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| Hola all, ok, this ones a little out of date as I got back from La Paz mid August but just finished writing about it now...slack I know but whats a girl to do when there's fiestas going on every other day! I had to leave Bolivia a while ago to renew my visa and decided to cross over Lake Titicaca as it was something I really wanted to experience for a long time. Just before Liron, a cool little Israeli who I had met in Chile and Argentina came to see me here and we all went together with Pedro and two other English guys. Pedro hadn't had any interest in going to see La Paz or Lake Titicaca before we went but changed his mind at the last moment and was very glad he did so afterwards. Arriving in La Paz I had been told the view was great but after ages driving across the Altiplano we began passing through a city which had to be La Paz and was so ugly. It turned out to be El Alto, Bolivia’s newest city which began as a suburb of La Paz and grew into this huge sprawling dirty city in its own right. After a while we turned a corner and suddenly the world dropped away from the right side of the bus. Down below in a huge hollowed out canyon, a basin sunken into the ground was the city of La Paz, smaller than I imagined but strangely beautiful clinging to the sides of the canyon walls and sinking down to what must have been the financial district with its tall skyscrapers contrasting strikingly with the smaller wooden and mud built huts that embraced the sides of the huge chasm fiercely. In the far distance the mountains rose and fell dramatically and amidst them the majestic Illimani. Everyone was hanging out of the windows amazed by this sudden unexpected change in scenery, breathtaking. La Paz is full of millions of miles of market which we wandered around sampling all their fares! Went to the Coca museum which was really interesting and very informative, 96% of all campesinos chew coca and without all the chemicals used to make cocaine it is harmless, nutricious and very helpful to the campesinos and miners alike, a large part of Bolivian society and the states want to eliminate it and they are the ones that consume the largest percentage of the byproduct cocaine. After a few days in La Paz we left to go to Copacabana to get my visa stuff over and done with. From the cemetery it was a really gorgeous journey, Pedro’s first time in a boat to cross the straits, which was incredible just to see the look on his face and then we arrived. Drawing closer all the way with a view of the lake and the mountains with Illimani in the background was fantastic, the sun reflecting off the lake sparkling, magical and it was easy to see how the Incas and countless civilizations before them had revered this lake as sacred. Arriving to Copacabana we had crossed a mountain and could no longer see the snow capped Illimani but Copacabana was something in itself, backed beyond the city by a large regal mountain we circled it and then drove downhill towards the little town which sat around twin smaller mountains leading down to the Lake. Very pretty. The Lonely Planet (which is rapidly going down in my estimation) suggested that Cerro Carvalio, the larger of the two mountains, was wonderful to climb to watch the sunset. So along with every other gringo in Bolivia we wandered up the hill following countless tourists panting and puffing finally arriving at the top to see...more tourists! The view was wonderful but I wanted to conquer the bigger one behind Copacabana. The next day I decided to just cross to Yunguyo, the border town to get my visa situation over and done with. I made sure of my situation before I left checking with everyone including immigration on the Bolivian side who seemed really chuffed that I wanted to come back to Bolivia so soon... Everyone was certain it was fine to cross in the same day without charge. On the other side however they weren’t so welcoming and the dude in Migraciónes told me that if I wanted to cross in the same day I would have to pay him 10 dollars at which point he began talking rapidly to hide the fact that this money was for his Inca Cola. I told him I'd think about it went looking for the police. I finally found one who was dead nice and we had a great chat and he told me that that was a load of rubbish and that I should go back and tell him so! So I bought some Inca Cola and began walking back… Near the checkpoint I encountered a group of police who started asking me why I was walking, so I told them it was because I wanted to. One of them responded with right, come with me! so I did and when the guy inside the border control police office asked what the problem was this cop goes 'she was walking alone' like it was some huge offense' so I was just laughing and saying sorry but I enjoy walking! Eventally they let me go and I entered the office with the dude who wanted 10 dollars. He took one look at me and goes 'te dije que NO!' (I told you ‘NO!’) so I told him I had visited the police who 'dijieron que si' at which point he sent me into another office where some other dude stamped my passport and said 'chao'. I walked out laughing. It was that evening that we decided to avoid the crowds and venture up the other mountain and how different it was to Carvalio! The view was so much more…everything, we could see the whole of the town clutching the bottom of the two hills and more of the lake, Isla del Sol in the distance and to top it all, we were alone. Very intense, here I could feel so much more the power of the lake. Pedro had never experienced the horizon before and his idea of infinity had changed in an instant, before he said he could never have imagined something going on forever and his impressions of the lake before were that it was much smaller and less enveloping. After numerous enquiries the previous couple of days we decided to take a tour to Isla del Sol and Isla de la Luna. After two hours crossing the lake and after having been informed that we couldn’t go to the Isla de la Luna we arrived on Isla del Sol. We couldnt do the complete trip as we were the only two who had wanted to go to the other island and we were told we could go with another boat but we’d have to pay the extra and there would be no guarantee that the company would refund this money...we were quite annoyed about this but what could we do? so in the end we walked over to the ruins, missing much of the stuff on the way because there was no-one to tell us about it where to go what to see, no one had informed us before or anything, we didn’t even know which route to take. Finally we found a path and hoping we were heading in the right direction we took a really scenic walk across the island eventually arriving at the ruins where we discovered we would have to pay to get in and that it wast included in the price as we had been told. The guys must have felt sorry for us as they let in free of charge! The ruins were amazing, a labyrinth built overlooking the lake high on a hillside and surrounding a large courtyard, I wished we had had a guide or book or information about it but there was nothing. Once again we bumped into Liron who had gone with the Irish guy she was hanging out with in Uyuni and another Irish girl and together the 5 of us walked across to the south of the Island along a well looked after trail chockablock with tourists and attended at regular intervals by locals selling chocolates, drinks and goodies by the trailside. It was a truly special beautiful walk and I didn’t regret anymore missing the island of the moon and had lost the bite to try to fight with the tour company to get our money back from them. We bought a couple of replicas of the reed boats unique to Lago Titicaca (and seemingly very much like Viking war ships) and boarded our boat to go back. The journey back wasn’t half as cold and we sat contemplating life quietly on top of the boat. That night we went back to La Paz and the next day we visited Tiahuanaco, the most ancient civilization in Bolivia, much earlier than the Incas or others. Really fascinating stuff although unfortunately a lot of the ruins were really badly damaged, had been taken to other parts of the country and returned much later. There was a couple of museums to visit beforehand which were really good as you could really imagine how it would once have been with that extra knowledge. Very special place, the puerta del sol was a lot smaller than I had thought from the photos but really beautiful just the same and I was left with a desire to find out much more about this civilisation. With not much time left before the big festival in Potosi, Ch'utillos in which we were supposed to be dancing we decided to head back to Potosi, but not without more adventure. We went to the bus station early to take our bags and get our tickets and decided to sit down to rest a little. We were sitting holding hands on the bench when two tourist police walked by and looked at us funnily, they did a double take when they realised I was a gringa and stopped to chat. They obviously wanted a ‘propina’ (tip) and began asking all sorts of questions. The fact that we had forgotten to bring Pedro’s carnet was obviously a problem so he immediately told them that we had been robbed the night before up in El Alto and that was the reason we were returning home now. They began making a huge problem detaining us for a good half hour trying to scare us but without success as we both knew what they were up to. First they tried to tell us that it was illegal for a Bolivian National to be with a Gringa! We were talked to separately but luckily we had our story about the ‘robbery’ straight, more so after a few rapid words in English and I was told that there were really bad people here and to be careful. I informed this guy that there were bad people all over the world, this didn’t put him off however and he went on and on finally resorting to telling me that ‘yes but here there are people who’ll take out your organs and sell them’. It obviously wasn’t scaring me and he continued with 'and if you friend has his carnet everything will be fine'...because the knowledge of someone having their carnet with them is going to stop them removing organs if that’s what kind of person they are. In the end they made it clear that by letting us go they would be doing us a favour and in return they wanted a favour...20 Bolivianos. ONly 2 quid but that wasnt the point. Pedro and I had already agreed that if they wanted money we’d simply ask them to take us to their office. So after a long winded trial of trying to extract money from us and then later trying to separate us they agreed that we could walk the supposed 2 blocks behind them on their motorcycle. We walked slowly in no hurry and not at all bothered until, 3 blocks later they turned around and said…ok but this is the LAST time... WINNER!!! Full of bubbles and giggling we went to have dinner only to be bloody ripped off by two women who told us dinner was 6Bs but when we went to pay they wanted double. We were sick of everyone wanting money from us by now so we went back to the terminal and hid for a few hours till our ‘heated’ (hahahahahhaha yeah with what!) bus left. So now back in Potosi and am heading to Tarija soon. I'll let you all know. love you all Hugs and stuff Emma ps...home on 5th Nov, anyone going to be there? _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com/ |
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