“Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl…”

So we arrived in Copacabana. OK, not Barry Manilow’s Copacabana, but a nice little town nonetheless. Situated on the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca, Copa is much more appealing than Peru’s lakeside town of Puno; a likable tourist mecca full of restaurants, bars and shops selling any type of alpaca wool clothing you could wish for. We got our first taste of how cheap Bolivia would be when we checked into a beautiful new hotel in a fourth floor room with a balcony, lots of windows and a view of the lake for a mere $10 a night. Not the cheapest place we’ve stayed this trip but definitely the nicest for the money.

We spent our first day doing mostly nothing but got ambitious the next day when we decided to hike to a neighbouring village 17 km down a dirt road along the lake. Accompanying us was Marcus, a Swede we had met at dinner the night before. His plan was to do the hike and catch a ferry to a local island. Kevin and I planned to catch a ride in a minibus or something back to Copa. The walk was great: we went along the lake and then up a short hill where we met up with another hiker, an American named Allen. We went up a longer, steeper hill along an ancient Incan road paved with stones. At the top we had a great view of the lake and we stopped to eat the bread, cheese and olives we had brought for lunch. We had a visit from three local children who were very impressed with our binoculars and digital camera. Their grubby hands took all the olives we offered and stuffed them into their grubby pockets for later.

By the time we were done lunch it had been two hours since we had left Copa and we had only seen two vehicles pass by us on the road so Kevin and I decided that instead of taking the risk of being stranded 17 km from our hotel, we would turn back. Marcus decided to return with us and Allen persevered on. By the time we got back to Copa, the first day of the three-day Fiesta de la Viergen d Candelaria was in full swing. Groups of costumed dancers with accompanying bands were winding their way through the streets. Most of the women wore the traditional Bolivian attire while many of the men wore suits in all different colours. There were also more elaborate costumes with masks, hats, and big shiny armor-like suits. Stalls selling beer and various other local homebrew were set up all along the route so Marcus, Kevin and I made ourselves comfortable and watched the show, joined for a while by Kiwis Dale and Mark. The festivities went well into the night, group after group paraded by, some of the costumes getting a bit more risqué as the night wore on. Drinking was as much a part of the parades as the costumes were. Most participants carried glasses or bottles with them. Those whose costumes did not allow for them to get their bottle to their lips had others help them out. We saw more than one drunk man get hauled away mid-parade by his wife or significant other.

A bit later on came one of the most dangerous fireworks displays I have ever witnessed. Three tall, shaky towers were erected and held upright by some poor guys who must have lost a bet. A fuse was lit at the bottom and wheels of sparking fireworks spun around, flinging fiery shrapnel into the crowd and on the ground below as children ran about, stamping out the flames. Each wheel would progressively light the next wheel above until it reached the top in a massive explosion of sparks and fireworks. Shockingly, no one was injured – at least not that we saw.

By the time we turned in around midnight the party was still in full swing with bands playing on all sides of the main plaza and dancing in the streets. We thought that when we met Marcus at 8 am to catch a bus to La Paz the streets would be deserted but we were awoken at 6 am as the bands began assembling in the square. We could see men with tubas, cymbals and baritones running and stumbling down the street and the band played and drank on as we pulled away.

La Paz is set in a deep valley at 3,660 meters. It is an awesome city to approach as the land is a flat desolate plain that suddenly drops away into a steep valley full of city. We descended into the center and had a bit of a struggle finding a decent play to stay, especially since everything in our price range was crap compared to our palace in Copa. The next morning the three of us were picked up at our hostel at 7:30 to begin our mountain bike ride down “The World’s Most Dangerous Road”, also known as Death Road. Also along for the trip was a German who was so hung over that he was vomiting and a Belgian who did not speak. This in no way stopped Marcus, Kevin and I from having the time of our lives.

We were driven up to 4,700 meters above sea level where we were served breakfast and coca tea before getting on our Trek bikes (and yes Dad, I did wear a helmet). For almost 22 km we rode straight down, full out, no brakes, in a full tuck on a paved road that clung to the side of a beautiful deep valley. A few short hills at the end of the 22 km left us gasping for oxygen at the high altitude. The next section was the official Death Road, so named because an average of 100 people die on it each year. It is a single lane dirt/mud/dust/rock track that twists and turns down the valley, often with an unguarded drop of hundreds of meters on the side. Corners deemed to be especially dangerous are manned with flag people (actually mostly children) who control the flow of the sparse traffic – mainly buses and transport trucks. Here our well-worn front shocks and disk brakes got a good workout as we raced downhill, through shallow streams and waterfalls. It’s rainy season in the Andes so we were prepared for the worst but we were blessed with beautiful sunshine and the occasional cloud. It was an exhilarating 4 ½ hours and a total of 63 km down 3,000 meters in elevation to the village and river at the base of the valley. There we did what everyone should do after an awesome mountain bike ride – we had a beer. Then we were driven to a nearby hotel for a hot shower and a big lunch.

The drive back to La Paz took almost five hours, back up the Death Road where we were able to enjoy the scenery much more as we did not have to have our eyes glued to the road in front of us. The number of crosses and memorials on the road was eerie and we later heard that an average of three cyclists go over the edge each year.

The next day we said goodbye to our friend Marcus and boarded a bus south bound to the city of Uyuni. We had to change buses after three hours and the second section was 14 ½ hours of washboard, potholes and washouts along a dirt road that is often impassable in the rainy season. At around 5 am, nine hours into the second leg of our journey, a bus in front of us got stuck on a short loose-rock incline. It took 3 ½ hours of standing around looking at the thing before it was decided to let the bus roll back down the hill to a pullout area to let all the accumulated traffic pass.

The purpose of our trip to Uyuni was to see the Salar de Uyuni, at 12,000 sq km the world’s largest salt flat, the remnants of a prehistoric salt lake. Because we were short on time in Bolivia it was important that we get on a tour the day we arrived and because our bus arrived 3 ½ hours late, we were concerned that we may have to wait a day to book a trip. Luckily the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Bolivia and several agents met our bus offering trips leaving in less than half and hour. So after a quick cup of coffee we were in a Land Rover with our companions for the next three days: Renee from Salem, Oregon; Erica from Madison, Wisconsin; Dwayne from Portland, Oregon; Michael from Ireland; and Karen from Israel. Our guide, France, (from Bolivia) took us out onto the salt flats which in the dry season look like a plain of snow but in the rainy season is covered by a thin layer of water. This is exceptionally beautiful and makes for amazing photographs as it becomes nearly impossible to differentiate the land from the sky. Our tour included “lunch at a salt hotel” a hotel built on the flats entirely out of blocks of salt. “Lunch at a salt hotel” turned out to be eating off the tailgate our of Land Cruiser in the parking lot, which just goes to show that you should always be very specific when booking tours.

After a bit more time on the flats, we headed south through a wide flat plain ringed with snowcapped mountains. We arrived in the town of San Cristobal which was to be our home for the night. Our group of seven was split into two dorm rooms but we quickly established one room as “The Bar” and spent the night drinking Cuban spiced rum and playing cards.

The next day we drove even further south, stopping at several “lagunas” or small lakes. The lakes here are rich with minerals, primarily borax, sulfur and potassium. They are also home to flamingos, those long-legged pink birds that you think only live in the tropics are actually living happily here at over 4,500 meters above sea level. As we drove, the countryside constantly changed from scrubby grassland to rocky moon-like landscapes – some of the most beautiful and amazing scenery I have ever seen. We saw lots of llama and quite a few vecunas, smaller, wild relatives of the llama. We stopped a few times to check out some volcanic rock formations and then entered a national park which had a hostel where we stayed for the night.

As we had consumed all our spiced rum the night before, we were forced to switch to the local brew, some sort of white firewater that actually tasted pretty good (after the second or third drink). More games of cards were dealt and what followed was a night of debauchery the likes of which cannot be described on this website but let’s just say that we each only got about two hours sleep and none of the other hostel guests liked us in the morning.

So our wakeup call at 4:30 came mighty early and we stumbled to collect our gear and get into the Toyota where we all promptly fell asleep. Some time later, France woke us up to see through blurry eyes some geysers and bubbling mud pools caused by some underground volcanic activity. After another short drive and short sleep we were revitalized by a soak in a 30 C hot spring pool and some homemade Bolivian Egg McMuffins courtesy of France. We drove to Laguna Verde, a beautiful aquamarine lake with a perfectly formed volcano in the background. And then we drove within 10 km of the Chilean border where we dropped off Renee at a bus stop of sorts for her onward journey south. Our Cruiser then turned northward and it was a six hour drive back to Uyuni, which mostly involved a lot of napping on behalf of the passengers.

In Uyuni Kevin and I were able to have a quick shower at Michael, Karen and Dwayne’s hostel (there were no showers at our accommodations the two previous nights) and then a pizza and beer before catching our bus back north on the hell road towards La Paz and onward to the Peruvian city of Arequipa. We were lucky in Bolivia both with the people we met and the things we did and saw. It is a beautiful country and we definitely did not budget enough time to see even a little bit of it. I guess we’ll have to go back one day.

B.

Photos:
Copa Celebration
Us with Marcus - Preride
Biking on the Ledge
Post Bike Beer
Death Road Survivours
Kevin on the Salar de Uyuni
Lunch at the Salt Hotel
Kevin on Condor Rock
Erica, Michael, Dwayne, Karen, Brandy, Renee, Kevin
In the Land Cruiser
Bolivian Landscape
At Laguna Verde