Chaska in South America

Matt and I spent almost a full week in Bolivia and managed to do a lot within this past week. We started off by leaving Peru on the 8th and first going to Copacabana, Bolivia, which like Puno is also on Lake Titicaca. It’s really beautiful there, and we lucked out and had really nice, sunny weather the whole time we were there. We stayed in Copacabana for two nights and pretty much just hung out and enjoyed the nice weather. We did take a trip to Isla del Sol while there, but we were really stupid and opted for a half day trip, which ended up only giving us like an hour on the island! It took us like an hour and half just to get there and another hour and half to get back…what a waste of time. There were TONS of Argentineans there in Copacabana and all over Bolivia for that matter…funny, because there were hardly any in Peru. There were also tons of hippies in Copacabana, which gave the whole town kind of a different feel from other cities in Peru and Bolivia.
After Copacabana, we went to La Paz and spent two nights there. La Paz is a big city with lots going on, and it was actually kind of nice to be in a big city after spending so much time in small cities and towns. We ate Burger King (I never eat that crap at home, but after 5 weeks straight of Peruvian and Bolivian food….), drank real coffee, and we saw a surprisingly really good Bolivian movie. We were also able to fix a big problem with our plane tickets…a much bigger problem than we even thought we had. Thank goodness we went to the TACA office there. I basically would have been stranded in Costa Rica without a ticket home otherwise because of a big mistake the travel office we went to in Argentina made. Anyway, now we’re free to skip our plane trip from Lima to Brazil and are on our way to Brazil by bus now instead.
After La Paz, we took off for Potosi, which was about a nine hour bus ride south from La Paz. Potosi is the highest city in the world, according to our guide book, and it was absolutely freezing!! We took an overnight bus from La Paz to Potosi and I thought I was going to freeze to death on the ride…I had like four sweatshirts and jackets on, a scarf, and gloves, and I was still freezing. We only spent one night in Potosi, but we did one of the coolest things I’ve ever done while there. We were able to take a tour of an enormous mine they have there called Cerro Rico. The mine is not modern at all. It’s probably what the mines in the States were like well over 100 years ago. It was an absolutely crazy experience. We spent over 3 hours underground, climbing through dark, narrow tunnels and down rickety latters. There were several times where we had to climb through parts on our hands and knees because the tunnels were so small. The brochure for the tour said in English “Not for wimps or woosies”…and they weren’t kidding! We were able to see the miners working and spent a lot of time just hanging out with them in the mine and talking to them…it was really interesting. Once out of the mine and back on top of the ground in the light, I couldn’t believe I actually spent all that time under there…it was really one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had.
After Potosi, we took another wonderful South American bus ride to Tupizo, which is in the south west of Bolivia. The bus ride was over 9 hours long on unpaved dirt roads…more bumpy than you can ever imagine! We also had the luck of getting a flat tire on the way and then got dropped off way far outside of town so that we had to walk forever with our huge heavy backbacks to get into the center…what fun. Anyway, Tupizo was a really nice quiet town in scenery that looks just like the American Southwest.
Two days ago we took another super bumpy bus from Tupiza to the Bolivian/Argentinean border and crossed into Argentina. It’s really nice to be back in Argentina. We immediately went and had some awesome pasta once we crossed the border…the food is definitely much better here in Argentina than in Peru or Bolivia! We then took an overnight bus from the border city La Quiaca to Salta, where we are right now. The bus was a million times nicer than any bus we took in Peru or Bolivia and we were so excited to have a smooth, relaxing bus ride for a change…it didn’t end up being quite as relaxing as we hoped. We got stopped two seperate times by immigration officials and everyone on the bus had to get off and get all our luggage from the bottom of the bus and stand in line to be searched. It happened once at about 12:30 and again at like 5 am…needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep on the bus! Anyway, we’re now in Salta which is a really nice city. We really haven’t done too much…we’re kind of just resting from all the the travelling we’ve been doing. We plan to take off again tonight though to Mendoza which is about 16 hours away. We’ll then go to Santiago, Chile for a few days and stay with some family friends I have there. Then, it’s across Argentina and Uruguay to Brazil! Here are some photos of our time in Bolivia.

Welcome to Bolivia! We had just walked over the border from Peru.

This is the “beach” in Copacabana. The town has a real beach town vibe. There were tons of people out this day because it was actually sunny and not raining.

We arrived to Copacabana on Sunday, so we got to see this really funny tradition they have there. Every Sunday at the church they have a “blessing of the cars.” Everyone brings their car to the church and buys holy water to poor all over the car. They also buy a bunch of flowers and things to decorate the car with. All over the city there were decorated cars that had been blessed that day. They also sold beer and champaine and people poured that on the cars too…not really sure why.

Here they are buying the holy water to pour on their cars.

Even huge buses get in on the action!

We climbed a small mountain they have there in Copacabana and there were awesome views of Lake Titicaca. The water was an amazing color of blue…it was so pretty.

A beautiful sunset in Copacabana.

Here’s La Paz. The city is pretty interesting. It’s basically a bowl shape. The center of the city in the middle of the bowl and hills going up on all sides. The altitude makes the hills brutal!

Just a little section of a HUGE street market in La Paz.

Plaza Murillo with the congress building in the back. I really liked this plaza, it was really pretty.

A candid shot of Matt being asked if he wants a shoeshine. The shoeshine guys are really interesting in La Paz. Notice that his face is completely covered. It makes them look really scary, but I guess they cover their faces because shining shoes is looked at as one of lowest class jobs and they don’t want people to know who they are and destroy their family honor.

This is something we saw all over Peru and Bolivia that we thought was so funny. These guys sit in the street or sometimes just on a plaza bench with typewriters and type out letters or forms for anyone who wants.

This next little segment is dedicated to Anthony. He thought it was cool that I was going to Bolivia right after all the chaos that went on with their recent elections. For those of you that don’t know, Evo Morales, the first “campesino”, was just elected president there. Anthony thought there might be some cool action going on and told me to practice some “extreme photo journalism” if so. Bolivia was actually super calm though and Morales wasn’t even in the country when we were there. However, one day while visiting Plaza Murillo, there was a rowdy group of protesters. Not really sure what they were protesting, but then all of the sudden this police guy told Matt and I to get out of the way because there was a suspicious looking backback just sitting against a pole. They thought there might be a bomb in it. Here’s my “extreme photo journalism” for you Anthony :).

The bomb force inspecting the suspicious backpack.

They put the backpack in a container and then drove off with it in this red truck.

Here we are in Potosi, on our way to the mine. We first stopped at the “miners market” to buy gifts for the miners. The suggested gifts are dynomite, alcohol, cigarettes, and coca leaves. Here’s Matt and my contiribution to the miners–crazy strong alcohol (96% they told us!?!), unfiltered cigarettes, and a bag of coca leaves.

Here we are with all our gear on just about to enter the mine.

Here I am coming down a super steep part of a tunnel.

The photos don’t capture the actual feel of what it was like down in the mine at all, but here’s an attempt. It was so dark and dusty the whole time.

Some of our new miner friends chomping on some coca leaves and chatting with us.

This is us just after coming out of the mine. I don’t think I have ever been so dirty and sweaty. The tempertures were super high down deep in the mine, and it was freezing cold outside. My throat hurt like crazy and my voice was hoarse from breathing in all the dust and toxins…I really can’t believe the miners work downthere 8 hours a day and breath that. According to some literature we read most miners die after 10 or 15 years of working in the mine because of inhaling all the toxins, but we talked to several who had been working for over 20 years.

Here’s our bus drivers trying to fix the flat tire on the way to Tupiza. This was only one of the difficulties the awesome bus had along the way. It also had a ton of mechanical problems, and I kid you not we stopped about every 20 minutes to check on one of the problems…it was awful!

Here’s the main plaza in Tupiza. It was a really cute town.

Tupiza was surrounded by this really pretty red rock.

Yesterday, here in Salta, we had this crazy summer storm where it just started pouring all of the sudden. I was in a cafe at the time and waited for the rain to die down to leave. As I was walking back to the hostel, the streets were completely flooded and I was trapped. I had to wade accross several streets in water up to my knees. The streets seriously looked like rivers and there was just complete chaos with everyone trying to cross.

Here are some friends we went out with last night. All three of them were at our hostel in Potosi and we all just happened to be at the same hostel again here. The two guys are Danish, Ibsen and Soren. The girl, Hannah, is English. We are contstantly seeing the same travellers in different towns along our route…it’s funny.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.