Saturday, August 21, 2004
The Salar de Uynui
Our final port of call in Bolivia was the place I had most wanted to visit in the whole of Bolivia. The Salar de Uyuni and the surrounding area contains some of the most spectacular geography anywhere in the world. We arrived in the little town of Uyuni on a bumpy bus from Potosi. Only 5% of Bolivia's roads are paved, so bumpiness is something you get very used to. A mad scramble for a hotel and then seeking out a tour company for the 3 day tour of the area meant we were in need of a decent pizza and some beer - and the best pizza in South America was what we found - they even had gorgonzola and sun dried tomoatoes. I mean, you have to visit Uyuni to appreciate this fact - it is in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of the salt flats and they had gorgonzola!! After 3 months of horrid, manky, slightly off, sweaty, white, revolting South American cheese, this place absolutely rocked.
So, fully fuelled for our trip to the Salar and the surrounds, we set off the following morning in our 4x4 with our guide Leo and 5 other travelers; a Dutch couple called Anky and Gerrad, a Swiss girl, Andrea and a Franco-Spanish couple. The Franco-Spanish couple were a little older then the rest of us and delightfully amusing and eccentric to begin with. However, their eccentricities began to grate after a day and being stuck in a jeep and a dorm with them for a couple more days was to get slightly painful. On the first day we headed out of Uyuni to the nearest small village where they refine the salt in smallholdings from the salt flats. A laborious and lengthy process that earns then 6 Bolivianos (about 80 US cents) for 50 kilos of salt produced. We then headed into the wonderfully weird scenery of the Salar itself. Wow! What views! The sky was cloudless, the salt plains stretched to the horizon all around so it was hard to see where the Salar started and the sky ended. The salt is crystallized into hexagons and pentagons about 2 feet across looking like an enormous patio of salt. Vehicles driving across the Salar look like they are floating on top of nothingness. We had lunch on Isla de la Pescada – a volcanic island in the middle of the Salar. Huge cacti grow to around 8-9 metres high on this island and the views from the top are strange but beautiful. The huge green cacti frame the black volcanic rock surrounded by miles and miles of dazzling white salt plains. Eagles fly above your head and the sun beats down. After some grub we headed to the first nights accommodation, off the Salar and into the dusty desert. Basic, but with the luxury of running water, this was far better than I had expected. We had heard some horror stories of the places that you stay on this trip so had expected the worst, but as a result were very pleasantly surprised.
The following day we had an interesting drive though a variety of stunning scenery. First we drove past an enormous active volcano and stopped by a result from a previous lava flow that had created wave-shapes of lava. You could walk about these waves and climb on them. Passing through an area containing several different coloured lagunas some with many flamingoes, we then drove into a Martian-like area with red dusty scenery and red mountains flecked with snow where we stopped for lunch by some bizarre rock formations accommodating rabbit-like animals, with shorter ears and long, cat-like tails. There were more bizarre rock formations later on that day including the Arbol de Piedra (Tree Stone) – a strange stone with a thin piece of rock supporting the larger branches atop it. Then onto one of the most wonderful sights of the trip – Laguna Colorada – it takes your breath away the first time you see it. Amidst a grey, dusty land, with mountains all around there is a huge red lake with small islands covered in bright-white borax, looking like icebergs. Flamingoes everywhere. Captivating and hard to leave, nevertheless we had to head on as the snow was starting to fall. The second night was colder and more basic than the first, this time with no running water. The Franco-Spanish couple were beginning to grate on us all. The French woman would insist on speaking to us all in French even though only Nick could speak French. We all replied to her in Spanish, but still she did not seem to get the hint. The Spanish guy was stating the obvious on all occasions, and butting in to every conversation with some inane, obvious observation then laughing at his unfunny witticisms. Fortunately the 5 of us thought alike and scuttled off for a game of cards with a bottle of grim wine to keep us warm.
The final day was more exciting than expected given that overnight the snow had fallen throughout and we had the prospect of perhaps not making our destination of Chile. Leo was keen to try and we set off through some drifting snow with visibility sometimes down to 1 metre! Quite fun, but I was just a bit worried that we would have to go all the way back to Uyuni and start again to get into Chile. We were lucky…we made it through the worst snow. The engine on our 4x4 broke only once – fixed with a random piece of wire, and once the snow cleared we had great views of the mountains and the snow covered ground for miles and miles. We passed by Salvidor Dali rock formations and via Laguna Blanca onto Laguna Verde – more turquoise than green, but spectacular all the same when the sun came through the snow clouds to bring out the colour. A couple of hours later from the Laguna, and we made it into Chile….wow! Tarmac roads, road signs and some warmth! I hope the rest of Chile is as good as the first impressions we had.
Bolivia was a superb country to visit. There are so many interesting things to see and do here from climbing mountains, mountain biking, visiting the jungle, the pampas, the Salar, the mines, colonial cities, modern cities, indigenous villages, Lake Titicaca and pre-Inca ruins. I would highly recommend a trip here to anyone. The people are friendly and the geography of the country makes it one of the most interesting places I have ever been to. It is the second poorest country in South America (behind Guyana), and there are so many problems and big issues to sort out, but it is and endlessly fascinating place to try and understand.
So, fully fuelled for our trip to the Salar and the surrounds, we set off the following morning in our 4x4 with our guide Leo and 5 other travelers; a Dutch couple called Anky and Gerrad, a Swiss girl, Andrea and a Franco-Spanish couple. The Franco-Spanish couple were a little older then the rest of us and delightfully amusing and eccentric to begin with. However, their eccentricities began to grate after a day and being stuck in a jeep and a dorm with them for a couple more days was to get slightly painful. On the first day we headed out of Uyuni to the nearest small village where they refine the salt in smallholdings from the salt flats. A laborious and lengthy process that earns then 6 Bolivianos (about 80 US cents) for 50 kilos of salt produced. We then headed into the wonderfully weird scenery of the Salar itself. Wow! What views! The sky was cloudless, the salt plains stretched to the horizon all around so it was hard to see where the Salar started and the sky ended. The salt is crystallized into hexagons and pentagons about 2 feet across looking like an enormous patio of salt. Vehicles driving across the Salar look like they are floating on top of nothingness. We had lunch on Isla de la Pescada – a volcanic island in the middle of the Salar. Huge cacti grow to around 8-9 metres high on this island and the views from the top are strange but beautiful. The huge green cacti frame the black volcanic rock surrounded by miles and miles of dazzling white salt plains. Eagles fly above your head and the sun beats down. After some grub we headed to the first nights accommodation, off the Salar and into the dusty desert. Basic, but with the luxury of running water, this was far better than I had expected. We had heard some horror stories of the places that you stay on this trip so had expected the worst, but as a result were very pleasantly surprised.
The following day we had an interesting drive though a variety of stunning scenery. First we drove past an enormous active volcano and stopped by a result from a previous lava flow that had created wave-shapes of lava. You could walk about these waves and climb on them. Passing through an area containing several different coloured lagunas some with many flamingoes, we then drove into a Martian-like area with red dusty scenery and red mountains flecked with snow where we stopped for lunch by some bizarre rock formations accommodating rabbit-like animals, with shorter ears and long, cat-like tails. There were more bizarre rock formations later on that day including the Arbol de Piedra (Tree Stone) – a strange stone with a thin piece of rock supporting the larger branches atop it. Then onto one of the most wonderful sights of the trip – Laguna Colorada – it takes your breath away the first time you see it. Amidst a grey, dusty land, with mountains all around there is a huge red lake with small islands covered in bright-white borax, looking like icebergs. Flamingoes everywhere. Captivating and hard to leave, nevertheless we had to head on as the snow was starting to fall. The second night was colder and more basic than the first, this time with no running water. The Franco-Spanish couple were beginning to grate on us all. The French woman would insist on speaking to us all in French even though only Nick could speak French. We all replied to her in Spanish, but still she did not seem to get the hint. The Spanish guy was stating the obvious on all occasions, and butting in to every conversation with some inane, obvious observation then laughing at his unfunny witticisms. Fortunately the 5 of us thought alike and scuttled off for a game of cards with a bottle of grim wine to keep us warm.
The final day was more exciting than expected given that overnight the snow had fallen throughout and we had the prospect of perhaps not making our destination of Chile. Leo was keen to try and we set off through some drifting snow with visibility sometimes down to 1 metre! Quite fun, but I was just a bit worried that we would have to go all the way back to Uyuni and start again to get into Chile. We were lucky…we made it through the worst snow. The engine on our 4x4 broke only once – fixed with a random piece of wire, and once the snow cleared we had great views of the mountains and the snow covered ground for miles and miles. We passed by Salvidor Dali rock formations and via Laguna Blanca onto Laguna Verde – more turquoise than green, but spectacular all the same when the sun came through the snow clouds to bring out the colour. A couple of hours later from the Laguna, and we made it into Chile….wow! Tarmac roads, road signs and some warmth! I hope the rest of Chile is as good as the first impressions we had.
Bolivia was a superb country to visit. There are so many interesting things to see and do here from climbing mountains, mountain biking, visiting the jungle, the pampas, the Salar, the mines, colonial cities, modern cities, indigenous villages, Lake Titicaca and pre-Inca ruins. I would highly recommend a trip here to anyone. The people are friendly and the geography of the country makes it one of the most interesting places I have ever been to. It is the second poorest country in South America (behind Guyana), and there are so many problems and big issues to sort out, but it is and endlessly fascinating place to try and understand.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
More adventures in Bolivia
We spent about a week in total around and about La Paz. There is an extaordinary amount of things to see and do in that part of Bolivia. Aside from our toptastic mountain climb, we also attempted a much smaller mountain called Chacaltaya, just on the outskirts of the city and standing at a mere 5600m. Although we would not get out of bed for anything less than 6000m now, this was before Huayna Potosi so seemed quite an achievement at that time. To be truthful it is a cheat anyway as you can get a bus to 5300m and walk the last bit. The main point to going was to see some more superb views of the Lake (Titicaca), La Paz, the Cordillera and the surrounding high plains in case we had bad weather for the real climb. It was a great day when we went and the skies were as blue as can be and the views were breathtaking! That same day we visited the Valle de la Luna - there are many of these in South America as the landscape in places is so strange that the only name anyone can come up with is Moon Valley. This one was quite small and made from the erosion of the rocks that La Paz stands on causing a "Bryce Canyon" effect but in creams and whites and yellows, rather than Bryce Canyon's reds and oranges. Still pretty spectacular and unfortuntely it probably won't be there for much longer as it is being eroded all the time and may yet be developed upon as La Paz expands.
One of the key pre-Colombian sites in Bolivia is situated just outside La Paz and although only 20% of it remains it was a fascinating site to visit and learn about. Called Tiwanaku, it was built around 1200 BC by the Aymara people who ruled the whole of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, parts of Colombia, Chile and Argentina between 3000 BC and 1200AD. I had never heard of the Aymara's before but they ruled that huge area in a passive way letting other cultures govern themselves on a small scale while they held overall control. The site was interesting in that it is one of the few we have seen with glyphs and monoliths. The glyphs look a tiny bit similar to some of the Mayan glyphs in Central America and were perhaps used to indicate a calendar. Archieologists have also found some written language on the back of one monolith and this is currently being studied. There are a huge number of stone heads pertruding from the walls of a closed temple, and the remains of a number of potential human sacrifices have been found in a pyramid that is being excavated right now. All this made the site so much more interesting than a lot of the Inca sites in Peru which are basically just houses and terraces and temples. The Incas were a highly organised society, governing their huge empire in an innovative way, integrating their conquested peoples so as to benefit from their expertisein certain areas. But the sites they left behind are not as interesting as those of other South and Central American cultures. There are no sculptures, pyramids, written language or calenders.
After Huayna Potosi we had a day off before our mountain bike challenge - to cycle along the World´s Most Dangerous Road. So named in the 1980's due to the huge number of deaths on the road. A bus used to come off the road every two weeks killing about 500 people a year. This has improved marginally to about 100 people a year now. The road runs north from La Paz to Coroico and you start cycling from an altitude of 4700m and end up at around 1100m. Now this sounds like my kind of bike ride. We cycled with Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking - a great way of saying downhill! However...this was not to be as relaxing as I had thought. Commencing the ride in the high Andes with bare snow covered mountains all around us the scenery was beautiful but the temperature was cold. The first 17km were on tarmac - what bliss! Once off the tarmac the fun really started. The road then becomes gravelly and single track with sheer 400m drop offs on one side, snaking around the steep mountain cliffs for another 60km until Coroico. You pass through cloudforest and rainforest, cycling through waterfalls on the way down, getting hotter and hotter with each stop, ending up in shorts and a T shirt. I had stupidly thought that given that we were in Bolivia we would be cycling on the right hand side of the road, close to the mountain rather than next to the sheer drop offs on the left. Silly me! We cycled the whole way down on the left. The reason for driving on the left on this road is so that the driver coming down the road can lean out of his window and see how close he is to the edge when trying to pass upward coming traffic. We saw a couple of casualties of this policy not working with a some smashed trucks lying destitute a few hundred metres down the cliff. Our guides kept us almightely entertained by telling a little story every time we stopped about someone who had either a) broken their collar bone on this ride yesterday, b) died by getting of their bike on the wrong side last year, c) broken their leg and arm in several places by riding into a crash barrier, or d) got hit by a truck. Just as I was beginning to relax and enjoy some great scenery, they would reel off another one of these stories to scare everyone to death meaning that I was at the back of the pack for most of the way down. Surprisingly given the road was mainly downhill, it was still tiring especially on the arms as although the bikes we had were good bikes there is only a certain amount that front wheel suspension can do, so my hands and arms were knackered at the end of the trip. After a big fat girl lunch we head back in our bus up the World´s Most Dangerous Road. On the return journey you really got to appreciate how spectacularly steep some of these drop offs were...they just disappeared into the ether.
From La Paz we headed off to Sucre, the capital. I was not sad to leave La Paz after the time we had spent there. It is an interesting place - more so than either Quito or Lima, but very hectic and the type of place you need to be careful in. We had an attempted scam robbery on us with a guys walking alongside us and his accomplices stopped us passing on a busy La Paz street then spitting on our bag to try and distract us in order to rob us - lovely! Fortunately we were wise to their game. but makes you feel a bit wary from then on. There is also the fake policeman scam and the taxi scam to be aware of. The fake policeman asks for your passport, says there is an irregularity and either asks for cash then, or tells you to come with him to a police station, and on the way he robs you. The fake taxi just lets someone else get in your taxi mid journey then they rob you. We didn't see any of the latter two but heard from other people about them. So it was nice to get out and head to smaller and sweeter Sucre. Sucre is a city of about 130,000 people (about a tenth the size of La Paz) but the official capital. It is full of whitewashed colonial buildings and a charming Spanish square. We did very little here but eat, potter and drink some of the local brew. We were perhaps a little touristed out and needed a couple of days with no hiking, museums, cathedrals, biking, buses. Sucre was a good place to chill with a much nicer climate than La Paz, and we could wander about in T-shirts and sandals which made a wonderful change from fleeces and boots which have almost got welded to our bodies in recent weeks spent in the high Andes. The one thing of note that we did do was visit a site where dinosaur footprints have recently been discovered. They are situated near a cement works and were discovered in a sheer wall of rock at about an 80 degree angle to the earth. About 65 million years ago this was the surrounding area of a lake frequented by various dinosaur who left around 5000 footprints. Interesting to see the different types of prints from the rounded toes of the herbivores to the clawed talons of the carnivores. Again, I am not sure how long this interesting site will be around as the rock face that the prints are currently imbeded into is slowly crimbling away. So - best thing for it - get to Bolivia quickly.
From Sucre onto Potosi which is the highest city in the world at 4200m. From 1500 to 1700 it was one of the world´s most important cities with the Spanish finding silver here and mining the land for all its worth. In the 16th century Potosi was bigger than London and Paris and was the biggest city in the Americas. The silver mined here was used to mint all of Spain´s coins. The Casa de Moneda (the original mint) still exists in Potosi and is a museum now - widely regarded as Bolivia´s best museum. Rather ironically, once Potosi ran out of silver and Bolivia´s fortunes receded, Bolivia´s coins are now made by Spain and Canada with Bolivia not responsible for making any of its own coinage and having to pay others to do it for them.
The main reason that people visit Potosi is to go for a trip into the mines. Cerro Rico (Rich Hill) is a huge hill overlooking Potosi and has around 120 mines within it and currently about 6000 miners plying their trade. Cerro Rico was named after the Spanish found so much silver here. There is still silver in the hill, but now they mine a variety of minerals from silver to tin to zinc. It is a slightly odd form of tourism and maybe it is a bit voyeristic to trudge down a mine with cameras and look and learn about the miners who earn a pittance from 8-10 hour days working painfully hard, but we decided to do it as we wanted to learn more about the history and the culture of that area of Bolivia. There are about 4 levels of tunnels in the mines. Starting at the top level (with full mining overalls and head torches on) was still a bit chilly, but as we scrambled on hands and knees down to the lower levels it got hotter and hotter. At the bottom level we met a miner who was making holes for dynamite by hand in the hard rock. It was taking him 4 hours to make one hole and I have never seen a man sweating so much. Fairly depressing work...what did you do at work today dad? I made 2 holes in the rock, son. The next level up had two men shovelling rock for all their worth into bags which were then hoisted up a vertical shaft by their colleagues. Nick helped for about half a bags worth and was tired out - but they had another 6 hours to do. Most of the miners work the mines because there is nothing else to do in Potosi. They can make about USD 5 a day on a reasonable day, but a lot make less if the quality of the rock they are mining is no good. If you have no kids in Bolivia then this is an OK sum to make, but most of the miners have 4-5 kids so this sum is too small. Which means as soon as the kids are 13-14 they are sent to the mines to work to help support the family. All very Industrial Revolution Britain, and yet it still goes on in Bolivia. Shocking, but a realistic view of how some people earn a living in a developing country.
One of the key pre-Colombian sites in Bolivia is situated just outside La Paz and although only 20% of it remains it was a fascinating site to visit and learn about. Called Tiwanaku, it was built around 1200 BC by the Aymara people who ruled the whole of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, parts of Colombia, Chile and Argentina between 3000 BC and 1200AD. I had never heard of the Aymara's before but they ruled that huge area in a passive way letting other cultures govern themselves on a small scale while they held overall control. The site was interesting in that it is one of the few we have seen with glyphs and monoliths. The glyphs look a tiny bit similar to some of the Mayan glyphs in Central America and were perhaps used to indicate a calendar. Archieologists have also found some written language on the back of one monolith and this is currently being studied. There are a huge number of stone heads pertruding from the walls of a closed temple, and the remains of a number of potential human sacrifices have been found in a pyramid that is being excavated right now. All this made the site so much more interesting than a lot of the Inca sites in Peru which are basically just houses and terraces and temples. The Incas were a highly organised society, governing their huge empire in an innovative way, integrating their conquested peoples so as to benefit from their expertisein certain areas. But the sites they left behind are not as interesting as those of other South and Central American cultures. There are no sculptures, pyramids, written language or calenders.
After Huayna Potosi we had a day off before our mountain bike challenge - to cycle along the World´s Most Dangerous Road. So named in the 1980's due to the huge number of deaths on the road. A bus used to come off the road every two weeks killing about 500 people a year. This has improved marginally to about 100 people a year now. The road runs north from La Paz to Coroico and you start cycling from an altitude of 4700m and end up at around 1100m. Now this sounds like my kind of bike ride. We cycled with Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking - a great way of saying downhill! However...this was not to be as relaxing as I had thought. Commencing the ride in the high Andes with bare snow covered mountains all around us the scenery was beautiful but the temperature was cold. The first 17km were on tarmac - what bliss! Once off the tarmac the fun really started. The road then becomes gravelly and single track with sheer 400m drop offs on one side, snaking around the steep mountain cliffs for another 60km until Coroico. You pass through cloudforest and rainforest, cycling through waterfalls on the way down, getting hotter and hotter with each stop, ending up in shorts and a T shirt. I had stupidly thought that given that we were in Bolivia we would be cycling on the right hand side of the road, close to the mountain rather than next to the sheer drop offs on the left. Silly me! We cycled the whole way down on the left. The reason for driving on the left on this road is so that the driver coming down the road can lean out of his window and see how close he is to the edge when trying to pass upward coming traffic. We saw a couple of casualties of this policy not working with a some smashed trucks lying destitute a few hundred metres down the cliff. Our guides kept us almightely entertained by telling a little story every time we stopped about someone who had either a) broken their collar bone on this ride yesterday, b) died by getting of their bike on the wrong side last year, c) broken their leg and arm in several places by riding into a crash barrier, or d) got hit by a truck. Just as I was beginning to relax and enjoy some great scenery, they would reel off another one of these stories to scare everyone to death meaning that I was at the back of the pack for most of the way down. Surprisingly given the road was mainly downhill, it was still tiring especially on the arms as although the bikes we had were good bikes there is only a certain amount that front wheel suspension can do, so my hands and arms were knackered at the end of the trip. After a big fat girl lunch we head back in our bus up the World´s Most Dangerous Road. On the return journey you really got to appreciate how spectacularly steep some of these drop offs were...they just disappeared into the ether.
From La Paz we headed off to Sucre, the capital. I was not sad to leave La Paz after the time we had spent there. It is an interesting place - more so than either Quito or Lima, but very hectic and the type of place you need to be careful in. We had an attempted scam robbery on us with a guys walking alongside us and his accomplices stopped us passing on a busy La Paz street then spitting on our bag to try and distract us in order to rob us - lovely! Fortunately we were wise to their game. but makes you feel a bit wary from then on. There is also the fake policeman scam and the taxi scam to be aware of. The fake policeman asks for your passport, says there is an irregularity and either asks for cash then, or tells you to come with him to a police station, and on the way he robs you. The fake taxi just lets someone else get in your taxi mid journey then they rob you. We didn't see any of the latter two but heard from other people about them. So it was nice to get out and head to smaller and sweeter Sucre. Sucre is a city of about 130,000 people (about a tenth the size of La Paz) but the official capital. It is full of whitewashed colonial buildings and a charming Spanish square. We did very little here but eat, potter and drink some of the local brew. We were perhaps a little touristed out and needed a couple of days with no hiking, museums, cathedrals, biking, buses. Sucre was a good place to chill with a much nicer climate than La Paz, and we could wander about in T-shirts and sandals which made a wonderful change from fleeces and boots which have almost got welded to our bodies in recent weeks spent in the high Andes. The one thing of note that we did do was visit a site where dinosaur footprints have recently been discovered. They are situated near a cement works and were discovered in a sheer wall of rock at about an 80 degree angle to the earth. About 65 million years ago this was the surrounding area of a lake frequented by various dinosaur who left around 5000 footprints. Interesting to see the different types of prints from the rounded toes of the herbivores to the clawed talons of the carnivores. Again, I am not sure how long this interesting site will be around as the rock face that the prints are currently imbeded into is slowly crimbling away. So - best thing for it - get to Bolivia quickly.
From Sucre onto Potosi which is the highest city in the world at 4200m. From 1500 to 1700 it was one of the world´s most important cities with the Spanish finding silver here and mining the land for all its worth. In the 16th century Potosi was bigger than London and Paris and was the biggest city in the Americas. The silver mined here was used to mint all of Spain´s coins. The Casa de Moneda (the original mint) still exists in Potosi and is a museum now - widely regarded as Bolivia´s best museum. Rather ironically, once Potosi ran out of silver and Bolivia´s fortunes receded, Bolivia´s coins are now made by Spain and Canada with Bolivia not responsible for making any of its own coinage and having to pay others to do it for them.
The main reason that people visit Potosi is to go for a trip into the mines. Cerro Rico (Rich Hill) is a huge hill overlooking Potosi and has around 120 mines within it and currently about 6000 miners plying their trade. Cerro Rico was named after the Spanish found so much silver here. There is still silver in the hill, but now they mine a variety of minerals from silver to tin to zinc. It is a slightly odd form of tourism and maybe it is a bit voyeristic to trudge down a mine with cameras and look and learn about the miners who earn a pittance from 8-10 hour days working painfully hard, but we decided to do it as we wanted to learn more about the history and the culture of that area of Bolivia. There are about 4 levels of tunnels in the mines. Starting at the top level (with full mining overalls and head torches on) was still a bit chilly, but as we scrambled on hands and knees down to the lower levels it got hotter and hotter. At the bottom level we met a miner who was making holes for dynamite by hand in the hard rock. It was taking him 4 hours to make one hole and I have never seen a man sweating so much. Fairly depressing work...what did you do at work today dad? I made 2 holes in the rock, son. The next level up had two men shovelling rock for all their worth into bags which were then hoisted up a vertical shaft by their colleagues. Nick helped for about half a bags worth and was tired out - but they had another 6 hours to do. Most of the miners work the mines because there is nothing else to do in Potosi. They can make about USD 5 a day on a reasonable day, but a lot make less if the quality of the rock they are mining is no good. If you have no kids in Bolivia then this is an OK sum to make, but most of the miners have 4-5 kids so this sum is too small. Which means as soon as the kids are 13-14 they are sent to the mines to work to help support the family. All very Industrial Revolution Britain, and yet it still goes on in Bolivia. Shocking, but a realistic view of how some people earn a living in a developing country.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Next stop, Everest
As to the title - we now have to set our climbing sights a little higher and try and go for Everest.
We got back to La Paz yesterday from a mountaineering expolit that meant we scaled a mountain over 6000m for the first time. 6088m to be precise which is something to be very proud of. The mountain was called Huayna Potosi. We had had no thoughts of climbing this mountain until a Dutch bloke told us he did it and it was very tough but doable. So we thought we would be stupid not to attempt it given we are so well aclimatised to 4000m so another 2000m should not be too difficult! It was a 2 day trek starting about 90 mins outside La Paz and at around 4700m. We camped at 5300m the first night so had a 2 our trek up to our camp point from 4700 carrying about 15kg of camping stuff on our backs up sometimes steep and rocky and icy paths which was pretty tiring. We then camped at 5300m (the highest we have ever camped at) and had vitually no sleep due to a combination of the altitude and the fact we had to get up at 1am to have brekkie and prepare our climbing gear for the forthcoming day. This was not a trek, it was a climb. From now on the mountain was all snow and ice and we had crampons and an ice axe and we were all roped together through leg harnesses. There was me, Nick, Pierre (smelly French bloke - trust me, we had to share a tent with him) and 2 guides. I had never done anything quite like this before. We set off at 2am, complete with head torches, into a beautiful clear night, one step at a time up 45 degree snow slopes digging our crampons in and using hte ice axe for support. It is only possible to go very slowly due to the altitude and it is not possible to rest for too long because of the cold. After about an hour we crossed our first crevass which was a bit of a shock - cunningly marked out by a white flag (always good in the snow) - we had to step over the crevass and peer into the bottomless, dark, foreboding hole - quite scary in the middle of the night. After 2 hours we got to the first tricky bit of trek/climb. We had a 30 m climb up ice and snow at aout 60 degrees holding onto the rope for dear life and madly trying to get my crampons and ice axe to get a grip into a surface that did not seem grippable. Getting to the top of this was good but looking around at the top was a bit hairy as my headtorch could pick out a few massive holes in the snow. So you had to stay put in a small area while the rest of our group made it up and we carried on. The trek continued very slowly up some steep slopes for another 2.5 - 3 hours at the end of which I was getting tired. I did not really feel the altitude effect too much, just more exhausted than usual. Meanwhile we had some wonderful views of the sunrise off to our right - all purples, oranges, yellows, silhuoetting the mountains all around. We could glimpse the lights of La Paz twinkling away to our left. And as the sun came up a little more we had the first sight of day at the horizon with the deep, dark blue night sky above with bright, bright stars and the milky way - something to take my mind of the pain. After this 2.5 - 3 hours we had a little rest then prepared for the big ascent - 200m of 60 degrees or more. This was without doubt, for me, the toughest thing I have done. I was tired before we started and the climb itself lasted about 1.5 hours - sounds ridiculous for 200m but that was how hard I found it. One guide went ahead and secure a post into the snow so we were all roped to this in case we fell off and we started hacking our way up making sure crampons and ice axe were digging in at every point. At some point the guide had to climb higher to secure another point furhter up leaving us digging in for 10 mins which was exhausting - using my arms to keep the axe in and hold onto it and making sure my feet were dug in. My legs were shaking so much I had to put my knees on the ice. My right hand, holding the axe then began to hurt with a really bad, fierce pain that I have never felt before and I became worried about frostbite, but I could not tell anyone as Nick was too far away and I was too exhausted to shout. I started banging my hands together to try and get my hand back as I was worried I would not be able to use my axe properly. The feeling gradually came back, and the pain went. Then my left foot got it and that was terrible. It was torture just hanging on this face for what seemed like hours while the guide was secruing a new support with the freezing wind howling around and my arms loosing all strength, my legs shaking and feeling like I was getting frostbite. Once we got going again I realised that maybe I would not make it as my arms were just so tired to keep hacking away with the axe and holding the rope. But what option did I have? I could not go down by myself and I desperately wanted to do this after all the effort so far. So with Nicks fantastic encouragement and my determination I managed to continue the climb and summit at 6088m. I had in my mind the idea that the summit might be flat and maybe there would be somewhere to sit, but it was like a sharp, thin ridge with a great hole in it that you could see through to the other side. The most superb views you could ever imagine. The sky at that altitude is such a deep blue. We could see Lake Titicaca La Paz, all the Cordillera and into the rainforest on the other side. But a relaxing reward for summiting it was not. I had to sit with my crampons dug in and we could only spend a few minutes up there before the horrible descent. Roped together and going backwards fairly quickly trying to get my crampons in and slow myself with my axe. My feet are very painful now from that and the rest of the walk. The remainder of the descent to the camp took about 2.5 hours and was great to see what we had walked past at night - a lot of other crevasses were scattered around - so deep you cannot see the bottom and really fascinating to look into, although scary as well, like a fear of the unknown down there. After reaching camp we had to pack everything up and walk 1.5 hours back to camp carrying 15 kg again. Totally exhausting all round.
I am very pleased to have done this. It was a good achievement and something I am very proud of. One thing that emphasises our achievement is that of our fellow campers camped at base camp at 5300m, only about 20-30% of us made it up to the top. I hadn't really expected that stat, but makes it seem pretty damn cool to me that we both made it.
I was thinking of the comparison with the London Marathon but it is hard to compare the two and although I am very proud of scaling a 6088m mountain it cannot compare to 3 months of hard training, sacrificing weekends away to train, and then running a time that is pretty good for an average punter in the kind of atmosphere that is present at the Marathon.
We got back to La Paz yesterday from a mountaineering expolit that meant we scaled a mountain over 6000m for the first time. 6088m to be precise which is something to be very proud of. The mountain was called Huayna Potosi. We had had no thoughts of climbing this mountain until a Dutch bloke told us he did it and it was very tough but doable. So we thought we would be stupid not to attempt it given we are so well aclimatised to 4000m so another 2000m should not be too difficult! It was a 2 day trek starting about 90 mins outside La Paz and at around 4700m. We camped at 5300m the first night so had a 2 our trek up to our camp point from 4700 carrying about 15kg of camping stuff on our backs up sometimes steep and rocky and icy paths which was pretty tiring. We then camped at 5300m (the highest we have ever camped at) and had vitually no sleep due to a combination of the altitude and the fact we had to get up at 1am to have brekkie and prepare our climbing gear for the forthcoming day. This was not a trek, it was a climb. From now on the mountain was all snow and ice and we had crampons and an ice axe and we were all roped together through leg harnesses. There was me, Nick, Pierre (smelly French bloke - trust me, we had to share a tent with him) and 2 guides. I had never done anything quite like this before. We set off at 2am, complete with head torches, into a beautiful clear night, one step at a time up 45 degree snow slopes digging our crampons in and using hte ice axe for support. It is only possible to go very slowly due to the altitude and it is not possible to rest for too long because of the cold. After about an hour we crossed our first crevass which was a bit of a shock - cunningly marked out by a white flag (always good in the snow) - we had to step over the crevass and peer into the bottomless, dark, foreboding hole - quite scary in the middle of the night. After 2 hours we got to the first tricky bit of trek/climb. We had a 30 m climb up ice and snow at aout 60 degrees holding onto the rope for dear life and madly trying to get my crampons and ice axe to get a grip into a surface that did not seem grippable. Getting to the top of this was good but looking around at the top was a bit hairy as my headtorch could pick out a few massive holes in the snow. So you had to stay put in a small area while the rest of our group made it up and we carried on. The trek continued very slowly up some steep slopes for another 2.5 - 3 hours at the end of which I was getting tired. I did not really feel the altitude effect too much, just more exhausted than usual. Meanwhile we had some wonderful views of the sunrise off to our right - all purples, oranges, yellows, silhuoetting the mountains all around. We could glimpse the lights of La Paz twinkling away to our left. And as the sun came up a little more we had the first sight of day at the horizon with the deep, dark blue night sky above with bright, bright stars and the milky way - something to take my mind of the pain. After this 2.5 - 3 hours we had a little rest then prepared for the big ascent - 200m of 60 degrees or more. This was without doubt, for me, the toughest thing I have done. I was tired before we started and the climb itself lasted about 1.5 hours - sounds ridiculous for 200m but that was how hard I found it. One guide went ahead and secure a post into the snow so we were all roped to this in case we fell off and we started hacking our way up making sure crampons and ice axe were digging in at every point. At some point the guide had to climb higher to secure another point furhter up leaving us digging in for 10 mins which was exhausting - using my arms to keep the axe in and hold onto it and making sure my feet were dug in. My legs were shaking so much I had to put my knees on the ice. My right hand, holding the axe then began to hurt with a really bad, fierce pain that I have never felt before and I became worried about frostbite, but I could not tell anyone as Nick was too far away and I was too exhausted to shout. I started banging my hands together to try and get my hand back as I was worried I would not be able to use my axe properly. The feeling gradually came back, and the pain went. Then my left foot got it and that was terrible. It was torture just hanging on this face for what seemed like hours while the guide was secruing a new support with the freezing wind howling around and my arms loosing all strength, my legs shaking and feeling like I was getting frostbite. Once we got going again I realised that maybe I would not make it as my arms were just so tired to keep hacking away with the axe and holding the rope. But what option did I have? I could not go down by myself and I desperately wanted to do this after all the effort so far. So with Nicks fantastic encouragement and my determination I managed to continue the climb and summit at 6088m. I had in my mind the idea that the summit might be flat and maybe there would be somewhere to sit, but it was like a sharp, thin ridge with a great hole in it that you could see through to the other side. The most superb views you could ever imagine. The sky at that altitude is such a deep blue. We could see Lake Titicaca La Paz, all the Cordillera and into the rainforest on the other side. But a relaxing reward for summiting it was not. I had to sit with my crampons dug in and we could only spend a few minutes up there before the horrible descent. Roped together and going backwards fairly quickly trying to get my crampons in and slow myself with my axe. My feet are very painful now from that and the rest of the walk. The remainder of the descent to the camp took about 2.5 hours and was great to see what we had walked past at night - a lot of other crevasses were scattered around - so deep you cannot see the bottom and really fascinating to look into, although scary as well, like a fear of the unknown down there. After reaching camp we had to pack everything up and walk 1.5 hours back to camp carrying 15 kg again. Totally exhausting all round.
I am very pleased to have done this. It was a good achievement and something I am very proud of. One thing that emphasises our achievement is that of our fellow campers camped at base camp at 5300m, only about 20-30% of us made it up to the top. I hadn't really expected that stat, but makes it seem pretty damn cool to me that we both made it.
I was thinking of the comparison with the London Marathon but it is hard to compare the two and although I am very proud of scaling a 6088m mountain it cannot compare to 3 months of hard training, sacrificing weekends away to train, and then running a time that is pretty good for an average punter in the kind of atmosphere that is present at the Marathon.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Wet, Steamy and Breathless
Wet - Lago Titicaca
The journey down to Lake Titicaca from Cusco was a rather leisurely 10 hour train ride over mountain passes, across savannah grassland and for the last unforgettable 30 mins over the Lake itself as the sun was setting. The views were wonderful with little reed boats, mirror image reflections in the perfectly still water and the yellow the red glow of the sun disappearing under the Lake. We arrived in Puno and promptly left sharpish the next morning as Puno was not for us...a big town without character and full of tourist touts offering tacky tours to the floating islands where you can dress up in local costume and dance around a fire - ghastly!
We headed straight across the border to Bolivia and to a very sweet little town called Copacabana on the shores of the Lake. Copacabana has a little beach, mountains all around, great views of the sunsets, a moorish style catherdral and a very friendly atmosphere. It is also situated very close to the Isla Del Sol, which is the island where the Incas believe that they came form in a rather "Adam and Eve" way. The sun apparently gave birth to a brother and sister who arose from the Isla Del Sol. Hopefully the sun gave birth to a few other people too, otherwise it doesn't bode well for the Incas genetic make up! We spent a couple of days walking around the Isla and the mainland. There are a few sites on the Isla itself which are very sacred, but not massively impressive, but it is necessary to be very impressed when you see the umpteenth sacred stone - you have to be careful where you sit! The views from the Isla are so spectacular that you run out of superlatives. On one side you can see the huge Cordillera in Bolivia with grand snow capped peaks. On another there is just the lake stretching into the distance, gorgeous and blue and so clear that you can see the bottom a long way out. And on the other side there is the island itself with eucalyptus trees, little mud huts and funny little coves with the local fishermen going about their business. Pure, deep blue skies and wonderful sunshine and gorgeous sunsets. This was the best couple of days I felt we had had for a while. So relaxing, so beautiful, and such friendly people made a very pleasant trip. Very exciting to be at Lake Titicaca, one of those places you read about and dream of going to and we were actually there. You have to keep pinching yourself sometimes. One day we were at Machu Picchu, and two days later we were on the shores of Lake Titicaca...unbelievable!
Steamy - the Jungle
From the Lake we headed for a brief stop over in La Paz - the bus broke down on the way to La Paz leaving us stranded in the middle of nowhere and having to hitch a lift for the remainder of the journey to La Paz - just adds to the growing collection of bus stories that everyone has in South America; in Ecuador the bus to the jungle didn't go because of a combination of mudslides and indiginous protests, in Peru the wheels of our bus just snapped off on the way up a steep windy mountain road, and now one for Bolivia! We flew out of La Paz to Rurrenebaque in the north of Bolivia. A choice of an 18 hour bus ride or a 1 hour flight was not a difficult one. The flight itself is wonderful, passing very closely over the Andes and later over miles and miles of unspoilt jungle in a small 12 seater plane. The pilots take oxygen as the cabin is not pressurised but the passengers are left to fend for themselves.
Rurrenebaque is situated in the heart of the pristine, virgin rainforest of Bolivia. We spent a night in Rurre and the following day journeyed by motoroised dug-out canoe for 5 hours up river into the heart of the Madidi National Park (one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet) to a lodge called Chalalan. This is a wonderful "ecolodge" that was set up and now run by the local village called San Jose (a further 3 hours up river). All profits go to help the village of San Jose and they have recently installed drinking water in every house, paid for more teachers at the school and now have a doctor in the village. Everyone who works at the lodge is from the village and they all know a lot about the surrounding forest, the properties of the plants and the behaviour of the animals. The plants in the jungle are used by the locals to cure a range of illnesses from stomach problems to mossie bites. 10 years ago San Jose made money from some local produce but also from logging mahogany trees and sending them down river to be sold to the international furniture market. It is even more incredible to me that this community decided to stop receiving a reliable income stream from logging to set up a potentially risky ecolodge. But the way they have gone about it has pretty much guaranteed their success for the future. We had a fascinating 4 day stay and although we were a bit unlucky with rather too much rain for the supposed dry season, we still saw a lot of animals, including monkeys, caiman, macaws, parrots, toucans, taylas, coatis, scorpian spiders (as big as a dinner plate), frogs etc. Chalalan was set up in 1997 and is getting to be a bit better known now due to the professionalism and expertise of the staff and many people rate this as the best jungle experience in South America so we feel very lucky to have experienced it ourselves.
We then moved on to a different and more steamy environment of the Pampas - 3 hours by jeep in the other direction from Rurre. The Pampas is very different to the jungle with wide open expanses of grasslands and wetlands covered in lillies, and a series of rivers and waterways throughout. This time the waether was hot and sunny for 3 days. The animals are just on display for all to see rather than having to search around for them in the jungle. It was incredible to be going upriver by boat passing hundreds of caimans, seeing monkeys leap from branch to branch, and watching as pink dolphins followed our boat. The birdlife was spectacular with enormous herons, a stork over 5 feet tall, parrots, macaws, a flock or herd of rheas which were great to see. An abundance of capyburas - some with their babies which was very cute. We went looking for anacondas - we found a cobra anaconda - about 1.5 metres long which was pretty good to see, but not a patch on the real anacondas that we missed out on that can get to 8 metres in length! A really fun experience shared with a good bloke called Maarten from Holland and 2 Spaniards who gave us a bit more of an opportunity to stretch our Spanish more than we have of late. We came back to La Paz with a couple of Canadians who were staying in the same hotel as us in La Paz - they walked into their hotel room and striaght back down to reception saying very loudly in English - "we don't have a TV, I need a TV"...lorks a lordy - they have been out of Canada less than 2 weeks and only have 2 weeks to go and they "need" a TV...we did not break it to them that we do not have a TV as they may have gone into apoplectic shock!
Breathless - La Paz
La Paz for us was not too breathless. Given we have spent most of the last 3 months at around 3000m, the altitude of La Paz (3600m) did not affect us at all, but most people who arrive here directly have big problems adjusting. La Paz is Bolivia's biggest city with 1.3 million inhabitants. It has the seat of government here but is not actually the capital (my capital city knowledge fell down here - I had always learnt La Paz was the capital). It is nestled in a punchbowl of the Andes surrrounded by towering peaks. The centre of the city is at the bottom of the punchbowl giving great views of the city lights all around and above you at night. It is an odd city and totally different from any other we have visited in SA so far. An earthquake in the 1950's destroyed most of the city so it is pretty much totally new meaning is is not attractive. There is one, modern main street that runs down the centre of the city and once you get off that you are in a rabbit warren of little back streets, red brick houses and offices, funny little markets, stalls all over the pavements, indigineously dressed women wearing bowler hats too small for their heads. The witch doctors market was pretty interesting with llama foetuses on sale for luck - you bury one under a new house for good luck. There are also some orginal and interesting museums here which makes a change from the typical South American museum with pieces of plastic corn on plates to demonstrate to us ignorant Westerners what corn looks like. The Museum of Coca was a highlight. It was set up to give people a little more of an idea of what coca is and why coca is not the same as cocaine. This is a huge issue right now in Peru and Bolivia. I think I mentioned before that the coca leaves are grown in both countries and have been used by the local people for thousands of years. They are either chewed or brewed in tea to combat the effects of altitude by increasing the amount of oxygen that the body can take in. The leaves also have various medicinal properties. Unfortunately cocaine can be made from the leaves using a few readily sourced chemicals. The US has been trying to eradicate coca completely from Peru and Bolivia by destroying the coca fields. This has meant a lot of villages that rely on selling coca to the population for tea have been impoverished. There are regular demonstrations about this problem but the US has the cash to pay off governments to do its bidding so it is a tough situation. I understand the difficulties that the US have too as they want to stop cocaine imports, but a blanket ban on all coca growing is not working and shows a lack of understanding of local issues. The problem seems to lie more with the importing of the chemicals needed to make cocaine into Bolivia and then the corresponding export of cocaine out. These are the processes that need to be stopped rather than the growth of a useful herb for the people here. Anyway - I suspect nothing will change for the time being, but the Museum is helping in a tiny way to educate a few people. Rant over.
The journey down to Lake Titicaca from Cusco was a rather leisurely 10 hour train ride over mountain passes, across savannah grassland and for the last unforgettable 30 mins over the Lake itself as the sun was setting. The views were wonderful with little reed boats, mirror image reflections in the perfectly still water and the yellow the red glow of the sun disappearing under the Lake. We arrived in Puno and promptly left sharpish the next morning as Puno was not for us...a big town without character and full of tourist touts offering tacky tours to the floating islands where you can dress up in local costume and dance around a fire - ghastly!
We headed straight across the border to Bolivia and to a very sweet little town called Copacabana on the shores of the Lake. Copacabana has a little beach, mountains all around, great views of the sunsets, a moorish style catherdral and a very friendly atmosphere. It is also situated very close to the Isla Del Sol, which is the island where the Incas believe that they came form in a rather "Adam and Eve" way. The sun apparently gave birth to a brother and sister who arose from the Isla Del Sol. Hopefully the sun gave birth to a few other people too, otherwise it doesn't bode well for the Incas genetic make up! We spent a couple of days walking around the Isla and the mainland. There are a few sites on the Isla itself which are very sacred, but not massively impressive, but it is necessary to be very impressed when you see the umpteenth sacred stone - you have to be careful where you sit! The views from the Isla are so spectacular that you run out of superlatives. On one side you can see the huge Cordillera in Bolivia with grand snow capped peaks. On another there is just the lake stretching into the distance, gorgeous and blue and so clear that you can see the bottom a long way out. And on the other side there is the island itself with eucalyptus trees, little mud huts and funny little coves with the local fishermen going about their business. Pure, deep blue skies and wonderful sunshine and gorgeous sunsets. This was the best couple of days I felt we had had for a while. So relaxing, so beautiful, and such friendly people made a very pleasant trip. Very exciting to be at Lake Titicaca, one of those places you read about and dream of going to and we were actually there. You have to keep pinching yourself sometimes. One day we were at Machu Picchu, and two days later we were on the shores of Lake Titicaca...unbelievable!
Steamy - the Jungle
From the Lake we headed for a brief stop over in La Paz - the bus broke down on the way to La Paz leaving us stranded in the middle of nowhere and having to hitch a lift for the remainder of the journey to La Paz - just adds to the growing collection of bus stories that everyone has in South America; in Ecuador the bus to the jungle didn't go because of a combination of mudslides and indiginous protests, in Peru the wheels of our bus just snapped off on the way up a steep windy mountain road, and now one for Bolivia! We flew out of La Paz to Rurrenebaque in the north of Bolivia. A choice of an 18 hour bus ride or a 1 hour flight was not a difficult one. The flight itself is wonderful, passing very closely over the Andes and later over miles and miles of unspoilt jungle in a small 12 seater plane. The pilots take oxygen as the cabin is not pressurised but the passengers are left to fend for themselves.
Rurrenebaque is situated in the heart of the pristine, virgin rainforest of Bolivia. We spent a night in Rurre and the following day journeyed by motoroised dug-out canoe for 5 hours up river into the heart of the Madidi National Park (one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet) to a lodge called Chalalan. This is a wonderful "ecolodge" that was set up and now run by the local village called San Jose (a further 3 hours up river). All profits go to help the village of San Jose and they have recently installed drinking water in every house, paid for more teachers at the school and now have a doctor in the village. Everyone who works at the lodge is from the village and they all know a lot about the surrounding forest, the properties of the plants and the behaviour of the animals. The plants in the jungle are used by the locals to cure a range of illnesses from stomach problems to mossie bites. 10 years ago San Jose made money from some local produce but also from logging mahogany trees and sending them down river to be sold to the international furniture market. It is even more incredible to me that this community decided to stop receiving a reliable income stream from logging to set up a potentially risky ecolodge. But the way they have gone about it has pretty much guaranteed their success for the future. We had a fascinating 4 day stay and although we were a bit unlucky with rather too much rain for the supposed dry season, we still saw a lot of animals, including monkeys, caiman, macaws, parrots, toucans, taylas, coatis, scorpian spiders (as big as a dinner plate), frogs etc. Chalalan was set up in 1997 and is getting to be a bit better known now due to the professionalism and expertise of the staff and many people rate this as the best jungle experience in South America so we feel very lucky to have experienced it ourselves.
We then moved on to a different and more steamy environment of the Pampas - 3 hours by jeep in the other direction from Rurre. The Pampas is very different to the jungle with wide open expanses of grasslands and wetlands covered in lillies, and a series of rivers and waterways throughout. This time the waether was hot and sunny for 3 days. The animals are just on display for all to see rather than having to search around for them in the jungle. It was incredible to be going upriver by boat passing hundreds of caimans, seeing monkeys leap from branch to branch, and watching as pink dolphins followed our boat. The birdlife was spectacular with enormous herons, a stork over 5 feet tall, parrots, macaws, a flock or herd of rheas which were great to see. An abundance of capyburas - some with their babies which was very cute. We went looking for anacondas - we found a cobra anaconda - about 1.5 metres long which was pretty good to see, but not a patch on the real anacondas that we missed out on that can get to 8 metres in length! A really fun experience shared with a good bloke called Maarten from Holland and 2 Spaniards who gave us a bit more of an opportunity to stretch our Spanish more than we have of late. We came back to La Paz with a couple of Canadians who were staying in the same hotel as us in La Paz - they walked into their hotel room and striaght back down to reception saying very loudly in English - "we don't have a TV, I need a TV"...lorks a lordy - they have been out of Canada less than 2 weeks and only have 2 weeks to go and they "need" a TV...we did not break it to them that we do not have a TV as they may have gone into apoplectic shock!
Breathless - La Paz
La Paz for us was not too breathless. Given we have spent most of the last 3 months at around 3000m, the altitude of La Paz (3600m) did not affect us at all, but most people who arrive here directly have big problems adjusting. La Paz is Bolivia's biggest city with 1.3 million inhabitants. It has the seat of government here but is not actually the capital (my capital city knowledge fell down here - I had always learnt La Paz was the capital). It is nestled in a punchbowl of the Andes surrrounded by towering peaks. The centre of the city is at the bottom of the punchbowl giving great views of the city lights all around and above you at night. It is an odd city and totally different from any other we have visited in SA so far. An earthquake in the 1950's destroyed most of the city so it is pretty much totally new meaning is is not attractive. There is one, modern main street that runs down the centre of the city and once you get off that you are in a rabbit warren of little back streets, red brick houses and offices, funny little markets, stalls all over the pavements, indigineously dressed women wearing bowler hats too small for their heads. The witch doctors market was pretty interesting with llama foetuses on sale for luck - you bury one under a new house for good luck. There are also some orginal and interesting museums here which makes a change from the typical South American museum with pieces of plastic corn on plates to demonstrate to us ignorant Westerners what corn looks like. The Museum of Coca was a highlight. It was set up to give people a little more of an idea of what coca is and why coca is not the same as cocaine. This is a huge issue right now in Peru and Bolivia. I think I mentioned before that the coca leaves are grown in both countries and have been used by the local people for thousands of years. They are either chewed or brewed in tea to combat the effects of altitude by increasing the amount of oxygen that the body can take in. The leaves also have various medicinal properties. Unfortunately cocaine can be made from the leaves using a few readily sourced chemicals. The US has been trying to eradicate coca completely from Peru and Bolivia by destroying the coca fields. This has meant a lot of villages that rely on selling coca to the population for tea have been impoverished. There are regular demonstrations about this problem but the US has the cash to pay off governments to do its bidding so it is a tough situation. I understand the difficulties that the US have too as they want to stop cocaine imports, but a blanket ban on all coca growing is not working and shows a lack of understanding of local issues. The problem seems to lie more with the importing of the chemicals needed to make cocaine into Bolivia and then the corresponding export of cocaine out. These are the processes that need to be stopped rather than the growth of a useful herb for the people here. Anyway - I suspect nothing will change for the time being, but the Museum is helping in a tiny way to educate a few people. Rant over.
