class.
Everywhere dogs roam, all seemingly in good health with some wearing collars. Big dogs with obvious German Shepherd heritage, little curly poodle like dogs, shaggy small dogs, even a few puppies, all well behaved but follow tourists around hoping for a hand-out. At dinner we watched as a tourist put her coat on the floor by her chair so a small puppy could lie down. After it rearranged the coat it rolled off while trying to lick it’s hind leg, it settled down for a warm and comfortable nap. It was still sleeping when we left at 9:00 p.m.
Friday morning the street was empty of the market people and it was easy to believe the city is home to only 14,000 people. The main industry of Uyuni is the many tourists that walk through the park or find their way to the half dozen internet places. Every tour company that has an office in San Pedro de Atacama has one here. Tours back to Chile or tours around the salt flats of Bolivia keep the industry well and happy. While eating lunch at an outdoor café, we were spotted by two Israeli girls that we had met in Buenos Aires over a month and a half ago. After catching up on the different trips each of us had taken, they left to ready themselves for the 3 day, 2 nights tour that we had just finished. A very interesting tour and one that we are so glad we had the chance to see.
Chile
Chile Feb 20, 2008
We left Buenos Aires in the middle of a heat wave, and were mighty glad to leave. Our “room” at the Alkimista Hostel wasn’t much more than a glorified closet with a small window opening out into a stifling airwell. The small fan we’d been given was barely adequate to move the air around and for a week we sweltered.
Our 22 hour trip west by bus took us through the Pampas of Argentina, across the Andes and into the capital of Chile, Santiago. The landscape was incredibly beautiful through the Andes, twisted rocks, switch back turns, small valleys all topped by snow capped peaks. Near the Chilean border we caught a glimpse of Mt. Aconcagua, the highest peak of the Andes at 22,800 ft. above sea level. At the border we first lined up for the Argentine exit stamp, then the Chilean entry stamp then back onto the bus. There, we waited until finally customs had room for us. As we lined up the entire luggage was hauled off the bus, loaded onto a conveyer belt and passed through an x-ray machine. Then each of us was called forward to unlock our luggage so the customs people could paw through our underwear, shake each bag, etc. Our ostrich feathers were confiscated, for no clear reason; we repacked our bags and everything was reloaded onto the bus.
Down the other side of the Andes the road was much the same as going up. Some incredible switchbacks down the mountain. Because we went through a new tunnel, we missed seeing the “Christ of the Andes” the world famous statue which stands at the top of the old pass through the mountains. Finally we pulled into Santiago and unloaded our belongings into a taxi to the hostel, the Che Largato Hostel, conveniently located a block from the main street and the metro line, a block and a half from the supermarket, and several block from a large pedestrian street. The Hostel had once been a large single family dwelling with rooms on several floors, multiple bathrooms and a kitchen large enough to serve royalty. The reception desk was placed in what had been the garage for the horse and buggy. We walked around, Ted taking pictures of the park, the old buildings and more of the numerous statues of generals that dot all parks in South America. The most important of the generals was Bernardo O’Higgins, obviously of Irish descent, and the main street of Santiago is named for him. Another thing we’ve noticed about statues in South America is their love of Grecian and Roman statues. Even in very small towns, half clad women or Roman soldiers share space with statues of Romulus and Remus suckling or Generals of every war ever fought on the continent. But some of the names seem strange, General O’Higgins, Lord Cochran, not what I would expect in a South American country.
Though the city contains over 3 million people, it is not a particularly imposing or interesting place, seeming more like a small town. Buenos Aires it ain't.
Here began the mis-information that was to plague us for awhile. First we were told that rent paid in U.S. dollars would save us the 19% tax that Chileans had to pay. So we converted Chilean pesos to dollars. We later found out that was true only in Hostels and 5-star hotels. Then we found out that for budget hotels and guesthouses, Chilean pesos were needed, forcing us to buy pesos. Also, as of Dec 1, 2007, Bolivia requires a visa from U.S. citizens, at $100 U.S. dollars and a passport picture without glasses. All Ted’s photos have him in glasses. So we needed two one hundred dollar bills and a new photo. None of the banks here will change money for foreigners, so we had to rely on the money changers and we lost money on every conversion.
When we had arrived at the bus station we had checked our large suitcases into “Left Baggage” and needed to retrieve them before leaving for Valparaiso. Following the map we rode the metro to the bus terminal only to discover it was the wrong station. Asking directions, we boarded the metro again and backtracked to the second bus terminal in Santiago. Again it was the wrong station. Finally, across the street from bus terminal 2 we found terminal 3 and our luggage. Now we had to return to terminal 2 to catch our bus lugging all our suitcases (2 large ones, 2 small ones, Maria’s backpack, Ted’s camera bag, our laptop computer case, and at least one bag of various kinds of foodstuffs for use when the bus food was inedible.) By now, both of us were ready to abandon the large suitcases except they contain all our cold weather clothes. It was a temptation! Finally we found the correct terminal and platform for the bus to Valparaiso.
Valparaiso, one of the port cities of Chile, is a much smaller and less hurried city than Santiago. Here, rich Chilean families have summer homes built on the hills. In every direction the hills are covered with houses separated by narrow winding streets. There are sixteen “Ascensors” or small cable cars that transport citizens up the hills from the old city built at sea level. Visitors can ride up and back for free. They are quite the engineering marvel. The oldest dates from 1883 and the newest from 1916.
Our stay there was in a “guesthouse”, a lovely home built about 1910. Valparaiso suffered a severe earthquake in 1906 causing similar damage as in San Francisco, CA but didn’t get the press attention. Rebuilding, many of the old homes are similar to those built in San Francisco. The “El Rincon Marino” is one of those homes with the second floor now converted to rooms for rent. Big rooms, high ceilings, wooden floors, large windows looking out over the street and very comfortable beds.
We walked around following the main streets to the main square, the Sotomayor plaza lined by government buildings. One interspersing building of shinning glass was built inside of an old stone one, the multi-story rising above the single stone in a weird mixture of old and new. Again statues of famous generals. The next day we rode the metro a few miles north to Vina del Mar, a wealthy suburb of Valparaiso that reminded us of La Jolla, CA. Many shops, lovely park, good restaurants, lots of tourists, a very lovely little city. There Ted found a passport place and got his photo with no glasses. One large mall built on a spiral design had 17 different beauty parlors side by side. There may have been more but we didn’t feel like walking up the spiral to see. Another funny thing we saw in Chile is the outdoor telephone booths. Tiffany lamp shaped roofs set on poles. No place for Superman to change.
Returning to Valparaiso, we hauled our stuff to the bus terminal for our trip to Calama, high up in the Atacama Desert. A 22 hour ride through a high desert where absolutely nothing grows for hundreds of miles. Rain is measured in millimeters with many places not receiving any for years. Every once in awhile, there is a small patch with low tufts of grass but the whole place is completely devoid of green. Finally at Calama a small river runs through and some trees and grass grow.
Calama is an old city where the trains that transport copper from the mines can still be heard. A few years ago there had been a passenger train to the Bolivian border which ran several times a week but is now gone. Outside of the city, tour companies run tourists to the world’s largest copper mine but the real attraction is getting tourists to San Pedro de Atacama and the salt flats.
On Saturday before school starts we walked around. It seemed that everyone in town was out buying school uniforms and supplies. The pedestrian street was crowded with shoppers. And, as in Argentina, the number of babies in strollers or learning to walk is startling. Children seem to outnumber adults five to one.
We needed to buy some water and toilet paper. No matter how many blocks we walked, no SuperMarket. We did find a huge market similar to the ones in Asia where stalls offered everything from meat to car parts. Clothes, shoes, fruits, vegetables, cold weather clothes and swimming suits, but no water or toilet paper. However, there were at least 15 different pharmacies. The biggest thrill we had was a small earthquake which shook the town for about 2 seconds. Chile is extremely volcano and earthquake prone, but with a bit of luck, we’ll miss the big one.
After resting up for 2 days in Calama, an hour and a half short bus ride through part of Death Valley and the Valley of the Moon finally brought us to San Pedro de Atacama. Here, because of a fast running river, humans have been living for twelve thousand years. The Spaniards came in 1540 and found gold and copper in the surrounding area. By 1557 the small town had been made into a governmental hub for the surrounding area. In 1557 the first church was built and in 1997 it was made into a Historical Monument. The church at the town square is considered to be one of the most beautiful churches in northern Chile. It is interesting because of its age and because the ceiling is covered with cactus wood.
Basically San Pedro de Atacama is a very small town with several dirt roads, adobe houses, some maybe centuries old, that have been converted into restaurants, hotels, shops and tour agencies. Tourists roam back and forth along the main street and sometimes down one or two of the few side streets. Hotels, hostels and camping places dot side streets. There are about four mini-markets and two ATM’s. Looking around we found one pharmacy but he doesn’t carry any drugs. Hope no one gets sick. Hotels range from 5 star type establishments to basic dormitory facilities and they are all over priced, but we had met some girls from London who turned us on to the Hostel Miskanty, a brand new place where we got a double room with a queen sized bed and private bath for only about $32. This was luxury; the first private bathroom we’d had in over a month.
The sole purpose of the town today is to separate tourists from their money. Tours take visitors to salt lakes, hot thermal pools, geysers, several windswept rock formations and a star gazing tour. These are all very expensive and, after checking them out, we decided to see all those same things in Bolivia on the way to Uyuni, a much cheaper option offering 3 day 2 night trips for only $100 USD per person, all inclusive.
Stay tuned.
We left Buenos Aires in the middle of a heat wave, and were mighty glad to leave. Our “room” at the Alkimista Hostel wasn’t much more than a glorified closet with a small window opening out into a stifling airwell. The small fan we’d been given was barely adequate to move the air around and for a week we sweltered.
Our 22 hour trip west by bus took us through the Pampas of Argentina, across the Andes and into the capital of Chile, Santiago. The landscape was incredibly beautiful through the Andes, twisted rocks, switch back turns, small valleys all topped by snow capped peaks. Near the Chilean border we caught a glimpse of Mt. Aconcagua, the highest peak of the Andes at 22,800 ft. above sea level. At the border we first lined up for the Argentine exit stamp, then the Chilean entry stamp then back onto the bus. There, we waited until finally customs had room for us. As we lined up the entire luggage was hauled off the bus, loaded onto a conveyer belt and passed through an x-ray machine. Then each of us was called forward to unlock our luggage so the customs people could paw through our underwear, shake each bag, etc. Our ostrich feathers were confiscated, for no clear reason; we repacked our bags and everything was reloaded onto the bus.
Down the other side of the Andes the road was much the same as going up. Some incredible switchbacks down the mountain. Because we went through a new tunnel, we missed seeing the “Christ of the Andes” the world famous statue which stands at the top of the old pass through the mountains. Finally we pulled into Santiago and unloaded our belongings into a taxi to the hostel, the Che Largato Hostel, conveniently located a block from the main street and the metro line, a block and a half from the supermarket, and several block from a large pedestrian street. The Hostel had once been a large single family dwelling with rooms on several floors, multiple bathrooms and a kitchen large enough to serve royalty. The reception desk was placed in what had been the garage for the horse and buggy. We walked around, Ted taking pictures of the park, the old buildings and more of the numerous statues of generals that dot all parks in South America. The most important of the generals was Bernardo O’Higgins, obviously of Irish descent, and the main street of Santiago is named for him. Another thing we’ve noticed about statues in South America is their love of Grecian and Roman statues. Even in very small towns, half clad women or Roman soldiers share space with statues of Romulus and Remus suckling or Generals of every war ever fought on the continent. But some of the names seem strange, General O’Higgins, Lord Cochran, not what I would expect in a South American country.
Though the city contains over 3 million people, it is not a particularly imposing or interesting place, seeming more like a small town. Buenos Aires it ain't.
Here began the mis-information that was to plague us for awhile. First we were told that rent paid in U.S. dollars would save us the 19% tax that Chileans had to pay. So we converted Chilean pesos to dollars. We later found out that was true only in Hostels and 5-star hotels. Then we found out that for budget hotels and guesthouses, Chilean pesos were needed, forcing us to buy pesos. Also, as of Dec 1, 2007, Bolivia requires a visa from U.S. citizens, at $100 U.S. dollars and a passport picture without glasses. All Ted’s photos have him in glasses. So we needed two one hundred dollar bills and a new photo. None of the banks here will change money for foreigners, so we had to rely on the money changers and we lost money on every conversion.
When we had arrived at the bus station we had checked our large suitcases into “Left Baggage” and needed to retrieve them before leaving for Valparaiso. Following the map we rode the metro to the bus terminal only to discover it was the wrong station. Asking directions, we boarded the metro again and backtracked to the second bus terminal in Santiago. Again it was the wrong station. Finally, across the street from bus terminal 2 we found terminal 3 and our luggage. Now we had to return to terminal 2 to catch our bus lugging all our suitcases (2 large ones, 2 small ones, Maria’s backpack, Ted’s camera bag, our laptop computer case, and at least one bag of various kinds of foodstuffs for use when the bus food was inedible.) By now, both of us were ready to abandon the large suitcases except they contain all our cold weather clothes. It was a temptation! Finally we found the correct terminal and platform for the bus to Valparaiso.
Valparaiso, one of the port cities of Chile, is a much smaller and less hurried city than Santiago. Here, rich Chilean families have summer homes built on the hills. In every direction the hills are covered with houses separated by narrow winding streets. There are sixteen “Ascensors” or small cable cars that transport citizens up the hills from the old city built at sea level. Visitors can ride up and back for free. They are quite the engineering marvel. The oldest dates from 1883 and the newest from 1916.
Our stay there was in a “guesthouse”, a lovely home built about 1910. Valparaiso suffered a severe earthquake in 1906 causing similar damage as in San Francisco, CA but didn’t get the press attention. Rebuilding, many of the old homes are similar to those built in San Francisco. The “El Rincon Marino” is one of those homes with the second floor now converted to rooms for rent. Big rooms, high ceilings, wooden floors, large windows looking out over the street and very comfortable beds.
We walked around following the main streets to the main square, the Sotomayor plaza lined by government buildings. One interspersing building of shinning glass was built inside of an old stone one, the multi-story rising above the single stone in a weird mixture of old and new. Again statues of famous generals. The next day we rode the metro a few miles north to Vina del Mar, a wealthy suburb of Valparaiso that reminded us of La Jolla, CA. Many shops, lovely park, good restaurants, lots of tourists, a very lovely little city. There Ted found a passport place and got his photo with no glasses. One large mall built on a spiral design had 17 different beauty parlors side by side. There may have been more but we didn’t feel like walking up the spiral to see. Another funny thing we saw in Chile is the outdoor telephone booths. Tiffany lamp shaped roofs set on poles. No place for Superman to change.
Returning to Valparaiso, we hauled our stuff to the bus terminal for our trip to Calama, high up in the Atacama Desert. A 22 hour ride through a high desert where absolutely nothing grows for hundreds of miles. Rain is measured in millimeters with many places not receiving any for years. Every once in awhile, there is a small patch with low tufts of grass but the whole place is completely devoid of green. Finally at Calama a small river runs through and some trees and grass grow.
Calama is an old city where the trains that transport copper from the mines can still be heard. A few years ago there had been a passenger train to the Bolivian border which ran several times a week but is now gone. Outside of the city, tour companies run tourists to the world’s largest copper mine but the real attraction is getting tourists to San Pedro de Atacama and the salt flats.
On Saturday before school starts we walked around. It seemed that everyone in town was out buying school uniforms and supplies. The pedestrian street was crowded with shoppers. And, as in Argentina, the number of babies in strollers or learning to walk is startling. Children seem to outnumber adults five to one.
We needed to buy some water and toilet paper. No matter how many blocks we walked, no SuperMarket. We did find a huge market similar to the ones in Asia where stalls offered everything from meat to car parts. Clothes, shoes, fruits, vegetables, cold weather clothes and swimming suits, but no water or toilet paper. However, there were at least 15 different pharmacies. The biggest thrill we had was a small earthquake which shook the town for about 2 seconds. Chile is extremely volcano and earthquake prone, but with a bit of luck, we’ll miss the big one.
After resting up for 2 days in Calama, an hour and a half short bus ride through part of Death Valley and the Valley of the Moon finally brought us to San Pedro de Atacama. Here, because of a fast running river, humans have been living for twelve thousand years. The Spaniards came in 1540 and found gold and copper in the surrounding area. By 1557 the small town had been made into a governmental hub for the surrounding area. In 1557 the first church was built and in 1997 it was made into a Historical Monument. The church at the town square is considered to be one of the most beautiful churches in northern Chile. It is interesting because of its age and because the ceiling is covered with cactus wood.
Basically San Pedro de Atacama is a very small town with several dirt roads, adobe houses, some maybe centuries old, that have been converted into restaurants, hotels, shops and tour agencies. Tourists roam back and forth along the main street and sometimes down one or two of the few side streets. Hotels, hostels and camping places dot side streets. There are about four mini-markets and two ATM’s. Looking around we found one pharmacy but he doesn’t carry any drugs. Hope no one gets sick. Hotels range from 5 star type establishments to basic dormitory facilities and they are all over priced, but we had met some girls from London who turned us on to the Hostel Miskanty, a brand new place where we got a double room with a queen sized bed and private bath for only about $32. This was luxury; the first private bathroom we’d had in over a month.
The sole purpose of the town today is to separate tourists from their money. Tours take visitors to salt lakes, hot thermal pools, geysers, several windswept rock formations and a star gazing tour. These are all very expensive and, after checking them out, we decided to see all those same things in Bolivia on the way to Uyuni, a much cheaper option offering 3 day 2 night trips for only $100 USD per person, all inclusive.
Stay tuned.
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