El Vago en Suramerica

Rock On!

The last week has been GREAT. I love Bolivia, just for being more different, more anything-goes, than almost any country I`ve visited.

An Isreali traveler commented to me that he hated La Paz, that it was filthy and basically just an enormous market. It`s true. La Paz is not a clean place, and it is basically a giant, 7-day market. It`s wonderful. And though its full of tourists, it is also extremely easy to find places without any foreigners at all.

The location of La Paz is ridiculous. It is located in the bottom of a huge valley at an absurd elevation in the dry, empty mountains of the andean altiplano desert. Perched above La Paz, on a plateau at 4,000 m above sea level, is El Alto, Bolivia`s new largest city. Originally a slum neighborhood on the hillside slopes of La Paz, El Alto is now South America`s fastest growing city with over 1 million inhabitants. Check out this picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lapaznasa.jpg
El Alto is the flat part, La Paz is in the valley below.

Backing up a bit…

From Cusco I went to Puno, on the shore of Lake Titicaca. The following day I took a tour of the lake, to the floating islands of Uros and to the island of Taquile. The lake is gorgeous, and the tour was really great. We stopped first at the floating islands, which are constructed of reeds that grow in the lake. Only several families live on each island, and they travel between the islands, to school or to visit friends or whatever, on reed boats. It is a crazy existence. The fact is, however, that these islands would not exist today if it wasn`t for tourism. Because of a constant flow of tourists the islands`s inhabitants are fairly well-off, but literally everything is catered to the arrival of the tourists boats, and the place doesn`t feel very genuine at all. Far more genuine was Taquile Island, where the inhabitants are mostly farmers, and they have developed their own society more or less unaffected by tourism. The island was beautiful, not only with views of the lake but also of snow-capped mountains in nearby Bolivia.

On the boat trip I met a Japanese couple, and I stayed with them for most of the day. They told me that they would be going to La Paz the following day early in the morning. After the boat trip I decided that I would head to La Paz as well, and we ended up on the same bus. It was a fine, easy-enough trip into Bolivia. On the way, we stopped in Copacabana on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca, and had a nice lunch on the lakefront. We arrived in La Paz in the evening, and as we left the bus we began to search for a hotel along with a Mexican guy we met upon arrival. I ended up sharing a room with the Mexican in hotel “Las Brujas,” which is down the street from the crazy witches market where indigenous women sell all varieties of herbal medicines.

On thursday, the four of us began to explore the city a bit, and we made a trip to the outskirts of La Paz to a park called “Valle de la Luna.” It was a truly lunar landscape, a crazy maze composed of towering pillars of sand above deep crevasses. We spent an hour exploring, and then wandered a bit further to the La Paz zoo. The zoo wasn`t great, but we enjoyed it nevertheless.

That evening the Japanese couple left. The Mexican guy and I had signed up for a bicycle tour down the “Death Road,” from La Paz to Coroica in the nearby jungle, the following day. We had been told to meet at 7:30 at the travel agency, but we slept until 7:50. Literally jumping out of bed, we raced to the agency, but were told that the bus had already left. We had to go with a travel agent in a taxi to catch the bus at the exit of La Paz. Freezing cold, we arrived at the beginning of our bike route, at some 4,600 meters above sea level. That is very, very high. There were icicles on the side of the road as we set off on our bikes.

The trip began with a steep downhill, paved section, and we cruised effortlessley quite a ways. After this was an uphill section, which I enjoyed quite a bit. It was nice to work a little bit after so much effortless biking. Following the uphill began the real “death road,” a long, unpaved section of road with vast cliffs on the side. It was dusty, rocky, and fun.

I had gone with perhaps the cheapest tour company, not really thinking much about the quality of the tour I would be receiving. Throughout the trip, there were problems with our bikes. My mexican friend fell near the beginning when his tire actually fell off. Someone else had his seat fall off, and another group member had a wheel pop. At one point my back break stopped working, and I had to switch bikes. When things were looking particularly bad in terms of our bike situation, another group lined up behind us on the side of the road. We talked a bit with them; they were with the guides “gravity assisted biking,” apparently the best quality guides of the trip. Next to one another, we looked like a group of absolute misfits. We were all men, wearing unmatching jackets, with different, all seemingly disfunctional bikes, and no guide in sight. The gravity group cruised in with matching uniforms, shiny, new bikes, and a guide who would inform everyone about the upcoming terrain and any interesting sights. It was unanymous opinion among my group that we were cheap bastards and that we recieved what we had payed for. Nevertheless, we had lots of fun. The people in our group were great. Upon arrival at the end of the route, I must say that I had no regrets.

That evening I went with my mexican friend to a concert by Vicentico, the lead singer of the Fabulosos Cadillacs. The Cadillacs are one of the giants of Spanish Rock, an argentine band famous throughout latin america. It seemed that nearly all of La Paz was present in the open-air theater for the concert, and it was a true spectacle. Vicentico is a great singer, and everyone in his band is very professional, all excellent musicians. There was the sense at the end of a slight disappointment, because the band didnt play some of the Cadillacs biggest hits. I didnt particularly care, and enjoyed myself tremendously.

On Saturday morning the Mexican left, and I met Freddy, and member of the hospitality club from La Paz. We went together to a nice viewpoint of the city, and talked for a while. In the evening I walked up from La Paz to El Alto. The climb took me about an hour and a half, having climbed up over 400 meters in elevation. I walked through crazy hillside markets, around winding roads offering spectacular views, and up dizzying staircases on the edge of slums. I arrived on the plateau in an empty, barren field with several train-tracks cut across it, and some tents set up marking the beginning of yet another market. This market is probably one of the cheapest in the world, with ridiculously low prices, but I merely wandered through. At sunset, I took a bus back into the valley. This was certainly one of my favorite walks of the entire trip.

After getting back from going out, I had a big problem in my hotel. The guy at the door gave me my key, but to open the door to my room required quite a bit of effort. As I was working at it, the key snapped in half, stranding the end in the door´s lock. I got the guy at the door to come up and take a look, and we worked together to remove the key-part. We had no luck. He told me I could sleep in another room that minutes before had been abandoned, and I did so. I slept poorly, though, and couldn´t feel rested until I was able to access my possessions once again. At 9 am, the hotel staff told me that the door had not yet been fixed. Finally, at 11, I was told that I would again be able to enter my room. It was a frightening evening, being trapped without money and contact lens solution.

Today I will meet some friends (my own age!) in a short time. I met them yesterday evening in a great disco. And tomorrow, I head to Argentina. It will be a long trip, but I`m looking forward to it…

There is still some adventure to come!

Love,
Dan

AND BY THE WAY…. It looks damn far from La Paz to Buenos Aires on the map, but it isnt so bad. I started this trip with a 60 hour bus ride, and its 50 hours to Buenos Aires. Ì´ll be in Argentina´s capital in no time at all.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 21st, 2006 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.