Tupiza´s Triathalon!

We managed to get out of Uyuni the next morning after the Uyuni tour. Unfortunately, we weren´t able to take the train to Tupiza as planned because our tour´s tardiness made us miss it. So, instead, we took another bus. This time, however, because we were late in booking it, we needed to stand in the aisles for a couple hours before seats opened up. This is a very common practice here in Bolivia. The bus companies pack the buses so that all the seats are filled every step of the way. Though I really wasn´t looking forward to the hours in the aisle, it really wasn´t so bad. We were able to sit down, we just couldn´t see out the windows... When our seats became available (and the bus was changing a flat tire), we were finally able to fully appreciate the amazing scenery we were driving through on the way to Tupiza. Here´s a sample of what Jeremy captured with a camera out the bus window...


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We ended up spending a few days in Tupiza. In part, this was because the small town was very friendly. The other reason was because we weren´t feeling well for at least a day of our time there. While we were there, we watched "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" because the two died near Tupiza, made pasta in our hostal´s kitchen, and took a "triathalon" tour through Tupiza´s countryside.

The "Triathalon" tour was probably the highlight of our time in Tupiza. On it, we rode bikes, did some horseback riding and rode in a jeep to tour the coolest places in the area. In all, Jeremy rode 29 km on his bike. I only made it about 20 km because I still wasn´t feeling well at that point. (I´m feeling fine now.) You´ll probably be able to tell that I was taking the last few biking photos of Jeremy from the jeep. I wasn´t riding faster than him :) The horseback riding was a lot of fun too. My horse was a 6-year-old named Pancho who has won jumping championships twice. Jeremy´s 6-year-old horse named Tupa is a racing champion, but after proving his abilities, he became so stubborn that they couldn´t get him out of the gates for future races. During our time horseback-riding, Jeremy got a taste of Tupa´s speed and said that Tupa is the fastest horse he´s ever been on. While my horse hardly wanted to go any faster than trotting, Jeremy´s wanted to gallop as much as possible! Whatever mode of transportation we were taking, the scenery around Tupiza was breathtaking.


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Right now, we´re in Sucre, Bolivia... a place famous for its chocolates!

Uyuni - A Geologist´s Paradise!

On December 10th, Jeremy and I began a 3-day/2-night tour near Uyuni, Bolivia. It had amazing scenery, as you will see in the many photos below.

We went as a group of six tourists, plus our guide/driver (25-year-old Dionny) and our cook (17-year-old Emiliana). In addition to Jeremy and I, the tourists included Canadians Allison and Chelsey from Vancouver, Frenchman Bruno from Toulouse, and Argentinian Martin from Buenos Aires. We had a good group that managed to stay positive, even when things got rough on the way back to Uyuni.


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Train Cemetery

Our first stop was a train cemetery just outside Uyuni. This place has housed old trains since the 1950s. Jeremy and I had some fun posing for these pictures.


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Salt Processing Plant

The Salt Processing Plant gave us some insight into how salt is taken from the Salt Flats (see the next set of photos for the Salt Flats), processed and packaged for sale in Bolivia. It was a rather simple process that we saw, and to be honest, it didn´t make me want to salt my food here in Bolivia, but it was interesting nonetheless.


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Salar de Uyuni

These Salt Flats are the main tourist attraction in Bolivia at the moment. Yes, all the white stuff that you see in these photos is salt. It looked so much like a frozen lake that, despite the warm temperatures, Jeremy and I had trouble remembering it was salt!


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Isla de Pescado

This is an "island" in the middle of the Salt Flats that looks like a fish from a few kilometers away. The cactuses in the picture give some indication of the climate there despite the frozen-lake-like background (that of course, is really salt).


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Hotel de Sal

For our first night, we stayed in a hotel made of salt bricks. Actually, everything was salt, the beds, the nightstands, the tables and chairs, and even the clock! The next food-themed hotel Jeremy and I want to visit is a chocolate hotel. If anyone knows of one, let us know! :)

When we arrived at the hotel, Jeremy and I took a walk around the area and found some grazing llamas. As we continued walking we found many empty fences made of rocks for the llamas to rest in when they aren´t grazing. We took a seat to admire the llamas from afar and to watch them as they were herded into one of the fences. What we didn´t expect was that the llamas would be herded in our direction! We just sat, took pictures, and let them pass us by... It was a very cool experience.


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Overlook of Volcan Ollague

The rocks in these pictures are all lava!


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Laguna Canapa

Our first glimpse of pink flamingos came from Laguna Canapa. We were surprised to see that they weren´t pink all over (just mostly on their wings), that they didn´t rest on one foot, and that they had black under feathers. But what pretty animals!


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Laguna Hedionda

We saw more flamingos are Laguna Hedionda. Despite its name (for those of you who understand Spanish), the laguna didn´t smell bad at all. In fact, the first laguna smelled much worse!


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Lava Rock Formations

This was a rest spot for us to stretch our legs from a somewhat-cramped jeep ride. Jeremy and I took the opportunity for a quick hike here and snapped a few photos.


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Arbol de Piedra

Arbol de Piedra means "Rock Tree". This is a completely natural formation.


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Laguna Colorada

Check out the natural colors on this lake! The colors are made by the micro-organisms that live in the lake. Supposedly, the more windy the weather, the more colorful the lake. It was fairly windy the day we were there. The white is not salt, but natural borax. We stayed near this lake for our second night of the tour.


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Michina Geysers

On the third morning, we woke at 4:00am to arrive at these geysers in time for the sunrise. Some one else compared the geysers and landscape as looking like we were on the moon!


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Termas

At the Termas, the altitude and time of day made the weather freezing. Happily we were able to warm up with a quick dip in these hot springs.


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Laguna Verde

Our last laguna stop on the tour, this one´s tourquoise hues are just as vibrant as those in these pictures. No special effects needed!


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Salvador Dali´s Inspiration

Artist Salvador Dali is said to have been inspired by this specific Bolivian landscape.


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On the Way Back

What would a trip in Bolivia be without a tranportation adventure story? As we were headed back to Uyuni, we ended up having 4 flat tires within an 8 hour time period!

The first was in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We happened to be the last in a ´caravan´of jeeps leaving the salt flats for the day and were in danger of being stranded for the night. Because of rust, we couldn´t get the spare tire off from underneath the jeep. While our guide and Martin, were trying desperately to take the flat tire apart so it could be patched, Jeremy and Bruno were determined to get the spare off. They came up with a plan to take the spare tire off along with the part of the jeep undercarriage it was attached to. Unfortunately, they didn´t have the right-sized wrench so it was slow going. Eventually, the other guys got the flat tire apart and got it patched, aired and ready to go. The whole ordeal took about 2 hours.

We got the second flat tire not more than half an hour later. It was the same tire as the first! The patch must not have taken. This time, a jeep came along, which was very lucky for us and we were able to get the correct wrench to detach the part of the undercarriage holding the spare tire. This made it easier to work on freeing the spare tire. We used the last of our drinking water to lubricate the mechanism holding the spare tire and eventually got it free! We quickly got it on and headed off. At this point, we were already supposed to be back at Uyuni and thought we´d be there soon, but we still had many more hours to go.

The third flat tire happened on a different tire. Our driver went off to some nearby houses and found a guy willing to sell us a tire tube. We got to work taking this flat tire apart with the help of this guy. Just as we had gotten it apart, the jeep battery died. I swear that it lasted no more than thirty minutes with only the flashers going. We needed the jeep to be running to fill up the tire tube. If we could´ve pushed the jeep enough to jump start it that would´ve worked, but there was no way we were going to be able to push it with a flat tire. It was a Catch 22 situation. It had already gotten dark and the temperature was dropping rapidly as was our patience. The driver tried again to find someone with a pump, but came back frustrated. We were running out of ideas. The driver even considered airing the tire up with the propane gas we had used for cooking. Thank goodness we didn´t get to that point! We managed to stop a couple of vehicles who unfortunately had neither an air pump or jumper cables. That is not to say that they didn´t try. A couple of guys tried using wires no thicker than the ones we used in science class as kids, but it was no use. Had they really had success using wires that thin to jump start a car battery? It was creative, I´ll give them that.

Finally, just as we had pretty much lost hope, another jeep came by. It ended up being people who worked for our tour agency. They had come looking for us because they were worried about us being so late! We were very happy to see them. They managed replace our flat with their spare tire, then we headed off to Uyuni. But wait there´s more...

The tire that had just been used to replace our flat blew not more than 10 minutes later. It was unbelievable, not that the first three flats weren´t, but it really was unbelievable! They got the tire apart and were about to inflate the tire tube we had bought a couple of hours before, but it turned out to be the wrong size. At this point Jeremy returned to sit inside the other jeep where the other group members were already warm and cozy. We don´t know how they got that tire repaired. Maybe they managed with the smaller-sized tire tube, but somehow they did it.

We finally arrived in Uyuni six hours late. Jeremy and I had missed our train out of Uyuni that had left a couple hours before. The tour agency drove all of us around town looking for rooms for the night. We ended up staying the night and catching a bus to Tupiza the next morning.

You´ll notice that we only have pictures of the first 2 flat tires. After that, it was dark and the novelty had worn off...


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Now, we´re in Tupiza. More on that soon!

La Paz, Bolivia - The Highest Capital City in the World

After Coroico, Jeremy and I headed to La Paz, the highest capital city in the world at 4014 meters or about 13169 feet. Of course, like everywhere we travel in Bolivia, getting there was at least half of the adventure.

Getting to La Paz

To get to La Paz from Coroico, we needed to take a mini-bus (more like a tall 15 passenger van) that was only to be 3.5 hours. Not surprisingly, it took 5. First, we needed to take a rough cliff road through small rivers and under small waterfalls. Happily, because we were headed to La Paz (and leaving La Paz), we had the mountain-side right-of-way (not the cliff-side) if we came across another vehicle going the opposite way. This was a bit bizarre because it meant that we were driving on the left-side of the road, but it also meant that we were safe.

The same road going in the opposite direction from La Paz to Coroico is actually considered the world´s most dangerous road. This is because vehicles going that direction always need to stay cliff-side on a very narrow road. But for those concerned with our safety, I repeat, we weren´t on the world´s most dangerous road because of the direction we were going. Jeremy and I had no desire whatsoever to take the world´s most dangerous road, so we didn´t.

After being on this rough road for about 2 hours, we took the best road we´d seen (and felt) in Bolivia yet. It was a newly-paved road and made for a very pleasant change from the extremely bumpy dirt roads we´d been traveling on thus far. Of course, things couldn´t stay smooth however and they didn´t. To make a long story short, we ended up with 2 flat tires and only 1 spare. The driver had to hitch a ride to get one of the flat tires filled so that we could continue on to La Paz. Craziness, but it worked!

Around La Paz

The main reason we were going to La Paz was to get some business taken care of: our visas for Brazil and apartment business for Jeremy. Unfortunately, with the flat tires, we arrived in La Paz on Friday at around 5pm, after business hours, so the business had to wait until Monday. In the end, that worked out well because both of us came down with a bit of altitude sickness, so we took the opportunity to rest.

Other than the business items that took much longer than planned (we stayed in La Paz a full week), we did a walking tour of the markets around Central La Paz, visited the fascinating museum dedicated to the history of the coca leaf, watched the movie "Happy Feet" dubbed in Spanish at a American-style movie theater, and ate at some good restaurants - Arab food, amazing pizza, homemade pasta, and authentic Bolivian restaurants too. Here´s a picture of a typical street market in La Paz.

Two of the most common Bolivian breakfast foods are saltenas and empanadas. We had our fair share of each during our stay in La Paz. Both are variations on a turnover, usually filled with cheese, beef, or chicken. Saltenas are a bit different because are a bit spicier and also include vegetables. Here are some empanadas!


Another thing that I think was interesting about La Paz was the public transportation. There are these micro-buses, similar to the one we took from Coroico to La Paz, that go on specified routes. One person hangs his/her head out the window and calls the names of the places the "bus" is going. It stops anywhere along the route with the wave of a prospective passenger´s hand. The ride is very cheap... usually only 1 boliviano which is roughly 13 cents. This is another type of bus in La Paz...


In general, we had an okay time in La Paz. With only a week to spend in such a big city, it´s hard to find your way around! Besides, Jeremy and I have found that we prefer smaller towns. In fact, we arrived in a small town called Uyuni this morning. Tomorrow, we will begin a 3-day / 2-night tour from here that is supposed to be the highlight of many tourists in Bolivia -- THE SALT FLATS!!!

"Bolivia´s Little Eden" - The Town of Coroico

This is the fourth blog entry in less than a week, so if you haven´t already, read about our time at Pica Flor Research Center, our Bolivian border crossing adventures, and our wildlife and community tours near Rurrenabaque!

On the Way to Coroico

We left Rurrenabaque by bus for Coroico on Tuesday, November 28th. In all, the bus ride itself was uneventful, but the trip was not to stay that way... It seems travel is always an adventure in Bolivia!

We knew that the bus would not take us all the way to Coroico, but instead to a little town called Yolosa. A man from the bus company assured us that there would be transportation from Yolosa to Coroico, even though we were to arrive around midnight. Though our bus left on time and there were no unexpected events, we still arrived at "Yolosa" at 2:00am, 2 hours late. When Jeremy and I got off the bus and looked at our surroundings, it became very clear that we were not in a town called Yolosa, rather at a bridge called Yolosa.

There was a control official where we got off, so we asked him how to get to Coroico. He leveled with us to say that there was no transportation from where we were to Coroico, but we could walk uphill for an hour to arrive at Yolosa and an hour to arrive at Coroico. Because we didn´t want to sleep on the ground, we decided to hike it. Thankfully, after we hiked for about 40 minutes, another bus (like the one we were on originally) passed and picked us up to go to the actual town of Yolosa. When we disembarked from this bus, we learned (again) that there was no transportation to Coroico at this time, that we would have to wait 'till morning or hike (uphill again) for more than an hour. Tired, we knocked on the door of the local alojamiento (translation: extremely low-budget accommodation), woke up the owner, and got a room for the night.

The next morning, we were pleased to find that transportation was readily available to Coroico. We waited less than 10 minutes for a bus! The ride was a short 20 minutes, and we arrived in one of the most beautiful places we have visited in South America so far -- Coroico!


Coroico

Though it wasn´t on our original itinerary, many people had recommended that we visit Coroico, just north of La Paz. Coroico is located in a region called The Yungas of Bolivia. Located in a transition area between the lowlands and the highlands where tropical vegetation meets towering mountains, Coroico is nicknamed "Bolivia´s Little Eden". It´s easy to see why. In addition to the amazing scenery surrounding the area, the town itself is a laid-back, clean and quiet town, with tourist-like amenities (good restaurants and accommodations) without feeling touristy (not one person tried to sell us anything). There are nearby Afrobolivian communities which brought some cultural diversity. Plus, the cooler temperatures were a relief from the hot weather we had been experiencing (perfect snuggling weather!). Overall, Coroico seemed like a nice place to settle down for a while. Clearly we were not the first to think this because we saw advertisements from a real estate agency offering opportunities to live in "El Paraiso" or "Paradise".

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Some of the highlights from our time in Coroico included relaxing in hammocks at our hostal, a 3-hour hike to waterfall that afforded amazing views of the area, and creating new shadow puppets with our hands late at night. We also had some wonderful food including a banana chocolate crepe (yum!) and bitter hot chocolate with chocolate chunks and many tablespoons of sugar. And one morning, Jeremy awoke early to find the clouds just parting from the covered mountains. He said it was gorgeous!


After Coroico, Jeremy and I headed to La Paz (where we are right now). More on that in our next blog entry!