Apart from a few lessons we took in Auckland before we left NZ, which we didn’t take too seriously, we had very little Spanish for the first 4 months of travelling. While hostels and tourist agencies usually had someone who spoke English we wanted to be a bit more independent, get off the tourist trail a little and have the opportunity to speak to some of the local people.

The lookout over the city.

Sucre is the official capital of Bolivia and where most of the old money is. The pretty town centre comprises of lovely old plazas and colonial buildings as well as some amazing markets. Property prices are higher in Sucre than anywhere else in Bolivia. It is also a university town and as such a great place to chill out and learn Spanish for a few weeks. We also decided to stay with a local family in a homestay to encourage us to use the Spanish we learned in class. Private classes were really cheap and we had four hours per day of one-on-one classes, 5 times a week.

Our homestay house.

Abi and Maria – nuestros profesoras.

We stayed with  lovely family in on of the grandest houses in Sucre. The father was a gynecologist, and the three story house came complete with over 7 bedrooms and bathrooms and a number of dining rooms and lounges.

Not what we were expecting in Bolivia, South Americas poorest country. We lived with three other students which was great fun but probably didn’t help our Spanish much, as the default language was usually English. The food in Bolivia is amazing and everyday we had a three course lunch of soup, a main and dessert. Mid week was pretty hard core, we had forgotten how tiring studying is. But at the weekend we got to relax and visit some other interesting places close by.

El Parque Cretácico

An actual dinosaur print.

Bolivia, amoung its many other claims to fame, also has the largest amount of dinasour tracks in the world. Just outside of Sucre stands a giant wall oer 150 meters high which has over 600 dinasours tracks. It was descovered in 1994 by workers of the local cement factory  who were quarrying in the area. The once boggy mud flat, created over 65 million years ago, has since been pushed up platonic movement and now stands vertical. The tracks of over 150 different species can be seen, some over 80cm in diameter.

Telescopes for viewing the tracks.

The information centre also has some life size models of the dinosaurs complete with speakers throughout playing terrifying dinosaur sounds. While you can’t help feeling a little like you’ on a Jurassic Park ride at Disneyland, the giant wall of tracks is really impressive and reminds us of how short and insignificant our lives are in the grand scheme of things.

Huge.

65 million years of history. Mind blowing.

Siete Cascadas – The Seven Waterfalls

The first cascada.

Bone-chilling water, straight from the snow-capped mountains.

Cementerio

Spaces for rent

The city cemetery in Sucre is another fascinating place to visit and is very unlike any graveyards in Ireland or New Zealand. The Many past political figures and richer families were buried there, their tombs complete with small alters and sitting areas. Everyone else has a coffin-sized cement box within a wall, which can be rented for 50, 100 or 150 years if money is an issue. Once a person´s time is up, they´re removed and their space is back on the market.

Bolivia is relatively socialist and many of the large unions had there own 3, 4 or 5 story building complete with hundreds of burial spaces for their members. The cemetery was beautifully kept, with gardens constantly trimming the trees and watering the plants. The dead are very important in South America and most of the graves has fresh flowers and looked regularly visited.

Festivals and blockades

Leaving Bolivia, the main road from Bolivia to Peru was closed in part, and many other roads throughout the country, for another sports festival so the children from the local schools could play games on the road. In any other country this would and not not happen. Economists would be calculating how much money it cost the economy to have the main road closed for a day and the disruption to local businesses would be of greater concern than allowing a few children to play on the road. 

But in Bolivia these small scale, and sometimes large scale, disruptions is almost past of the culture and are accepted as past of everyday life.

While we were in the country there were giant demonstrations throughout the country, but centered in part on Sucre, to object to rising petrol costs and low wages. Many of the main roads in and out of the city were blocked by buses and trucks preventing goods from been taken into the city, driving the cost of food up. People had to get transport to the blockades, walk for up to two hours through them, and get alternative transport on the other side to continue on their journey. This continued for over a month and cost the country over a million dollars per day in tourism alone. Who knows what the total cost was. Even Sucre airport was blocked off but thankfully were were leaving on a Saturday morning and many of the drivers went home to their families at the weekend and it was possible to get through. 

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As mentioned at the end of our last blog, we took a night bus to Tupiza. After a seven and a half hour journey along an unpaved bumpy road, we arrived in Tupiza and booked into our hotel at 4am. The town has a distinctly wild west vibe, which it gets from the surrounding canyons and rock formations. It’s other claim to fame is that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their demise in a nearby town after a shoot-out with the Bolivian army in a saloon.

Tupiza is a really nice town, which, after the barronness and isolation of Uyuni, was a welcome relief. It also seemed to have a little more money than other small towns we’d seen, which maybe attributed to it’s proximity to Argentina. While the tourism industry is still relatively underdeveloped, there are still some great activities to do, such as the triathlon of a four-wheel-drive, horse-riding and mountain biking – which we did on our second day.

4wd trip

The surrounding volcanic countryside was truly amazing where different coloured rock layers stratified the mountains and carved through the valleys. The wind and the rain also altered the landscape whipping through the canyons and cutting through and around the rock, leaving large towering columns behind. We had lunch by the Rio Tupiza, which plays an important role in irrigating the otherwise arrid land. While the landscape was very impressive, we were anxious to get out of the jeep after the three days driving on the salt flat.

Horse riding

After lunch, we headed to a local farm where we were sorted out with horses. The horses were not the tired out, old, lazy horses unexperienced riders are usually given, but were young, lively and full of energy. One of the horses has a fairly young foal, which came with us on the ride, running beside its mother and generally running ahead and increasing the speed of the entire group whenever it got bored. Heading into the canyons on horseback was very relaxing and a bit more authentic than whizzing through them in the jeep.

We passed a farmer hearding goats through the area. The goats jumped and scampered the walls of the canyons, searching for food. Much of the land seems to be communally owned, where animals are constantly hearded through. Matt, unluckily because of his height, was given the biggest horse, which asserted himself as the leader and had no problem pushing his way to the front of the pack – biting the other horses on the way and generally causing trouble.

It was also Matt’s horse which stumbled and fell onto his knees, startling the horse immediately behind, who took off on a sideways gallop and threw off his rider – an unfortunate Canadian, who’d never been on a horse before. The guy, thankfully, was okay and escaped with only losing a fingernail. We were all a little spooked by the incident and were happy to head back to the farm and swap our horses for mountain bikes.

Mountain biking

Tupiza sits at 3160m above sea level, and we climbed another 1500m before beginning our descent. In South America, we have learned that the price can nearly always be dropped as agencies compete for the tourist dollar. While we have generally shopped around and gone for the medium-to-higher end of the spectrum, in this case we didn’t and just presumed the bikes and equipment would be okay. They weren’t.

The guides were very blaise about helmets and didn’t even have one big enough to fit Matt´s head. In the end, he just strapped it on as best he could and took it relatively easy. The bikes themselves were cheap and old with bad suspension and sticky brakes. Winding our way down the mountain, with a 1.5km drop in altitude, meant leaning on the brakes pretty hard, which hurt your fingers, while the lack of suspension battered your wrists and knees. It was a good lesson before taking on the Death Road just outside La Paz, where the difference in price and quality of equipment also differs greatly.

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One of the most spectacular things to do in South America is to visit  Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. Uyani is 11 hrs by bus from La Paz along a very bumpy unpaved road. The only buses which go are night buses, but with chairs that recline to 160 degrees, food and a movie, I didn´t think we had anything to worry about. Thank god we didn´t know we were going to be travelling on the equivalent of a dirt road for 11 hours or the dread would have been worse than the actual journey. We left La Paz at 9pm and arrived in Uyuni at 7am the next morning. Despite having little sleep we were ok spirits and had the chance to explore the town before heading off on our three day tour of the salt flats the next day.

Uyuni is a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere, where they survive almost entirely on tourism. It was founded in the late 1800s as a trading town and still has the railway linking Bolivia to both Chile and Argentina. We arrived into town on Thursday, which was market day, but despite the many stalls the place was still pretty dead and we were happy to leave the following day on the 3 day tour of the Salar.

The first stop on the tour is immediately outside town at train cemetery. The train cemetery is really a dumping ground for old trains from the late 1800s early 1900s, where they slowly rust and collapse. It is a really interesting place and has become an unintentional tourist destination on the way to the Salar. There is talk of painting the trains and making them a little safer, as people clamber over, in and around them and I´m sure there must have been a few accidents.

However, in true Bolivian style, everything thing is done at your own risk and while accidents do happen, for the most part its safe and it´s great to just be able to enjoy the trains as they are in all their dilapidated beauty.

Once out on the Salar, the landscape takes on an unworldly dimension. As the sea retreated and evaporated, large coral like islands were left behind surrounded on all sides by miles and miles of salt. The salt forms into large hexagon shapes which stretch out into the horizon. The glare from the suns rays bouncing off the salt creates a mirror effect, where the reflection of the mountains can been seen in what looks like water surrounding them.

Not far into the Salar we visited the village of Colchani. Here most of the buildings are made of salt blocks cut from the Salar and the main livelihood is collecting salt, processing it and selling it. All of the work is done by hand. Many of the villagers cycle out onto the Salar and shovel the top layer of salt into piles to dry. It is then taken to a drying house where it is further dried, ground down and bagged.

Its a lot of work for very little return but machinery is expensive and labour isn´t so without investment things will continue to be done the traditional way.

Further out onto the Salar we visited the island of Incahuasi which was covered in giant Cacti some over 1000 years old.  The island is the top of an old volcano which was submerged when the plates began to move and pushing up the land and cutting off the sea, creating the salt lakes and now the salar.

The whiteness of the surrounding salt distorts perspective and allows you to create some really unique pictures. Our driver, well versed in this, took along a T-Rex toy and some other props for us to mess about with. That night we slept in a salt hostel on the far side of the Salar. The walls, bed, chairs, table and even the floor was made out of salt.

The next morning we set out across a completely different, seemingly barren landscape to the flamingo lagoons. along the way we stropped to look at the Quinoa fields which exist between 2000 and 3000 meters above sea level. It is amazing that such a high protein food can grow in fields where the clay looks completely dried out and depleted of any nutrients. Bolivian export of quinoa has exploded in recent years and because most locals cannot afford to buy pesticides, they have accidental stumbled upon the ´cash cow´ that is organic food. The price of quinoa has tripled since 2006 and the demand from North America and Europe for organic, protein rich quinoa and other organic agricultural produce has increased the need for Bolivia to regain its access to the sea. Bolivia has been land locked since it lost the War of the Pacific with Chile in 1879 and Chile claimed the far west of the region blocking it off from the sea. They are currently taking the matter to the International Courts in the hope of preventing a war which Bolivia would have no hope of winning.

Just in time for lunch we reached the first of the Andean lagoons, Laguna Hedionda, where brightly coloured flamingos feed on the pink algae which lives in the shallow water. The flamingos were amazing. They seemed completely oblivious to the tourists snapping pictures of them and would happily stand a meter away eating, perhaps knowing the tourists wouldn’t venture into the muddy water.

We passed numerous lagoons before passing in the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve and the highest desert in the world. The whole area is highly volcanic with smoking volcanoes, geyser parks and hot pools. The highest park of the park was over 4,960 meters above sea level, not far off the Everest base camp which sits at 5,364 metres above sea level.

On the second night we stayed at a hostel right beside some hot pools. After dinner we all grabbed some beers and headed to the pools for some star gazing. The next morning, a few of us decided to get up in time for sun rise. At such high altitudes the morning are particularly cold (-15 degrees) so there was nothing for it but to jump back into the hot pools again. Our towel which got a little wet was left on a rock by the waters edge and subsequently froze solid.

After breakfast we visited the last of the lagoons, Lagona Verde before dropping off some of our group at the Chilean border. The border exists in the middle of nowhere and there is nothing for miles except a lowly shack which passes as the Bolivian Emigration office and a small trench which marks the border. 

We spent most of the 3rd day diving back to Uyuni, stopping only for lunch and a quick opportunity to climb some rocks in Valley of the Rocks. The impressive rock formations have been made from the water washing away at the null rocks for thousands of years. Once back in Uyuni we had time for a quick bite to eat before jumping on the next night bus to Tupiza and our next adventure!

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As I mentioned at the start of the last blog we spent a few days in La Paz before heading South to the Town of Uyuni and the largest salt flat in the world. La Paz is the seat of Government and is the economic hub of Bolivia but Sucre is still technically the capital. However, for all intensive purposes La Paz is the capital and is often referred to as the highest altitude capital in the world.

 Cholitas wrestling

We stayed in a nice hostel with pancake breakfasts (nice change from stale bread with butter and jam), near the bus station and a short walk from the centre of town. On the first evening having literally just arrived at the hostel we were bustled into a tourist minibus and taken to see La Paz´s Cholitas wrestling. Bolivians are crazy about wrestling and you will often see hordes of men standing around a small television set on one of the street stalls watching play backs, the Cholitas wrestling however is unlike anything we had ever seen.

It started tamely enough with a few masked wrestlers, playing good versus evil, doing the rounds but soon it evolved into elaborately dressed females in traditional clothes throwing each other into the crowd and hitting each other over the head with metal fences.Of course it is all staged and at this level blindingly obvious but it was still fascinating to watch. The local really got involved and were often more entertaining than the wrestling, booing at the baddy and throwing oranges and pop corn into the ring.

La Paz – the history lesson 🙂

After the craziness of the Cholita wrestling we just chilled out for the rest of our few days in La Paz and just spent time getting lost and enjoying the great city. The Spanish ruled La Paz, as with all of the Americas, with an iron fist. The city was divided up into separate areas for each of the threes classes with existed within the city ; the Spanish born population were the privileged class and lived in the largest houses in the grandest part of town, the middle class were the Criollo, who were o Spanish descent but were born in the Americas and therefor not as pure, and lastly at the bottom of the pile were the indigenous people.

Because of this distinction the old town of La Paz is an interesting mixture of grand old villas and squares complete with more pigeons than you can imagine, and small meandering cobbled streets and tightly packed terraced houses. The indigenous people did revolt in 1781, barricading the entry ways into the Spanish part of town creating a siege which lasted 6 months. Help however eventually arrived from other colonial towns and the Spanish, who lived in such fear of a loss of power, almost completely obliterated the indigenous population of La Paz in retribution.

In the end independence for Bolivia and the rest of Central and South America was secured not by the local population who were technologically disadvantaged compared to the Spanish but by the Criollo who were sick of being treated as second class citizens. Bolivia gained its Independence in 1825 but it did not result in equal rights for all. The indigenous population still suffered and still fight for great rights. Evo Morales, the current president, was elected 2005 and is the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Great improvements have been made but like in many other countries differences in socio economic status are difficult to fix.

Good Bye McDonalds

 

While La Paz is slowly but surely joining the 21st Century one thing that has not changed is the tradition of shopping at the markets instead of heading to the closest Tesco. The locals say they love to haggle and barter over prices and prefer the social element of visiting the different stalls each week rather than going to the shopping centre. This market culture is also the reason why McDonalds pulled out of Bolivia in 2002. They couldn´t compete with the small food stalls who could offer a hamburger for a quarter of the price or offer a four course meal complete with a dessert for half the price of a happy meal.

Lanza, one of the largest indoor markets in La Paz, is a maze with numerous floors. Each floor has different products for sale such as meat on the ground floor, fruit and veg on the floor up, next household and then on top the small food stalls. The stalls are set up like small metal containers, open on both ends with a small kitchen along one end and seating along the other.  We ended up going into a place where the woman had an obvious obsession with the colour pink and had turned her stall into a miniature dolls house.The food was good though and we walked out having spent just over one NZ dollar on our lunch.

The Witches Market

The Witches Market was another fascinating place we visited where traditional Inca beliefs and Catholic beliefs blur. Offerings to Pacha Mama (Quechua for Mother Earth) are still made and locals head to the witches market for supplies for most ceremonies. Llama foetus´are seen hanging in front of many stalls, which must be buried in the foundations of any new house as a sacrifice to keep the builders safe during construction. It is said that for larger projects a greater sacrifice is needed and many homeless people are rumoured to have disappeared, thought to be buried in the foundations of large public works!

The Spanish took advantage of these superstitions to convert the local people to Christianity. The indigenous people believed that if you looked into a mirror you lost your soul so the Spanish built impressive, elaborate churches and surrounded the alters with mirrors so that the people would have to keep returning in an effort to retrieve their lost souls. And it worked, Bolivia is now over 90% Catholic.

San Pedro Prison

One of the most interesting things that we did while in La Paz was go on the Free City Tour. The walking tour started outside San Pedro prison made famous by the book Marching Powder. Once open for tours, the authorities have since closed them all down so now the closest you can get is the square outside. The prison as once a convent and because of its unusual layout, complete with four internal squares, it is organised in a very different way to most prions. Prisoners must pay for their own room and as many families cannot afford double rent they all move into the prison to live with their father. The 200 children who live in the prison attend school outside of the prison each day returning to the prison every evening. Inside the prison hairdressers, shops and restaurants exist with Coke Cola owning the advertising rights and supplying chairs, tables and umbrellas for the restaurants. The prison guards are only slightly involved in the control of the prison and each of the areas surrounding the four squares elected a leader and abide by a set of rules imposed by the prisoners. Most of the prisoners are in their for drug crimes and as such some of the best cocaine in the world is rumoured to come out of the prison. While the system seems crazy it seems to work. Bolivia in general appears to operate in a permanent state of organised chaos, but things do get done, live does go on and life is slowly becoming better.

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Potosi is also one of the highest cities in the world, sitting at 4,100m above sea level. The altitude, harsh sunlight and plummeting nightly temperatures make Potosi a pretty unforgiving place. The old city is very pretty however, built on the wealth created by the mines during the Spanish rule. Up until Bolivia´s independence in 1825, the silver from Potosi was used to make the silver royales – the currency of the Spanish empire.

The old smelting house still exists in the city centre, with much of the old machinery still in good condition. It is now a museum, la Casa de la Moneda, one of the more interesting ones we´ve visited. The museum did a good job of explaining how the coins were made and the terrible conditions which existed in the smelting house. It also properly emphasised the importance of Potosi during the Spanish rule. The name Argentina means land of silver and refers to Potosi, as the borders were very different during this time. La Paz was located in a central plateau in the Andes in order to move the silver through Bolivia to Peru, where it was put on boats and sailed up the west coast to Panama.

After passing through the Panama canal, large galleons would meet in Havana, Cuba, before crossing the Atlantic together as extra protection against pirates. From the early 1600s, 3 million kilos of silver were extracted per year in Potosi. The Spanish royale was used as an international currency at the time, with the coins being found as far away as China. At first only the weight of the coins was important and the initial dies used to press the coins were very crudely made, encouraging people to chip off the rough edges until some of the coins were only half their original size.

Leonardo da Vinci later devised a better system, which more accurately pressed the coins and clearly defined the edges, preventing people from chipping away at the them. This technology is still on display at the museum. It is also said that the symbol for the dollar ($), which looks like an S with a P overlaid, commonly thought to stand for the Spanish Peso, is actually a PTSI overlay, which was the mint mark for coins made in Potosi.

Cerro Rico Mines

While in Potosi, we had the opportunity to visit a working mine. We went with Big Deal tours, a company owned and operated by ex-miners. They took us to visit the mine where they used to work, and where many of their friends and family still work. Most of the mines are now run as cooperatives, where each miner works for himself, extracting and selling what he can. If he strikes it lucky and finds a good vein, he makes good money. But if he doesn´t, he has to work for longer hours for very little return. Most miners work in crews of three to five men, working 12 hour shifts. Often, if they need the extra cash, they will work for 24 hours straight without coming out of the mine, only taking breaks in special resting areas. During this time they smoke or drink soft drinks, or maybe some alcohol depending on the day. The miners don´t eat in the mine, as the dust and other gases are said to make you feel ill if you ingest them. Coca leaves are chewed continuously throughout the shift, which keeps them alert and also keeps hunger at bay.

Before going into the mines, we were given overalls, boots, a helmet and a headlamp. While the safety gear was limited, it was more than many miners had underground. Very little has changed in the mines since the Spanish began mining over 400 years ago. Dynamite is used to open new veins and can be easily brought in the market for as little as a couple of dollars. Afterwards, hammers and chisels are used to extract the minerals and wheelbarrows are used to take them to the surface. Some of the crews have pneumatic drills (pressurised air) and where there are still tracks, carts carry minerals out.

The government once owned the mine and tried to introduce modern technology and practices, but due to a drastic drop in world mineral prices in the 80s and as most of the minerals have already been extracted, what is left is not profitable for the government or other enterprises and they abandoned them. The remains of some of the technology can still be seen in the mine, but nowadays only very basic equipment is used. We entered the mine cautiously, aware that for every further metre we ventured in, the kilometres of earth above our heads grew. The entrance of the mine has the old Spanish colonial stone support arches, but once inside, it changes to wooden beams – buckled by the weight at some points, but still safe we were assured. The air underground was thinner than the already thin high-altitude Potosi air. The pace was slow, but every now and again, you became aware of your own heavy breathing.

One of the most interesting aspects of the mine was visiting the Tio, the god of the minerals and decider of the miners´ fates. The Tio, which represents the devil, was introduced by the Spanish when the indigenous people protested against the terrible working conditions and tried to quit. The Spanish claimed the Tio would destroy them if they didnlt return to work. The miners now fear and worthship the Tio as it is he who decides if you strike a good vein, and he who decides if the miners all leave the mine safely each day. If there is an accident and someone dies (accidents are never mentioned or refered to as it is bad luck) it is believed that the Tio was angry over something and more offerings are made. When we visited the Tio, we brought him coca leaves, cigerettes and high percentage alcohol which we had to drink in his honor. The miners drink 96% alcohol on a regular basis and it is common to find crews of men drinking on Fridays from the early afternoon.

The night before going into the mines, we watched a Bolivian film about the mines called The Devil’s Miner. It followed the life of a 14 year old boy who had been working the mine for the past 4 years. Where our tour was lighthearted and stressed how happy the miners were, the film showed the darker side, where miners often die young from Silicosis, and childen are forced by poverty to enter the mine as young as ten. The father of the ex-miner who took us on the tour died at 55 of Silicosis which we were told was actually a pretty good age. His father stayed working in the mine until the day he died. His cousin in his early 30s has also been diagnoised with the disease and has four years to live. He is also still working in the mine.

It’s difficult is image the mine operating as it does anywhere other than Bolivia. The miners are no longer forced to work the mines, but still have such a stong connection to them that it is difficult for them to think of doing anything else. They live beside the mines in mining communities, they work every day with their fathers, and brothers, and friends, and they enjoy their work. They can start work when they want and finish when they want, and no one dictates to them. They can drink and smoke and chew coca leaves all day if they wish, and the mood below does truly seem to be very upbeat. However, they work hard and die young, leaving large families behind with limited options except to send the oldest sons into the mine to replace their father. The cycle, like most cycles, seems difficult to break. There are other limited options for work but not many, and leaving the mines would mean leaving their entire world behind. For most the decision is too difficult, so they laugh and joke and remain positive and actively avoid thinking about accidents and what-ifs. They enjoy their life and enjoy meeting the visitors that come to the mines everyday – and they don’t really think too far beyond that.

So we´ve left Peru for the time being, and have spent the last few days enjoys the enchanting city of La Paz. La Paz strikes just the right balance between the expected gritty, overcrowded South American city, and a modern cosmopolitan where gourmet ice-creameries are becoming more and more the norm. As one of the largest high altitude cities in the world, you really can´t beat the view. The city is nestled in and around the Altiplano, the Andean Plateau with the impressive snow capped Illimani mountain standing guard over the city. However, before I begin giving you a full run down of Bolivia, I want to fill you in on our last few days in Peru.

Huacachina

As Dara´s time in Peru was limited (following our visit to Machu Picchu), we decided to fly back to Lima instead of taking the 18 hour bus ride. From there we took a four hour bus to the desert oasis of Huacachina for some rest and relaxation, coupled with some sandboarding. Unfortunately for us (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), we arrived during Semana Santa (Easter Week) and this chilled out, quiet oasis was transformed into a Spring Break Party Town. All the prices were hiked up and accommodation was difficult to come by. We ended up staying in a hostel attached to the only club in the town, which was packed to capacity every night.

Huacachina was once the playground of the Peruvian elite and the buildings and walkways still hark back to this. These days, however, Huacachina attracts the younger backpacker crowd with sand boarding and sand buggies also close at hand for the adrenaline junkies. 

Lake Titicaca