Unboliviable Bolivia…
After spending 4 months in the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent, a place where women can wear what they walk around without feeling like you are being stalked and stared at was a welcome change. I don’t believe I’d ever experienced such a string of bad luck in a country though–well, it’s hard to say if it was bad luck or just Bolivia being Bolivia. As I was supposed to be flying into Chile only days after the earthquake, I changed my plans at the last minute and decided to go to Bolivia. I knew nothing about Bolivia except the salt flats and the President, Evo Morales; so I decided to do a tour with GAP.
I arrived to La Paz a day before our tour…needless to say, the city did not deserve an extra day. Although it was probably good to get used to the altitude as La Paz is between 3500 and 4000 meters above sea level. The city itself is dirty, rude, and has nearly nothing I found appealing aside from a Catholic Church. I was happy to meet up with the group my second night after spending two days wandering the streets of such an unfriendly city. Our group was 10 people including our guide, and everyone was friendly and for the most part made a fine travelling group. I did find it interesting that aside from one other girl, none of us spoke any spanish–in fact I would put myself in second for Spanish ability, which is really just sad. But all nice people at least, just some a little more naive than others in the travel scene; one girl had never heard of Machu Picchu…
The first part of our trip involved full days on trains and buses to make our way to Uyuni and then to the salt flats and the desert. Bolivia’s salt flat is the largest in the world at 120,000 square kilometres. If you removed up to 120 m depth it would refill itself by the next rain. Every year the salt flat increases in size; unfortunately, it’s not really used for much, and most countries have their own salt so there is no export market for salt. We did find quite a few hotels and statues made of salt bricks, held together with a form of cement. We took all the funny photos on the salt flats standing on bottles and stepping on people, then kept going in our jeeps to the next stop.
The next two days we were in the beautiful Bolivian desert. There were all kinds of coloured lagoons dotting the desert, with active volcanoes in the distance and sandy mountains with all kinds of colours of sand waving down their faces. Interesting llama like animals with much less hair roamed around eating what they could; but other than them, we were alone in the desert. We stayed in small guesthouses in villages with no more than a few guesthouses and a single shop in town. Luckily we had an avid drinker from the UK and he made sure that there was lots of beer and champagne (more of a cider) for everyone within minutes of arriving. We split into two rooms our first night and had one of the worst sleeps I’ve ever had. If you never plan on replacing your bed, buy a foam mattress. These were spring mattresses that had been extremely well used and now the springs poked through, digging into my backbone, as you struggled to get out of the bed of the mattress. Moreover, any time anyone moved, the mattresses squeaked and cracked as the springs moved to a new equally painful place on your body. Our second night was moderately better as our springy mattresses sat on cement blocks instead of beds. Still no one slept well.
After our second night, we were to visit a couple lagoons on the drive out of the desert and get back to some (if very minimal) civilization. Unfortunately our car broke down. Eventually, after a few hours of waiting in the hot and sunny desert, we were sent to the side of the road to wait for a van that was coming to pick us up. No van came. We found out shortly that no van was coming. We would have been able to hitchhike with the numerous tourist vehicles that had gone by in the past hour; however, now they had all passed us, and we were left with few options. Eventually, one of our two cars arrived to our spot on the main dirt road, towing our broken jeep with a cable made from braided strips of bicycle tires. We were told we would tow the other car to the police stop and figure things out from there. Simple except, our driver–who was only just 16–had some trouble timing the gas and braking, resulting in the cable breaking in the middle. They tried to retie it at half length and we made it maybe another 4 feet. Finally, they decided to take the good jeep to the police stop with most of us and find a better tow rope, then go back for the rest.
They left the majority of us sitting on the rocky ground in the sun after now more than 6 hours. Most of us were starting to burn quite badly and there was still no plan. When our broken jeep finally arrived, still no one knew what we would do. Another truck was there, apparently waiting for their other car. We decided we would all cozy up in the one working jeep, and leave once their other car arrived. After another half hour or so of waiting two of us went up to check things out. Although our tour guide told us it would only be a couple more minutes, David had the good sense to ask another person, who showed him through the binoculars that the jeep had been broken down for some time. We explained our frustration to our tour guide and told her we would be leaving without her, in the one working jeep. And we left.
Just over half way back to the town, the other jeep she was supposed to call at 8 am that morning met us–she had only called it when we finally left the police stop. She went in the other car that was waiting for the rest of its group and met us at the hotel. Our ride back was awful–we were so squished in–and they gave us the dead battery that wouldn’t charge, so we couldn’t turn the jeep off and we couldn’t undo or roll up windows, or listen to music, or move at all. It was possibly the longest day of our trip.
The following day we went to Potosi, a silver mining town. Potosi was a much nicer feeling town than La Paz. We went to the mines the next morning. Our tour stopped at a shop so we could all buy some dynamite and fuses with some explosion powder–the whole explosion device cost about $2 US. It’s open for anyone to buy anytime. We were also introduced to the miners choice of drink on Fridays–96% alcohol. I took a small sip and it had evaporated from my tongue before I had even swallowed; however, within seconds I could feel the intense alcohol burning through my esophogus and stomach. Inside the mines was interesting to walk around and go through the tunnels. There was an ad hoc museum type area, with statues dedicated to the 8 million people that have died in the mines. Yes, 8 million people. Enough bones to build a bridge to Madrid from Bolivia. The Spaniards used to force the slaves (from Africa) and indigenous to stay in the mines for 6 months at a time, and sharing one light between 10 people. Many of the Africans died due to the elevation and were unable to adjust to the conditions. While many of the indigenous if they survived their first 6 months would go blind when they were finally brought out for the first time as their eyes attempted to adjust to the light once again. There was one room that was a shrine to the devil, believed to protect the miners. Every Friday they bring their 96% alcohol into the mines and sprinkle a little on his massive manhood and drink the rest. After our tour we were able to go outside and blow up our dynamite. It was a huge explosion. And so funny that you can just do that there, go blow up dynamite if you want.
We spent the next three days in Sucre, a surprisingly cute colonial town. Our first night there was spent drinking far too heavily, it seemed that that was somewhat the norm for all the Gringos (white tourists) there. First time for a lot of people in a while to have access to regular food, cocktails and cold beer. It was like heaven in Bolivia. There wasn’t a whole lot to see in Sucre, but we did our best to explore all the areas of it…in fact one night we were given a restaurant recommendation for a place in the middle of nowhere. We had left the city by the time we arrived at this place, which looked more like someone’s garage than a restaurant. Everything was green, including the lighting. And there were only two option, meat with more fat or less fat. (Unless of course you wanted to eat intestine or udder–YES, COW UDDER..). All of our meals came with endless fried potatoes, salad, and rice with cheese. When our steaks came out, it was ridiculous. They all literally filled a dinner plate, there was no room for anything else on your plate. I have never been served that much meat in my life–even with Pieter around. In the end, no one could finish their less than 5 dollar meal, and we packed all our leftovers up. They filled up over 6 take away boxes, big ones. The government gives out a pension type payment for seniors on the 15 of every month and they have to wait in line ups outside the bank for sometimes 4 days. It had been two days now, so we decided to drop it off with all the oldies on our block. Don’t worry, we cut it into very small pieces so they could eat them, and we asked them to share with everyone. But our leftovers were able to feed an entire line up that wrapped around the block.
Our last night in Sucre was a lovely gongshow as well, resulting in salsa lessons and shooters. The rest of the group continued on the next morning to Brazil, while 3 of us returned to wonderful La Paz. Luckily I only had the one evening in La Paz and was off the next morning to Bogota, Colombia. Although we ran into a number of walls, many of which I haven’t even bothered to mention here, Bolivia was undoubtedly beautiful. The desert and the salt flats were stunning, even when you are stranded on the road and getting third degree burns. (Well, maybe not as pretty). And being with people that were all equally frustrated at being thrown into such situations just made it that much funnier. Its nice to be able to laugh off things, and you have to, when every day something is inevitably cancelled because of one thing or another. Road blocks made the road more interesting though, and almost always lead to more drinking and bonding. So all in all, a great time.
