Bolivia

Lying in a 60,000 square kilometre basin between the coastal and eastern Andes, the magnificent blue waters of Lake Titicaca welcomed us warmly. Just a three hour ride from La Paz, our coach wound it's way down to the dockside where we would cross the Tequina Strait to reach our next destination. To avoid any Titanic moments, the buses go across the stretch of water on a dodgy looking barge, while us passengers had to clamber aboard a number of small fishing boats. Not one's to miss an opportunity, the cheeky locals charge a whopping twenty-five pence each for the privilege.

Probably one of the most prominent features of the Altiplano, Lake Titicaca, at 3,821m, is the highest navigable body of water in the world. Referred to as 'The Sacred Lake' by many Bolivian's and Peruvian's who share the ownership within their borders; if someone (for instance a fisherman) falls into the lake it is traditional not to rescue them, but to let them drown as an offering to the Earth Goddess Pachamama. Quite a hefty sacrifice for the sake of a few Trout. The surface area itself is just over nine thousand square kilometres and an average depth of 100m, it's volume of water is so big that it actually moderates the climate for a considerable distance around it. Sometimes it is hard to believe that you're not looking at an ocean, as the waters stretch for almost as far as the eye can see.

A note had been left on the message board in the Brew Hostel to ask if anyone was heading in the direction of Copacabana, and we therefore had a girl from Sheffield called Sarah in tow. The three of us arrived at our destination in the early afternoon, and reading reasonable reports about a new hotel overlooking the beach we headed there to find a bed. Handily, there were less than eight people in the whole place, which I suppose says something about our taste in accommodation.

It might share the same name with the famous Brazilian beach resort, but Copacabana in Bolivia couldn't really be more different. It has none of the glitz and glamour of Rio, but instead offers small town charm where unfortunately, because of it's existence as a gateway to the Isla del Sol and Isla de la Luna, it becomes a real tourist trap, with prices for just about anything being judged in accordance with your nationality. After a light and unfulfilling lunch we had a walk around the village, and then Sarah MkII suggested that we walk to the top of the Cerro Calvario, a reasonably large hill overlooking the lake and the town. Good practice for the upcoming Inca Trail we thought.

Not really prepared for the level of ascent, we took an hour or so to climb the less-than-difficult trail, but the altitude makes everything hard going. There are fourteen stations of the holy cross on the way up, and then at the top we found a number of eery looking tombs to greet our arrival. The area at the top of the Calvario however is now covered in grafitti, and such is the quantity of litter strewn all over the surrounding hillside that I doubt if it has ever been cleared, tainting what should really be a lovely place. Finding a suitable rock, here we settled down to watch the sun setting over the lake which was quite spectacular. Like all traditional nights in these regions, as soon as the sun dips behind the horizon, the temperature drops by around fifteen degrees, and so three of us, and an Australian girl called Jenna who had been admiring the views with us, rapidly descended for some hot coffee liquors in one of the town's many overpriced cafe's.

That evening we met Jenna again, and went for a reasonable meal in one of the many restaurants in town, followed by a few beers in a really laid-back bar run by a native french guy. Here some fella played the Saxophone for a while which was surprisingly good, and then everyone just sat around on the nicely arranged beanbags and pillows, chatting, smoking and listening to numerous cool tunes in a really relaxed atmosphere. At last we actually felt like travellers. If only we liked weed and could go for a month without washing our hair...

The following morning Sarah MkII left us for Cusco, and we had planned to visit the nearby Isla del Sol for the day. It was then that we realised we had a problem. Enquiries for a cashpoint were not being met enthusiastically (basically there wasn't one in town), the one and only bank was shut for another two days, and our hotel manager was offering little in the way of solutions. We had 100 Boliviano's left on us; enough to get us to the island, and leave us with the equivalent of four pounds until we reached the Peruvian border 28 hours later. Faced with the thought over a very dull day in the town, we opted to continue with our plans, and boarded our boat to the Island of the Sun with moments to spare.

The journey out to the island to just over two hours, due to an engine which would have had trouble powering most domestic lawn-mowers. Sarah managed to keep her chunder-eyes under control almost until docking, when she finally turned a little green as the water became more choppy. Landing safely, and vomitless, we then discovered that the visit to the Inca Site and museum on the island would cost us extra money which we clearly didn't have. Not being overly sold on hanging around for the boat to return us to the mainland four hours later, our only option was to take the 20km hike from the north of the island to the south.

And so off we trudged, with only a two-litre bottle of water and packet of week old cookies to our name. Quoted as a two-and-a-half hour walk, we hiked through mountain pathways, across a near deserted beach where a guy tried to charge me for photographing his pigs (or he may have just been angry because I had to have a poo in a bush behind his house), and over the top of two fairly high passes, arriving at the southern port nearly 4 hours later, and only just in time for our return voyage.

Although yet more good practice for our upcoming main hike event, we were both now quite tired, very hungry and a little bitter. There's probably nothing worse than having money in the bank, but not being able to get at it. Except possibly not having money in the bank. We'll try some of that when we get home. At this point, the only viable option we could see to forget the hunger and mild resentment was to go straight to bed and hope that we could sleep through the night. And so, at just after 6pm, we did. And with resounding success I might add.

Waking early, and with the hotel bill pre-paid, we helped ourselves to as much of the free bread and jam breakfast we could manage. During this gargantuan feast, we got chatting to a young couple from Wolverhampton and as they were going in the same direction, we all went to catch our connecting bus to Puno on the Peruvian side of the lake.

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We'd heard many disturbing stories about bus journey's in Bolivia. Ranging from luggage being stolen mid-transit and drivers falling asleep on overnight journeys, to armed thieves boarding en-route and systematically robbing the passengers at gunpoint. None of these tales filled us with confidence for our forthcoming journey from Uyuni to La Paz, but we had to get there somehow, and the train which ran from Uyuni to Oruro was still a few days wait away. After being dropped at the tour office from our Salt Flats trip, we went with our bags directly to the bus 'station', namely a street where the bus may stop if you're extremely fortunate. Enquiries produced little, and we were being flatly refused tickets by a number of agencies. Handily, we got chatting to a group of four other backpackers who had also just finished their Uyuni jeep tour, and were having some success in getting a ticket. They kindly bartered for us too, and some 30 minutes later we were sitting at the back of an extremely crowded and somewhat odious bus.

With nothing more than good old British luck, we found ourselves sitting directly behind an inebriated group of Salt Flat workers, one of whom took a particular fancy to Sarah and her 'lovely blond hair'. He sat admiring her amourously whilst attempting some of his best English chat-ups, which included asking where we were from some fifteen or twenty times. Realising his luck just wasn't in, he soon thankfully turned his attention to another of the girls in the group. Next, a rather large Bolivian lady arrived, carrying her large rucksack-style blanket wrap on her back, and an extemely young child in her arms. With four of the back seats taken, she plonked herself handily into the middle one, at which point the baby began to scream manically. This was to last approximately seven hours, and it wasn't long before the baby's one and only shitty nappy was thrown on the floor in front of us. The Salt Workers played their sole CD of Bolivian pop music over and over again for the whole journey, and the bus spent the first four hours of the journey bouncing us heavily over dirt roads before finally hitting some tarmac. Where are those armed gunmen when you need them?

La Paz lies at the bottom of a steep canyon, and we had hoped to catch some spectacular views of the highest capital city in the world, but by arriving at nearly 1am, we had lost our chance for now. Finally catching some good fortune however, we managed to check into the first hostel we turned up at. Now that we were back in mild civilisation, the following day was to consist of organising some arduous necessities such as laundry, and in the evening we found ourselves taking a nap at 7pm, and not waking for some 14 hours. Lazy yes, but quite necessary.

We decided for our third night to move to a different hostel, and had been recommended one near the bus station which suited us fine. A much more modern place, the Adventure Brew Hostel neatly incorporated its own brewery, which meant that much to my disgust, we would receive a free beer every evening. Still finding ourselves a little rough from the 3,500m altitude, we took it easy again in the hope we would acclimatise fully for the mountain bike trip booked for the following day.

Rising early, we met the Gravity guides at a small cafe in the main strip, and boarded their bus which would take us to our starting point at 4,200m in the nearby mountains. Sarah's lack of riding experience in the last 20 years, and the unsurprising knack of going over the handlebars on her last Oz trip, aided her wise decision to just come along for the ride in the jeep. Kitting the twelve riders out with all of the relevant gear, we started our descent at around 8:30am, riding mostly without the need to peddle for the first hour down the paved mountain highway. Then we were told to prepare for a small uphill section, which managed to almost kill me. With two hours gone, the professional biker guides announced that we were now sitting at the very top of the main event: a single width dirt road, which hugs the edge of the mountains and is wisely named The World's Most Dangerous Road!

So called because it claims some twenty-odd vehicles and the lives of anywhere between two and three hundred people per year over it's vertical edges, this fifty-mile commercial passageway between Bolivia and the Yungas is the main route used by cargo lorries and a number of local bus services. The bird's eye view is on the left, where the earth itself seems to open up and you get amazing views of the Coroico River rushing to join the Amazon some half a mile below. Gravity is now the only company which can still claim to have not had anyone killed on one of it's daily mountain bike tours. Reason enough to pay that little extra for the peace of mind, even though they tell you that you must ride on the left next to the gaping ravine. There's no accounting for being able to handle a bike however, and with the track at barely three metres wide there is little margin for error, and it soon became clear why many people might have a small fatal accident.

I tried to stick with the front guide as much as possible as this was the only way to see how best to take some of the hairpin corners and narrow bends at speed. During our ride, crosses at the roadside marked the locations of fatal accidents whilst the guides regaled us with stories of previous victims and showed us a number of wreckages, one being that of a bus which had slipped over the edge just one month ago, taking forty-eight unfortunates with it. Luckily, this was the dry season, but during the wet season the rains will come cascading down the walls of the chasm and huge waterfalls will drench the road turning its surface to slime. There are pleasant stories of truckers too tired or scared to continue, who pull over for the night hoping to see out an Andean storm. Parking too close to the edge however, the road is washed away around them and they are swept to their deaths while sleeping.

This part of the ride took almost three hours, and by the end with concentration levels waining we were ready for the all-inclusive buffet and a dip in the pool. Following the presentation of our 'survival' t-shirt and some quality time with a few monkeys, we all clambered into the back of the mini-bus for our ascent back up the very road we had just defeated.

If anything, this was worse than the actual mountain biking, and we were all pretty nervous as the small coach inched it's way up the winding track, our lives dependent on the driving skills of one local man who had been up since 5am. On occassions it was possible to actually look out of the window and see nothing but the sheer drop below. We also picked up one of the human traffic lights which are positioned along the route, who began to tell us that he was employed to signal manage this point of the road due to a young french girl going over the cliff-edge on her bike about a year ago.

At around 2,800m, the late evening cloud drifting around the van didn't do a great deal towards settling our nerves. Thankfully, we arrived safely back in La Paz at around 8pm after what had been a long and thrilling day. I was aching all over, but can honestly say that this was one of the best experiences of my life. Perhaps something I would have to consider in greater depth now that I am more aware of the consequences of one small slip in the wrong direction. For many of the tour companies at least, it seems that ignorance is bliss.

With just one full day left in La Paz before we headed north, we felt it was only right that we take in some sights, despite my unwilling limbs. First we walked down into the Plaza San Francisco, where a demo was taking place in the grounds in front of the giant cathedral. This is apparently a regular occurance in Bolivia, as the disgruntled natives passionately appeal for better working conditions or to stop the illegalisation of Coca, something the government are now trying to impose. Although not violent, this wasn't somewhere we wanted to hang around due to the masses of people congregating in the area. Menacing looking lads in balaclava's mill about aimlessly in the intense sun, but these are just shoe-shine boys, hiding their appearance so as not to bring shame on their families.

We quickly headed in the direction of the Witchcraft market, where we were expecting to find all kinds of weird and wonderful things, but were a bit disappointed to see just the normal tourist style knitwear and trinket stalls. In the middle however, we stumbled across the Coca museum and decided to go in and take a look. Despite doubts that it might be a little dull, it was actually really interesting, with insights into why the Latin American's believe this plant to be such an important part of their lives.

There is evidence to support coca leaves being used for a variety of purposes since as far back as 2500 BC, and it is now such a big part of Andean life and ancestory that the people will probably fight until the end of time to keep the tradition. According to the locals, chewing the leaves gives them some kind of extra energy, to the extent that miners would not even consider entering the workplace without their ration. Although it is said that the people chew, in actual fact they are just sucking on the dry leaves, and only using their teeth enough to release the juices contained within. A few minutes later, there is an intense anesthetic effect in the cheeks, throat and tongue. The ingestion of the juice supposedly acts as pain relief and it has been commonplace for centuries to take coca infusion to alleviate pain for a wide range of ailments including headaches, toothaches, intestinal cramps and so on. Of course, the leaves are most famous for their use in the battle against altitude, where the stimulating effect on respiration is the perfect complement to offset the chronic lack of oxygen at 4000 metres plus.

It was Vassili von Anrep who first perceived in 1880 the anesthetic properties of cocaine derived from Coca leaves. Later Karl Koller, an associate and friend of Sigmund Freud (who was later to introduce Cocaine as a recreational drug), had the opportunity of using the drug for anesthetic purposes - an ideal and long awaited medicinal breakthough. Many big pharmaceutical companies endevoured in its manufacturing and numerous 2% cocaine solutions were soon being introduced and used as medications against the likes of birth pains, ointments for hemorrhoids, solutions to relieve dental pain in infants, drops for earaches and during abdominal surgeries and the suchlike.

In 1887, Dr. Sttyth Pemberton from Atlanta gave birth to the world of Coca Cola. He manufactured the now famous non-alcoholic beverage from the leaves of the Andean Coca plant and it wasn't until 1902 that the Cocaine itself was removed from the product. Coca leaves are still however used in the flavouring, and to this day, the U.S. remain the biggest importers of leaves from South America. Sorry if you don't think any of that was interesting, but we did...

We continued our self-organised city tour by going to the Sopocachi neighbourhood, and visiting the central park and the Plaza Murillo, before heading back for our final night in the hostel and a few beers and a barbeque with some chirpy Aussies. Overall, La Paz held a mix of adrenaline, fascination and unfortunately, normal city activity but will always be remembered as the place where I could have accidentally killed myself in the pursuit of a little excitement...

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Rising for an early 8am start, we boarded our bus with high hopes of a great 3-day tour, culminating in the Uyuni Salt Flats of which we´d heard many glowing reports. It´s a bit of a lottery as to who you may end up spending 72 hours cramped in a 4x4 with, but the coach on the whole seemed friendly from the off so we weren´t too concerned.

With border formalities completed in a small shed in the middle of what appeared to be the midst of nothingness, we were put into a jeep with a young French couple called Marion and Sylvain. They turned out to not only be really lovely people, but also the saving grace of our trip as it transpired that our driver, Doro, could barely speak a word of English, and our Spanish by this point consisted of a bare understanding of basic terms and fluency in nothing more than menu reading and beer ordering.

So, we headed off to our first stop for breakfast at Laguna Blanca, and onwards to Laguna Verde, so called because of it´s green colour, caused by the large copper deposits found in it´s bed. All the of the lagoons we were due to see on the following days can be found sitting at the base of a one or a number of surrounding mountains, making for some truly spectacular scenery. In this case, the 6000m Licancabur Volcano loomed menacingly in the background.

As the journey began it was becoming increasingly clear that our driver was going to be quite entertaining. None of the controls on the dash of the 1980´s Toyota seemed to be functioning. How do we know if we have enough petrol Doro? "No problema" he replies. Er, Doro, there´s a really heavy smell of gasoline inside this car? "Si, no problema". Suitably impressed with his bothered attitude towards pretty much everything, we let him get on with the driving while we admired the views.

Driving over more barren terrain into the hills, we stopped for lunch at the side of the Laguna Polque, with it's small thermal pool and grazing birds. Refreshed, we continued up to a height of just over 4000m, frantically chewing Doro´s kindly donated Coca leaves to help with the altitude, and jumping out at the vile smelling Sol de Manana geysers. Here, the bubbling mud pools steam into the clear sky, helped along by the chilly winds and producing the kind of smells we´re only used to experiencing in hostels where morning ´dehli-belly´ has become part of normal life. For the the final part of the opening days journey, we skirted the edge of the bright red Laguna Colorada, spotting and then feeding a cute kind of wild fox, the Zorro Andino, as we went.

Our accommodation for the evening consisted of a shelter, something we had been pre-warned about, but still expected slightly more from. Entering our rooms, the stone beds sat menacingly, threatening a truly cold and sleepless night. After a fairly tasteless dinner of cold spaghetti and tomato sauce, and with the solar generator only powering itself until 9pm, we retired to our solid beds, and stole as many covers as possible from the vacant bunks in the vague hope it would aid our slumber. Predictably, it was a pretty tough night, with inside temperatures dropping to minus-five, and complimented nicely with Marion suffering from some altitude sickness. We wound her up the next morning about how she´d kept us awake and was ruining our trip, but in fairness, there wasn´t a great deal of sleep being found anyway.

Suitably groggy, we climbed back into our jeep the following morning, and headed into some of the driest and most barren land we had probably ever seen. By this point, we had discovered Doro´s desire for speed, and the fact that he kept glancing over his shoulder to check on the progress of other jeeps and seemed to be racing them at every opportunity, earnt him the new nickname of ´Schumacher´, which seemed to amuse him immensely.

Crossing the rain-devoid Siloli Desert, the dry earth stretched for miles in every direction, broken only by the odd rock outcrop or towering mountain. We stopped at the aptly named ´Stone Trees´, and passed a couple more Borax-wielding laguna´s before arriving at our lunch destination; a small town called Villa Alata. With it´s desolate streets and tiny stores, it was hard to believe that anyone actually lived there, and the lack of people seemed to back up the theory, until it was explained that most of the locals are out farming the land during the day.

Next, we headed up through the Valley of the Llama´s, where it was strange to suddenly be confronted with lush green hills and hundreds of the grazing animals. A packed local bus containing a number of tired looking faces crossed us on the way into the hills, treacherously weaving its way down the single-width dirt track with surprising ease. For many of the mountain dwelling people in the region, this is the only way for them to travel to the nearest towns for vital supplies. We stopped for water some 90 minutes further on, in the small village of San Augustin, where the shop-keeper had to literally be woken from her afternoon nap to open the store and serve us.

Our final stop on the second day was in the near-deserted town of Julaca, a run-down, dusty town, sitting just a few kilometres from the Salar de Uyuni. Cargo trains still run to and from here, although it´s hard to know why when there is literally nothing for miles around. Doro disappeared for around an hour, sparking rumours he was either having it away with the local woman who had earlier appeared with her baby, or was more feasibly having a nap after we'd commmented that he was nodding off behind the wheel some 30 minutes before. "No problema" obviously.

For the last leg of the day ´Schumacher´ was back in his element, racing some nearby cars to the overnight hostel stop on the edge of the Salt Flats. At one point he nearly ran one poor group off the road, which added some excitement to our final hour-long stretch. The accommodation for our second and final night was much preferable and so after a good hot shower, a fairly reasonable dinner and a few highly competitive games of table-tennis, we were off to bed in preparation for our final morning at the flats.

Up at 6:30, and now at some 3,660 metres above sea-level, we headed into the flats. At 12,000 square kilometres, these are the biggest salt flats in the world, created when the rains stopped many hundreds of years ago and the water in the once huge lagoon evaporated to leave the one-metre thick hardened surface. Only when sitting in the peacefulness of the middle of the flats did we realise the true scale of what we were seeing. The blinding white salt stretches for as far as the eye can see, and on misty days, with compasses rendered useless, it has been known for cars to be lost in the expanse when the nearby mountains cannot be used as navigation markers. Tour companies now refuse to venture out in less than perfect conditions since a car-load of tourists and their inexperienced driver froze to death just over a year ago.

In the middle of the salt flats, we stopped at the Isla Incahuasi where giant cacti reside, some more than 1200 years old. It was possible here to climb the secluded ´island´ and get a good birds-eye view of the Salar. Driving onwards to Uyuni, we also stopped to see the Salt Hotel, now closed for guests but open as a museum, before finally heading into the Salt Refinement village of Colchain.

On the whole, three very bumpy and surprisingly tiring days. Definitely one of the true spectacles of any visit to South America, although we have to admit that we were helped greatly by being paired with some really good travelling companions who never tired of translating for us, and a driver with a bit of a screw loose. As he might say... "No Problema".

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