We’re leaving on a jet plane…….

The journey from La Paz to Uyuni in the South can only be described as the nearest thing imaginable to hell on earth! We left La Paz the same day as we returned from Rurrenabaque to make sure we could be in Chile for the next England match…nothing is being left to chance from now on! Now we were warned the night bus could be cold so I wrapped up (Chris made claim to his Geordie roots stating he did not feel the cold…hah …mistake no 1 on Chris´part) and we both took our sleeping bags on board. Well the bus wasn´t cold….it was freexing with a capital F….. 13 hours on a bus which is bumpier than a pneumatic drill (if minors get white finger we surely have white asses!) and to make matters worse there was ice on the inside of the window……Chris who had the window seat was pressed up againt the ice and I swear I heard the odd whimper! By the time we arrived in Uyuni we had no feeling in our feet and Chris claimed no feeling in his right leg from the knee down……picture him dragging that leg behind him all the way to our hostal!

Well needless to say Uyuni does not hold a fond place in our hearts…….even once we adopted the four pairs of socks strategy (Chris later upped this to five but I´ll get to that).

The purpose of our visiting Uyuni was to get ourselves on to a three day tour of the salt flats and through into our third country of the trip – Chile (aptly named don´t you think?).

Our group consisted of me and Chris and three Austrian lads who had just finished their national service and the driver who doubled up as cook. First stop the salt flats……now I could write paragraphs explaining the slat flats which span for 12,000km square but the photos will tell you everything you need to know…..it is madness….all you can see is white salt leading to the horizon.

After visiting the salt hotel (yep…a hotel made solely of salt) we continued the tour to an Island in the salt flats called Incahuasi, or more fondly as Fish Island ….named because it is shaped like a fish! (couldn´t see it myself). The Island is covered by huge cacti …some reaching over 10m high.

Night 1 was spent at a hostal run by the tour company on the edge of the salt flats. Now night 2 was the night which had been billed as being freezing with the accomodation described as a ” basic refuge” …now I wasn´t sure what that actually meant but I knew it wasn´t good….. but we were not taking any chances on night 1 making sure we were wrapped up in layers of clothes and maintaining the “four sock system”….the night however turned out to be toasty thanks to multiple blankets….however when visiting the toilets the next day we were unable to flush the damn things as the cisterns had froze over!

Day 2 began with a visit to the antiplanic lagoons (Canapa, Hediona and Ramadita) and then a trip to the Siloli desert to see the famous stone tree. I say famous…..well it is in all the Bolivian brochures but we had never heard of it before. After a photo session at the stone tree in which everyone we asked to take a picture of us managed to cut off the top of the tree or we were out of focus,, we proceeded to the Red Lagoon which sits at 4278m above sea level and our “basic refuge” which sat on its bank. At the red lagoon the temperature fluctuates between 25 degrees C during the day and minus 20 dgerees at night. It was cold….we basically ate and went straight to bed after raiding neighbouring dorms for blankets ….clearly each man for their own at these temperatures….and Chris upping the anti by donning an extra pair of socks (five pairs!)

Day 3 began at 5.30 am with an hours ride to natural geysers. Five minutes into the hour journey we soon learnt that one of our Austrian friends clearly had an upset stomch from the vomit-inducing, putrid smells he was emitting. Chris and I who were placed directly behind him had to pull our hoodies over our noses to stifle the wretching noises we could not hold back. We arrived at the geysers which were fantastic (our favourite part of the trip) but smelt of sulphur. However….(now I have been working towards this….just go with it!) they were not a smelly as the Austrian Geezer in the 4×4…boom boom!

Here comes the scientific bit… lava boils in craters and the fumaroles emit mixed vapour which reaches heights of 10 to 15m high and sprout to a temperature of over 90 degrees C minimum. It is also said that the area is home to goblins and devils for the height and the abundant scent of sulphur….in which case a goblin had clearly crawled up the Auistrians butt!

Following a visit to a natural thermal pool we went on to visit Laguna Verde (the green lake), and laguna blanca (the white lake) named after the colour the lakes appear. The lakess marked the end of the trip.

The Chilean border crossing was slightly more vigilant than that we experienced entering Bolivia, with our bags being checked for fruit, dairy products and drugs but we passed through with flying colours. We are now in a town called San Pedro de Attacama which sits on the edge of the Atacama desert….it is a backpacker haven and consequently extremly expensive…..so tonight we leave on a 23 hour bus ride for Santiago ready for our flights to New Zealand next Monday. We have booked a de cama bus which has seats that recline into beds on the basis that the head rests on every bus we have been on to date sit firmly at the height of our shoulder blades.

A couple of closing points:

Chris no longer resembles big foot having finally shaved of his beard

If anyone knows the world record for the longest bout of diarrheoa then please let us know…..I reckon it could be matched if not beaten
And to end on a high note …its not so Chilly in Chile

15.6.06

We arrived here in La Paz (Bolivias de facto capital city) 1 week ago (8/6), via the bus from Puno (Lake Titticaca) in Peru.  La Paz is similar in many ways to Lima, although aproximately 4,000m higher!  As such it has the highest everything in the world, football pitch, airport, etc….the only other thing we knew about La Paz before our arrival was that everyone we met who had travelled through here previously had a tale of theft, some more elaborate than others…..one favourite scam involves fake policemen!  As such we didn´t plan to stay here too long, instead just use it as a base to book the things we wanted to do in Bolivia.

The first thing on our list was to make a trip to the North of the country to the amazon basin and into the jungle.  We booked a flight from La Paz to Rurrenbaque, opting for this mode of transport in order to avoid the 20 hour bus journey that encompassed ´the worlds most dangerous road´ which claims over 100 lives a year when coaches fall off the edge of the mountain!

Unfortunatley, a school boy error on my behalf working out time differences meant that we had booked the flight for 9am on the 10th June – the exact local time the first England game kicked off!  After much sulking on my behalf, I was chuffed to bits when we went to check in and we found out that our flight was delayed for an hour…..this meant that we were able to catch the first half of the game in Burger King at La Paz airport!  We missed the 2nd half after being called through to the departure lounge, where unfortunately there were no tvs, even more unfortunately we were kept here for another 5 hours until we finally managed to take off.  At the time, the excuse of ´cloud in Rurrenbaque´didn´t exactly wash, although when we finally arrived at the airstrip (no more than a grassy clearing in the middle of the jungle – more like Appocalypse now than heathrow!) in our 20 seater aircraft, we began to understand that cloud would pose a big problem!

Rurrenbaque is a really cool place, a small town sat between the river beni and the jungle, unfortunately the locals seem to like Karaoke, which meant that we didn´t get much sleep on the first night we arrived.  The next morning we set out on our trip into the Pampas – the grasslands.  We opted for this rather than a trip into the deep jungle after beig told that the pampas offered mcuh more opportunities to spot wildlife, and much fewer opportunities to be eaten by Mosquitoes!

We travelled for 3 hours in a 4×4 along mud tracks out of Rurrenbaque, stopping only to replace the fan belt which the truck seemed to be missing causing us to constantly overheat.  The inevitable american in our group kept us all ámused´with his countless stories, strangley all ending with the moral about how amazing he was.  After a brief stop for lunch we transferred to a wooden canoe and set out on the 3 hour boat rip to our camp.

This was when the adventure really began, within minutes we were spotting Aligators and Camen all along the banks and in the the river (beni) itself.  We were both really surprised at how common the gators and camen were, the river was litterally infested with them!  The wildlife was absolutley amazing, over the course of our journey to camp we saw, in addition to the gators and camen, several types of monkey (although no Peter Reid) flamingos, eagles, pelicans, turtles, snakes, Capybara (basically gerbils the size of large dogs!), perhaps the most amazing were the glimpses we would occasionally get of the pink river dolphins!

We arrived at our camp at dusk, and settled down with a beer in the hamocks before climbing into our mosquito nets for a good nights kip.  The next morning we set out into the grasslands themselves, in order to look for Anaconda. Unfortunately, the weather was not favourable and the americans were too loud and as a result our guide was not able to find any anaconda in the swamp lands.

In the afternoon we returned to our boat for a spot of Pirahna fishing. We were given a handline each, a hook (which was worryingly big!) and a bag of raw meat chunks. To my amazement, within about 2 seconds of dropping the line into the murky water, the meat would be attacked by several Pirahna, to the extent that they were litterally jumping out of the water into our boat! I managed to hook 3, the first I threw back into the water, feeling sorry for it (our guide was keeping all his catch to fry up for dinner), the second one I caught managed to escape by biting me whilst I tried to release it (it drew blood and everything!) so I got my revenge by keeping the 3rd fish and eating it for dinner (not much meat on them mind!). Despite Charlottes claim that she could ´Pirahna fish all day´ she was the only one on our boat not to land one, despite coming close several times!

In the evening of the second day we took a canoe trip down the river.  It was really, really dark, however, when you scanned around with your torch you kept getting bright orange reflections from the eyes of the gators, a sppoky reminder that you weren´t alone in the dark!

The final day of our tour was spent travelling back to Rurrenbaque, althougth there was one more memorable moment to be had. We stopped at a bend in the river on the way back and our guide asked if we wanted to swim with the river dolphins. Given the number of gators, camen (some up to 5 meters long!) and snakes we had seen in the river, our initial reaction was that this must be a joke, but sure enough, our American buddy (who by this stage had actually won us over!) dived right in! After a couple of tense moments waiting to see if he would be eaten, a group of 4 to 5 dolphins appeared and began swimming right up to him and splashing him with their tails. Not wanting to miss out on the action, and re-assured by the fact he was not eaten alive, myself and antoher English lad (jack) donned our trunks and also got in. The water was dark brown with all the mud, so it was difficult to see the dolphins, although you could sense they were there, amazingly they would come up right next to you and take fgreat pleasure in splashing you with their tails, it was really cool, although one splash was enough for me before I quickly made my way back to the safety of our canoe!

We completed our trip back to Rurrenbaque via 4×4 and checked into our hostal for the night. We had a return flight booked for the following day although due to poor weather this was set back 24 hours and we stayed another night. Normally this would not have been a problem, although the delay meant that we flew back during the first half of the second England game! We arrived back at La Paz in time for the second half, which we enjoyed from the same Burger King we saw the first game from!

We have decided to move on tonight (15/6) having just booked an overnight bus to Uyuni in the south of Bolivia, here we are planning to go onto the salt flats for a few days, which again are supposed to be full of amazing scenery, this place has got absolutley everything! We have uploaded our pictures of our trip onto the flickr site – keep in mind when looking at the fish photos that the ones that got away were alot bigger!

 

6th June 2006 OK....Lets start with some facts! Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world and spans the border ... [Continue reading this entry]