Saturday, April 15, 2006

Northern Chile & entry into Bolivia (3-13/Apr/06)

La Paz, Bolivia

Arica is extremely ugly coastal town, but we were only going to use it as a base to see a village called Putre and the Lauca national park. After touching down we went to the tourist office to see about trekking in Lauca. Zilch, only bus tours. When we found out the bus to Bolivia does exactly the same route as the tour, albeit without the stops, so we decided that was all we'd see of the park, and got a bus to Putre. Putre is a lovely little town close to the park, and the trip there is through arid mountains, culminating in a green(ish) valley with a stunning volcano in the background. We met a guy on the bus and stayed at his house for the night we were there. Did a short trek towards the volcano through green alfalfa fields on the first day – saw a scary recent footprint in the mud on the way back that looked suspiciously like puma (they live nearby and sometimes attach the local cattle). Should have taken a picture of it to make sure it wasn't a dog footprint (we're not quite up to scratch on animal tracking yet), but we were to busy fleeing down the hill. Next day we also did a short hike while we waited for the bus, but not quite as nice as we took a wrong turning and ended up in a pretty dry and ugly area, next to a military base.

After waiting the rest of the day in Arica we got the bus to La Paz. It was a bit cloudy, so the tour would have been a wash out anyway. Even so, Lauca is a very hansom looking park, pity no proper trek trails – lots of nice altiplano scenery, surrounded by lakes and volcanos. Then crossed the border into Bolivia and into the 3rd world.

Arriving in La Paz we saw that Bolivia is completely different to Argentina and Chile. We'd had a taste in the north of these two westernized countries, but only a taste. Coming into La Paz you see the whole city below you in a huge mountain basin (actually a river canyon apparently), the Spanish liked it as it is a few hundred metres lower than the surrounding altiplano, and therefore warmer. It is the highest capital in the world (3600m, airport on the altiplano at 4000m), and - note for Keith – is home to the highest golf course in the world. It is full of fat women in bowler and a billion layers of skirts and petticoats carrying babies and foodstuff in colourful sheets. It just doesn't feel like a capital city. The houses are generally low, grimy, unpainted, in many cases unplastered, and with corrugated iron roofs. It's great. There is an area down south with modern houses, shopping malls and tower blocks but we'll leave that for last, if we visit it at all.

Couldn't soak much of the atmosphere (and there's loads of it) as we rushed of to Copacabana (not the beach in Rio) by lake Titikaka for Palm Sunday (they are quite religious there). After a death-defying ride we arrived there to find a nice little town, but not much happening. I guess we should have gone a few days later to see Easter proper. We actually thought we would stay long enough, but after seeing the Sun Island on Titikaka (where apparently, according to one of the two main legends, the first Inka Manco Kapak was born - or dropped from the sky - even though it is miles away from Cusco) there isn't much else to do. We did have an amusing time observing how the cars were being blessed outside the cathedral though. I prayed our bus back had been blessed. Less amusing was Montezuma's Revenge, luckily it was only a quick one day of Aztec Two-Step due to stupidly eating the side salad.

From Copacabana we went to another small town called Sorata, which is the "trekking capital of Bolivia". The setting is awesome, with massive mountain Illampu on one side, and a beautiful valley on the other. We did a short trek to a nearby cave (not exactly Nerja, but at leas I discovered I'm not afraid of bats, as long as they don't land on me). Discovered the long trek we wanted to do was actually in a completely different place, and the only busses left from La Paz, but at least the guides there knew it and were a lot cheaper than in the capital, so we ended up contracting a guide and a porter (not feeling lazy, but we don't know how good we are at 5000m) for 6 days. Nearly cancelled (actually did cancel a 1-day trek) due to the reappearance of the Gringo Gallop, probably from the fresh vegetables in the chilli dip - added antibiotics to my diet for the next few days. Saw the site of the previous' days accident, a broken fence (3 in a coma) on the way back, as well as the day's accident, a taxi in a river (no major injuries). We are definitely travelling only by day to increase our chances of survival.

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