Hello there from Bolivia,
I have probably rambled on a bit too much this time but I will just send it as is and you can skip over if it gets too much, I don´t feel like editing it all now!!
Since my last email which was a while ago now we have been over a week now in Bolivia and are loving every minute of it. Bolivia is not as developed as Peru and seems more run down in places but that is part of the charm of it. A lot of roads are dusty and unpaved, there are huge holes in the pavements, uneven paving and steps which are lethal at night time!! There are lots of houses made of mud bricks in the outskirts of towns but then again some others are more colourful than in Peru so it is a bit different.
There are lots of women in the local dress of wide thick colourful pleated skirts, shawls and topped off with a bowler hat perched on top of their heads. It looks lovely, unusual and interesting to see so many locals wearing them. We are not sure how the bowler hat thing started, will have to look it up! They are like the ones men used to wear in the cities in England except these are not just black in colour.
We left Puno and got a bus across the border (where it was ¨Hello Bolivia!¨...some people will know what I am referrring to!) to a place called Copacabana in Bolivia which is nothing like the Rio one but was a nice sleepy, slightly run down, scenic town on Lake Titicaca. We visited another island on the lake called Isla del Sol and did a hard day hike from one end of the island to the other and saw more Inca ruins. It was very hilly and hard at that high altitude. We heard on the grapevine and then saw on the BBC news that a girl had died due to the altitude hiking in the Lake Titicaca area in Peru a day after our hike. She was young and fit and died in her sleep so you have to take the altitude acclimatisation really seriously! We are not sure if she had just come from sea level or what. We are not sure exactly where she was though on the mainland or an island. Some people are just more susceptible than others to it. Those four days feeling knackered and resting whilst getting used to it in Cusco really paid off but we still found the effects in Puno and the lake which is another 400 metres higher at 3,700m.
We then got a tourist bus to La Paz and seeing the city for the first time was breathtaking. You come in from high up about 4,000 metres and then suddenly see the huge city spread out in like a canyon or gash in the countryside down to 3,600 metres.The city spreads right up the sides of the canyon and the poorer areas are up high with brick and mud brick houses perched right on the crumbly, unstable looking cliff sides with the modern business district and more expensive areas lower down. There are even skyscrapers in the business district and they are the highest skyscrapers in the world in altitude as this is one of the highest cities in the world at 3,660 metres. It is a good job we are used to the altitude as it is very hilly and you are still out of breath walking around and your heart rate goes sky high at the slightest exertion. The sun is very hot in the daytime and it is T shirt weather but it cools down quickly as soon as the sun goes down.
We are staying in a nice brand new hotel and are splashing out on a bit of comfort although it is not expensive by western standards.
The city is very interesting with lots of local markets, churches, squares, steep, narrow cobbled streets, a prison in the middle of the city, a high altitude football stadium, Spanish colonial buildings and good viewpoints to see the whole city and the massive snow covered 6,000 metre mountain looming in the distance. We did a top deck bus tour but it was scary as the overhead electricity wires were just above our heads and brushed the sides of the bus at times. Every now and then extra low wired would hang down and a couple touched my head at times, I had to slouch all the time and could not relax! It is not designed for double decker buses! It was an interesting tour and we really like the city.
The food here is good and we had llama tenderloin last night which is lighter in colour but similar to beef but a bit drier. Dave had an alpaca steak the other night and it was funny when the waiter asked ¨how he would like his alpaca¨ - well done, medium or rare, you don´t get asked that every day!! There is lots of Western food and you could eat pizza every night if you wanted too. An Indian restaurant was recommended to us and on our first night when we saw alpaca tikka masala on the menu! We just had to have it and it was lovely! Indian food with an Andean twist!! Lots of quinoa, meat and veg soup and you can always get the local meal of soup, meat or chicken with chips and rice for a cheap price.
Dave is off on a big bike ride today so I have just been wandering round people watching and looking at a few museums, churches and the local street life etc.
The main thing we wanted to do in Bolivia was go to the Salar de Uyuni (the world´s largest salt flats) at 3,700 metres. You have to take a four wheel drive tour as it is hard to do on your own. We had met a few people on the way to La Paz so had a group of 5 who we did the tour with and arranged it in La Paz. We had a good mix of nationalities - English, German, American and one extra French guy who made the total number of the group to 6 which is the standard number for one of these tours. It was for 3 days and 2 nights but first we had to take an overnight 12 hour bus to Uyuni which was one of the worst we have been on for a long time! The bus was fine but the road was so bumpy we were shaken around all night long and only managed a few hours sleep. I tried to imagine I was sitting in one of those massage chairs to relax but it did not work as the shaking made loud sounds too!
It was all worth it for the trip though and for some of the amazing photos we took. We had a great guide/driver and a Lexus 4wd car and loved the salt flats. They are so white it is like snow and goes on forever to the horizon. There are ´´roads´´ on the salt flats and we visited an island in the middle of it all with huge cacti growing on it they looked amazing against the all white backdrop. There is also lovely scenery south of the salt flats with volcanoes, thermal springs, geysers, active volcanoes, red and green lakes, wild llamas, desert, strange rivers of rocks like a glacier had dumped them there, strange rock formations like Salvador Dali had created them and colourful mountains. There were lakes with pink Andean flamingos on them, you usually associate them with a hot climate! It is all in lovely crystal clear high altitude air. There was a train cemetery near the town of Uyuni and it was fun climbing all over the trains which were used for the mines but aren´t any more. We ended up at the border with Chile at the most southern part of the trip and 2 of the group left to go over to Chile which is a good way of getting over there.
On the first night we stayed in a basic hotel that was made of salt (I licked the walls to check and it was ....salty!!) and was not too cold in our sleeping bags and thick blankets but on the second night at a different place it was bitterly cold. We were at 3,700 metres and it was less than minus five in our spartan dormitory and we had to get up at 4.30am in the freezing cold and dark in this desolate village to get an early start for the long drive back on the third day. It was not pleasant. It is a good job we have those woolly hats with the ear pieces!
The whole area is called the Altiplano which is a high plateau and is not sheltered from the freezing cold winds which we found out! The salt flats used to be a huge saltwater lakes but with the uplift from the Andes and no drainage, the water evaporated leaving the salt behind. Apparently the salt is quite thick in places, 140 metres at the maximum depth. Anyway we really enjoyed it and it was worth the discomfort of the cold second night and the bumpy bus ride which was just as bad on the way back to La Paz and worse the second time around as you know what to expect.
I think I have rambled on a bit too much again but it is nice to just sit and relax in an internet cafe for a change and flick around on the internet looking at what is happening with the World Cup build up whilst writing this too. It is amazing how much can happen when you are away from the news for a few days, things like football clubs losing and changing managers (I won´t mention specific names and teams just now!!!!) and also people in and out of World Cup squads and captains of the teams changing and other world events!! It is not long before the WC starts and it is all getting very exciting. Will see the first England and Australia games in Buenos Aires in Argentina so will have to find a pub or somewhere to watch the games.
We have one more day looking round La Paz and doing last minute shopping etc. before taking an all day bus back to Cusco (will be nice in the day time on sealed roads!) before flying back to Lima on Friday after one more day in Cusco on Thursday. We fly to BA overnight and arrive on Saturday morning.
That is it for now, thank goodness you are probably saying.....
I hope everyone is well and happy and that most of you are getting psyched up for the big event.
Lots of love from Diana and Dave
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