A matter of perspective.

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Xavier

Round the World trip
November 2014 – May 2015
week 22 of 24

BOLIVIA
La Paz and Salar de Uyuni.

by Xavier

There is an English pub (take this appellation with a pinch of salt) in La Paz called Oliver’s Travels; on one of its walls it reads: “IF WE CAN’T REACH YOUR STANDARDS, LOWER YOUR STANDARDS.” – which could very well be a slogan from the Bolivian Tourist Board. This is by no means a criticism. Yes, Bolivia is the poorest country in South America and that is obvious to any visitor, but at the same time it is still one of the most fascinating destinations.

This part of our trip echoed two previous visits to South America; one in 2009 when we travelled around Perú, and another one in 2011, when we travelled by land from Bolivia to Argentina for the first time and almost exactly to the date. Puno didn’t seem to have changed much in the six years since our last visit, which is a shame, but we were only stopping for one night to break the journey into Bolivia, so it didn’t matter. People mainly come to Puno to visit Lake Titicaca and its attractions, and/or on their way to Bolivia – like us on this occasion. One of the guys with whom we did the tour of the Colca Canyon had also travelled to Puno with us and we met briefly for pizza and beer in the evening, after we’d left our backpacks in the rather forgettable hotel we’d booked for the night. And that’s about it. We were off to La Paz in the morning, stopping in Copacabana to change buses after crossing the border with Bolivia. The bus from Copacabana dropped us in the centre of La Paz about three hours later, having spent a fair bit of that time driving through El Alto…

video: Global Nomads Group channel, YouTube.

La Paz was just as crazy as we remembered. The same chaotic traffic, the multitude of street vendors, the long steep streets that, with the altitude, really put one’s lung capacity to the test. I loved it. The city sprawls over a vast canyon, with its poorer suburbs – El Alto – at over 4,000 metres, and its much wealthier neighbourhoods about 1,000 metres below. We found a nice looking hostel in the historical centre, which is more or less half way up, and where most travellers stay. We didn’t really do much while in La Paz, as we had already seen most of the more interesting sites before, so we mainly concentrated in finding nice places to eat and drink, which in La Paz can be a bit of a challenge.

These days the city boasts a growing shiny cable car network – the Teleférico – that connects far-flung neighbourhoods, and the chance to check it out proved of course irresistible for Simon. It is certainly a great way to get a measure of the size and shape of La Paz. One of the lines takes you from Sopocachi, a very trendy neighbourhood, down to a newly built area at the bottom of the canyon where you can find the rather incongruous Megacenter; a huge modern shopping mall that would rival the average Westfield – though in size only – but which on the day we went had only a tiny handful of people in it, with most shops totally void of customers, as if we were in the Latin American equivalent of Pyongyang. Very odd.

Always in search of the next death defying thrill, Simon had been very keen from the start of the trip to get to La Paz. One of the main attractions for visitors to La Paz is the cycle ride down the road to Coroico, in the jungle nearly 3,000 metres below the city. Universally known as The Death Road, it was labelled the world’s most dangerous in 1995 when it was still the main route for traffic down from the city – in one infamous incident a bus drove off the edge killing over a hundred people. A new paved road opened in 2007 and the old road is now used as a tourist attraction. Insurance is required – not surprisingly – but our insurer, Columbus, wanted a whopping £140 to add a day’s mountain biking to our travel insurance, requiring us to retrospectively buy it for the full five months we have already been travelling for. So we didn’t go – thanks guys, we’ll use a different insurer next time. Alas, it might be worth pointing out that mishaps are not uncommon every year so, to be honest, I wasn’t entirely disappointed that we didn’t do it. This item on the BBC website expands a little on the subject.

As we looked for other interesting things to do or see in La Paz we came across Cholita wrestling, an extraordinary thing indeed which we also missed on this occasion, but which I have penciled in for the next time we come to La Paz.

video: Vice magazine channel, YouTube.

Going back to our hostel, it was rather nice and in a great location, and the staff were terrific, especially the lady who runs it; but our room was tiny, had no ventilation other than a window into the hallway, and was so bitterly cold that we had no option but to move out after the second night, and seek refuge for the next – and last – two nights in La Paz in the hotel where we stayed during our previous visit; which happened to be nearby, available, and totally over budget – but well worth it if you ask me.

And without further ado, we continued our journey towards Argentina and travelled the 730 kilometres (450 miles) from La Paz to the world famous Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world, spread over 12,000 square kilometres – which is noticeably larger than Qatar and only slightly smaller than Vanuatu.

Bolivia has some of South America’s few remaining long distance trains. Despite being slow, they remain useful because many of the parallel roads are in a terrible condition. The first stage of our journey south from La Paz was a bus ride to Oruro, three and a half hours away along a smooth, wide, direct road – in fact remarkably un-Bolivian. The bus, however, was very Bolivian. It appeared not to have been cleaned in many years and, not to put too fine a point, it stank. In Oruro we boarded the train to Uyuni after a short break. The rather misnamed Expreso del Sur – the South Express – took nearly seven hours for little over 300 kilometres, but it was at least clean and fairly comfortable, and for £5 each we had steak with chips and a large beer in the restaurant car.

Once in Uyuni, we stayed at the same place as the previous time. When we first visited in 2011 we did a three-day tour of the salt flat plus the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve on a battered 4×4. On that occasion much of the salt flat was flooded and we couldn’t get to it, so here was our second chance. The town doesn’t really have much in it other than tour agencies and cheap places to eat, and it’s almost exclusively the main base from where to visit the salt flat and surrounding area – though to be fair it has also hosted all the off-road races of the legendary Dakar rally in 2014 and 2015, and it will do so again in 2016, so kudos Uyuni.

Opportunist tour agents pounce on the travellers that arrive on the evening train from Oruro in the hope of selling overpriced (more often than not) tours the following day. Most tours depart from Uyuni around 11:30am and there are plenty of agencies around town which offer similar services at not too dissimilar prices (except for Red Planet, who charge double than the rest because they provide English speaking guides, we were told) so it’s very advisable to browse before booking a tour. Also, space in the 4×4’s is not very generous. Seven people including the driver is the absolute acceptable maximum in our experience, even for the one-day tours. We also think a guide is unnecessary unless you don’t speak a word of Spanish, but even so; the more people in the car, the worse. There is, however, no safe bet when booking a tour. All cars are the same (they only last about five years) and if one is not filled with a group from the same agency they will fill it with people from other agencies. Different people seem to have very varied experiences regardless of the tour company, especially for the multi-day tours (you just need to read the reviews online, or check out what other bloggers have to say about it, like this one) so there is a certain amount of pot luck involved. The first time in Uyuni we booked our three-day tour with Licancabur Tours and yes we had some glitches but overall it was great. On this occasion we ended up booking a one-day tour (about eight hours) of the salar with Andrea Tours, for which we paid £15 each, including lunch, sharing a 4×4 with four other guys plus the driver. Everyone had booked with different tour agencies. There was one more passenger at first but he didn’t come with us in the end and we really welcomed the extra room.

The salar is just the most extraordinary place. Imagine standing on a slightly surreal flat white surface that goes on as far as the eye can see, all around you, and the whole of it turns into a mirror when covered in water. Our cheery driver, Roly, made a decent effort to keep us all entertained and make sure we could take home some awesome photos of the day, which we did. The other guys that came with us were also great fun, so we really enjoyed ourselves and were very glad to have come to Uyuni again.

From Uyuni we needed to head to Tupiza, on our way to the border with Argentina, but there was no train running on the day we needed to travel, and the only buses south leave Uyuni at 6am or 8pm – neither of which were ideal. Fortunately, Simon found out that some vehicles from tour operators in Tupiza, which also offer tours of the salt flats etc, finish in Uyuni around lunch time and return empty to Tupiza, so it is possible to hang around the street that passes for Uyuni’s bus terminal and find a Tupiza driver willing to take passengers on his way back. Indeed, we found a driver who agreed to give us a lift for £10 each for the roughly five hour drive. On the way, we were shocked to see that both the road and the local buses were in a much worse state than we’d anticipated, and realised what a nightmare it would have been to attempt the journey by bus – we’re still reeling from our experience in northern Perú. On the up side, the landscape between Uyuni and Tupiza is quite something and after a couple of brief stops on the way we arrived without any problems for our overnight stop. Having been there twice now, we still don’t have much to say about Tupiza, other than it is not too far from the border, which we reached the next morning.

All in all we only spent one week in Bolivia but it was an excellent one. We are now chilling out in northern Argentina, where some of the finest wine in the country is produced – and currently consumed by yours truly. Slowly but inexorably – to use a cliché – we are making our way towards the final stop of our six-month trip around the world, and hands down one of my favourite cities: Buenos Aires.

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All media in this blog © Xavier González | Simon Smith unless otherwise credited.
All maps from Google Maps, also unless otherwise credited.

El cóndor pasa.

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Xavier

Round the World trip
November 2014 – May 2015
week 21 of 24

PERÚ
The South

by Simon

There is really only one reason tourists visit Nazca, and that is to see the Nazca Lines, a series of lines, geometrical shapes and animal and plant figures etched on the desert by the Nazca people some 2,000 years ago. The lines cover a large area and some of the individual figures are over 100 meters across. They may have represented constellations, or heavenly figures, or have been fertility symbols; nobody really knows. German archeologist Maria Reiche dedicated much of her life to the study of the lines and is commemorated throughout the town (although some murals of her made her look like Harry Potter or a gorilla, so not entirely flattering).

The lines are best viewed from the air early in the morning, when there is better visibility and less turbulence; therefore we were at Maria Reiche Aerodrome shortly after 7am for our short flight with AeroParacas, which we were told has a better safety record than some of the other operators (which doesn’t say much). The pilots didn’t exactly go out of their way to explain what we should be seeing, and the sound system on the plane was so unclear we could hardly hear them anyhow. However, we did see a range of shapes including a condor, monkey, whale, hummingbird, spider, and some hands – although I only really know this by comparing my photos with the diagram the airline provided telling us what we should have seen.

above: the Hummingbird (bottom left), and the Whale (bottom right); below: the Spider (top left), the Hands – or the Frog – and the Tree (top right), and the Condor (bottom right)

We were back in our guesthouse by 9am, where owner Nancy had breakfast waiting for us. At this point Xavier went back to bed, and I joined Grace and Jason for a quick tour of Nazca’s other sites. This included other lines that can be seen from hills, and an underground aqueduct system built by the Nazca but still used today, which brings water down from the Andes to the desert below, enabling some of the area around the town to be used for agriculture.

And that was Nazca. 24 hours after arriving, we were already on the bus out. After our unfortunate experience with the económico bus between Máncora and Trujillo, we had tried to stick with the largest bus company, Cruz del Sur, but they were full this time and so we used their competitor, Oltursa, for what should have been a nine hour trip to our next stop, Arequipa – it’s amazing how 9-12 hour bus trips, a prospect which would horrify most people in the UK, have now become routine for us. This company also provided a modern, comfortable bus – we could even turn off the speaker above our heads so we didn’t have to be deafened by the dubbed versions of Son of Rambow and other equivalently exciting films they played on the video. Unfortunately, Peruvian bus schedules seem to express hope more than expectation, and it was past 1am when we pulled into Arequipa. Apologies to the manager of our lovely hostel for keeping her up until we arrived.

Arequipa is the third-largest city in Perú, but only a tenth the size of Lima. It is a well preserved colonial city with more impressive churches and museums. There is a free walking tour every day at 3pm from Plaza de Armas, the city’s main square, which we joined with Grace and Jason. It took us about three hours to walk around the historical city centre, stopping at various points to learn about the history and culture of the city and its people. Thoroughly recommended. We also visited the Monasterio / Convento de Santa Catalina, which resembles more a walled city complete with streets, squares, fountains and houses (apparently the nuns had to buy their living accommodation), and beautifully decorated courtyards. We also visited the Museo Santuarios Andinos, which displays amongst other items the recovered bodies of children ritually sacrificed by the Incas on the summit of the Ampato mountain. The bodies were buried so high that they froze and have been found relatively well-preserved 500 years later.

We intended to stay only one day in Arequipa and then join Grace and Jason for a two-day tour of the Colca Canyon, the deepest in the world and the main highlight of the region. However, we were both struck down with another stomach bug and had to make an unplanned extension to our stay. It was sad to say goodbye after over a month following the Gringo Trail together – perhaps we’ll see them when we go to Canada in September.

Later than planned, we headed out towards the Colca Canyon in a Colca Trek minibus with three other travellers, a guide, and a driver. On the first morning, we hiked around some extraordinary rock formations, and then drove high into the Andes, at one point reaching nearly 5,000 meters – perhaps not coincidentally, everyone in the minibus seemed to get semi-comatose at this point. As well as seeing the various volcanoes which surround Arequipa (some of them still active), we saw a selection of Andean fauna including llamas, alpacas, vicuñas and viscachas – we now know how to tell the difference between a llama and an alpaca. After tucking into some of these at lunch, we toured the local market in Chivay and sampled some strange Andean fruits, including a kind of prickly cactus pear – I don’t think any of them will be Peru’s next export success though. We then followed a spectacular valley carved with thousands of terraces towards the canyon. Next day, we were up early for the second part of the tour. This started with an alarmingly rapid cycle ride down (and in places, more challengingly, up) a road along the edge of the canyon. We then stopped at the Cruz del Cóndor, a point overlooking a section of the canyon where it is possible to see condors as they fly out of their nests every morning. Condors are some of the biggest birds in the world, with a wingspan of over three meters. It was amazing to see these birds circling just a few meters above our heads.

Throughout this trip, I’ve been mentally ticking activities off a list. So far, I’ve swum under a waterfall, ridden an elephant, gone “tubing”, kayaking, trekking, snorkelling, mountain biking, sandboarding, and on dune buggies. One of the other activities which people had been trying to sell us since the start of the trip, and we hadn’t quite yet had the courage to do, was zip lining, where you zip across a valley suspended by a harness from a cable. As this could have been our last chance, we finally tried it here and it was a lot of fun, at least once you got over the initial panic induced by hanging 100 meters above a rocky river.

After the tour, it was another bumpy six hours on a bus to Puno, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, where we stayed the night before crossing into Bolivia.