Fred's world tour
Week 6
– La Paz to Potosi in Bolivia
3rd
until the 9th of November 2012
In
brief:
- Sightsee La paz, including Valle de la luna, coca leaf museum and cemetery the day after 'El dia del muerto' (day of the dead).
- Cycle down the world's most dangerous road, the 'Carretera de la muerte' (Death Road)
- Witness the sunrise from Isla del Sol on lake Titicaca and trek from north to south of the island.
- See Argentina's first ever flag.
- Visit 68 million year old dinosaur footprints.
- Venture deep into the cooperative mines of 'El Cerro Rico' in Potosi
- Be part of a traditional independence day display.
Being at
3,660 metres high in La Paz, the highest capital city in the world,
makes any minor activity a huge effort. You get a headache easily and
constantly feel you've just run a half marathon. For my second day of
acclimatisation I took a open top tour bus to the south of the city
with the ultimate aim to learn about the city's history and end up at
the Valle de la Luna. The city seems to be built on sand/rubble and
unfortunately for the hillside houses each rainy season takes away
more of the land beneath them until the house ends up in the river.
I'm sure it seemed like a good idea building there when trees helped
to hold the land together but then they decided to use the trees for
combustible fuel hence the huge erosion problem. This erosion did
cause and impressive landscape at the south of the city. The so
called Moon valley for its alien landscape was a great place to 'run'
around. This was overlooked by the devil's tooth mountain because of
its appearance to, yep you guessed it, a tooth.
On the way
back I learned how England has influenced La paz and Bolivia as a
whole. In its mining industry, railway, tennis, football and even the
bowler hat fashion of the indigenous women. It turns out the reason
most of the indigenous women wear bowler hats is thanks to a British
hat maker in Bolivia who was failing to sell his stock of bowler hats
to the men so he then went on to sell them to high society's women
claiming that they were all the fashion in Europe. Unfortunately this
trick worked and then the lower class indigenous population copied.
Until this day bowler hats are worn by the indigenous females as part
of their traditional wear!
That afternoon after the tour I went for a
huge walk around the city to the Olympic stadium where a replica of
the Tiwanaku ruins were. Although its not the real thing its quite
nice to see the ruins from yesterday in full detail like they used to
be before being weathered away. From there I went to some lookouts of
the city, plazas and ended up in the cemetery. I'm used to cemeteries
being really quiet and deserted places. This was completely
different. It was full of life. Relatives walking around everywhere.
They were singing, crying, praying, cleaning the plaques, changing
the flowers, having picnics and drinking. Graves were in the form of
towering stack sometimes reaching three stories high! Resembling more
like apartment blocks than a grave yard. This was bizarrely a great
experience.
The next
day was the activity that I've been looking forward to doing every
since I heard about it some 10 years ago... and that's to cycle down
the death road or 'carretera de la muerte'. Named as such because
before 2007 the road was used for two way traffic to Coroico. The
road is a very narrow, cliff hugging dirt road constantly changing
because of landslides. Many people died before the opening of the
alternative and safer road. The road still sees its share of
fatalities as some still see it as a short-cut with less traffic! The
most recent was a car full of people died 4months ago. Its not
unheard of for bikers to also go off the edge since it gained appeal
among thrill seekers! The descent started as some 4000metres on paved
road where you could get some serious speed going downhill. The idea
was to get used to the bikes. Then we had breakfast and soon after
were on the gravel track of the death road. Hardly wide enough for
one car its hard to believe this was used for two way traffic with
some passing areas. The cliffs on the left side of the road were
ridiculously impressive and adrenaline pumping. We learnt that we had
to ride on the left side i.e. the cliff side because up going
vehicles have priority of the safer side! Not a problem then! For the
next 50km I've never been so scared, excited, amazed and blownaway by
any experience before. I was going fast, doing jumps, skids,
overtaking and putting my dual suspension bike to its limits. I kept
thinking that something like this would not be allowed in the UK. A
minor lapse in concentration or brake problem and you could be off
the edge! The ride ended around 2pm at some 2,000 metres lower and at
a completely different climate! The tour included buffet lunch at the
bottom and the use of a great pool. Just want the doctor ordered!
(sorry :-)
From Death
road to Copacabana on the shores of lake Titicaca the highest
navigable lake in the world and covers 8,400 squared kilometres.
Incidental it was an English-made steam boat that was the first
mechanical boat to float on its waters! It was carried in bits by
Llamas from Chile. On the Monday I took a bus to this scenic
lake-side town, I climbed up the pilgrimage trail of the Calvario to
give me a better view of the lake and town. Again because its still
3808m up in the Andes this was no mean feat. I made it back down just
in time for the 13:30 boat to the north part of the Isla del sol
(Island of the sun) where according to Inca mythology the sun was
created. The village at the north island is nothing but about 50
houses. Some have built extensions with rooms to accommodate tourist.
As the boat landed a 12year old boy persuades me to check out his
family's place. I drag along Annabel, Maxime and a Columbian couple.
Impressed by the view, the cleanliness and the price of £2.5 for the
night we all picked our rooms. All rooms had windows facing the beach
and where the sun would rise tomorrow morning. We left our bags in
the room and then went for a wonder. During the walk I got to know
the other travellers, met Aymara (indigenous families) working on the
fields, crossed paths with llamas and also appreciated the beautiful
surrounds where we had chosen to stay the night. The walk ended at
'the' restaurant seeing as its the only one in town. At the table I
found myself around a table with 5 nurses, four french and one swiss,
and also Maxime. Maxime is a French Club Med fitness instructor who
looks like a pretty big rugby player so you couldn't imagine that
only 4 days ago he took a dodgy taxi that took him to a dark alleyway
where three men assaulted him! They took all his possessions and
clothes leaving him in his underwear. He was beaten pretty badly
especially his face. He was then picked up by police who arrested him
for indecent exposure and wanted to fine him a lot of money. Never
mind that he had just been robbed and kicked in the head repeatedly!
Anyway as was for my case the embassy came to the rescue and he
thankfully was released with no fines. Crazy stories like this
probably put anyone off travelling but it has to be said that they
are very rare.
The next
morning, after a stormy night I was up on the balcony enjoying the
sunrise around 6am with a bag of fruit as my breakfast. It was very
early on a crispy cold morning and yet I saw lots of men and women
go work on the fields or take the animals out. They are very devoted
and kind people. They are however very much against having their
picture taken. That day I got a group together and we all set off up
the mountain in search of our first Inca ruins. Lake Titicaca is so
vast, blue and placid which made for a stunning trek. From seeing the
ruins to the north we trekked to the south along the mountain ridge.
The sun was beating down hard on us but because of the altitude it
wasn't particularly hot and difficult to tell if you were getting
burnt.
With
three indigenous 'checkpoints' we had to pay three times for the
privilege of walking along the island! By the third we thought they
must be joking. After almost 5hours of beautiful trekking and two
mostly unimpressive ruins I was on the boat back to Copacabana to
feast on one last whole trout fresh from the lake. With belly full we
were treated to an impressive sunset en route to La Paz by bus. La
paz had torrential rain to welcome us back.
With time
flying by I wasted no time in getting my overnight bus to Sucre to
appreciate the whitewashed colonial city of Bolivia. Annabel and I
relaxed in the nice green plaza took in the atmosphere followed by a
visit to the museum where the first ever Argentinian flag is kept. It
looks a bit tatty if you ask me but the glass case I suppose is doing
a good job preserving this ancient treasure :-) . From there Annabel
and I went out of town to the highlight of the city, the 68million
year old dinosaur footprints. A cement factory had dug into the
mountain and stopped where there was a change in the rock type. This
left a cliff-face exposed to the elements where after a few months
the weather helped to erode a layer and expose the glorious dinosaur
footprints you can see today. Obviously when the dinosaurs roamed the
earth that piece of land was horizontal and only the rise of the
Andes made them vertical..... otherwise those were dinosaurs with
spider-man talents! The tourist park was well done with moulds of the
prints and live size figures which made for an interesting walk
around.
From there
Annabel and I thought we had pretty much seen all there is of Sucre
so off we went our separate ways that afternoon. The hostal charged
me half a day's fee and then I went to Potosi. Potosi is next to 'El
Cerro Rico' which once housed the richest supply of silver ore and
other minerals that made Potosi the wealthiest city in South America
for a period. It also apparently underwrote the Spanish economy for
almost two decades. Today was it left is mostly white silver, zinc,
copper, arsenic and very bitter locals that hate the Spanish people!
My Spanish accent of course didn't help things! The next day I went
and did what is thought to be Potosi's 'must-do thing', a mine tour.
It was only me who signed up to the tour that day which meant a more
personal experience of the mines. I donned the hard-hat, lamp,
jacket, trousers, wellies and got the intro from the guide. From the
start of the tour the guide was racist, sexist, homophobic and rude
in so many other ways I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing.
There was a lot of fake smile and nodding from my part. Never the
less the tour was informative. The first stop was the miners market
we bought 96% alcohol, two bottles of squash and beer. These were as
offerings to the miners we were to see en route. The 96% alcohol I
thought was to clean machinery or tools but no this was 'Bolivian
potable alcohol' for drinking! 30 mins into the mines we found a
group of 4 miners and sat in a little tunnel with a light, chatting
for 1hour while they consumed shots of squash mixed with the 96%
alcohol. My guide took a few more liberties than the rest which meant
I spent the next hour and a half following a drunk guide through
small, dark, dusty and arsenic infested tunnels. It was actually
quite entertaining . He would burst into song, randomly decide to go
down a narrow hole, crawl in tunnels and explain to me how to kill
someone with just a thumbs worth of arsenic he was holding! All in
all I felt I got to know a lot about a miners, life, culture and the
complete disregard for their own health. All this for the shiny
silver we find in everyday life. On the way back to the hostel we
stopped at the refinery which apparently broke every ecological and
chemical safety rule ever created because there were 'no
repercussions'. Good to know.
That
afternoon I really didn't feel well, not sure if it was the gases in
the mines, the altitude or the dust despite me buying an industrial
mask. I was tired, had a headache and felt like I wasn't able to
think properly. I definitely wouldn't have done the mine tour without
the mask because of what i'd heard about the air quality so I can't
imagine what I would be like after if I hadn't used one. After
recovering a little bit I went for some sightseeing round the centre.
The 'Casa nacional de le moneda' was an impressive museum that told
the story of where Bolivia's and Spain's currency was made using
furnaces, presses and cutters. There was also an impressive
collection of silver artefacts, minerals and paintings from around
South America. Did you know that none of Bolivia's currency is now
made in country due to the expense of fabricating it? The bills are
made in Holland, the 5 Boliviano coin in Canada and the rest of the
coins made in Chile.
That
evening the hole town was celebrating the 202th year of
independence from Spain so there were parades of people, brass bands
and even little kids botton twirling. A great way to end week 6.
Next
week: I travel to Uyuni to do
a three to 4 day tour of the Uyuni salt flats. Then I may either go
into Chile or Argentina.
Route so far:
View Fred´s world tour - Route in a larger map
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