La Paz

We slept most of the bus ride to La Paz, but luckily we were awake to see the first glimpse of the city. La Paz is a huge city covering both sides of a canyon. From up above before we turned to descend into the canyon it was an amazing sight.

When we got to the bus stataion we took a taxi to our hostel . We stayed in the downtown area so it was easy to walk to the main sights. We put our stuff down and went to find lunch. The rest of the afternoon we walked through the Witch´s Market, a big artisan market selling handmade crafts. Anything you can imagine that is made out of lamb, llama, or vicuna wool, they have it. Its called the Witch´s Market because they also sell traditional witch doctor trinkets like shriveled llama fetuses and different types of herbal potions. Its actually quite common still today for Bolivians to buy a llama fetus and bury it under a house or a building for good luck.

fresh squeezed orange juice in the market

one block of the Witch´s Market

                                     llama fetuses, anyone?                   another pic of the market

During the rest our time here in La Paz, we saw the presidential palace, the legislative building, several parks with great views, and lot of street markets. We also toured the Coca Leaf Museum which explained the history of the coca leaf. It is extremely common here for people to chew coca leaves on a daily basis. The coca leaf helps the body adjust to changes in altitude and it is supposed to help the body digest food better. It also has a natural stimulant like caffeine which is why most people here chew it. It has been interesting for us to see how popular it is here, since its the base ingredient for cocaine. Its not a drug by itself, but it´s ilegal in the U.S. for obvious reasons. One very interesting fact about the coca leaf is that Coca-Cola began as a coca-flavored soda. Because the coca leaf was so popular worldwide, an American pharmacist in the early 1900s during the prohibition era  invented a non-alcoholic stimulant drink using the coca leaf. And Coca-Cola was born. We tried a tea made from coca leaves and we don´t think it tasted or smelled anything like Coca-Cola.

From the Little of La Paz that we were able to see, it seems that it is a pretty crowded place. The streets and sidewalks are always packed, no matter what time of day. Crossing the street is an art here- you have to be brave and willing to weave around cars like everyone else does to get anywhere.

Here you can see how we are in a canyon. The streets are steep headed down, and then back up again.

Legislative building

nearby volcano

some kind of sit-in protest in the street

coca leaf tea. we´re not fans.

In an hour or so, we are taking a bus to Copacabana, a town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. It should take us about 3 hours to get there.  More to come in a few days…

Uyuni, part dos

Here are more pictures of the bizarre landscapes from the rest of our three day tour in the Bolivian Altiplano. During the tour we started at an altitude of 12,000 feet and during the trip we got up to 16,600 feet. So we were really huffing and puffing at certain points. The last two days of the trip were a lot of driving with short stops for pictures. In true South American style, there were seven of us plus a driver crammed into an SUV only meant for 6. We managed to have a good time, though. In our car were the two Brazilians, two girls from Czech Republic, one girl from Slovakia, and us. Oh, and our Bolivian driver. So there was an interesting mix of languages going around.

 

a hungry fox

flamingos- there are only a few in this picture but there were hundreds over the entire lake

just to give you an idea of how far away from everything we were

it was very cold and windy up here!

Seth being Seth, again

Arbol de Piedra (Rock Tree) This rock was formed this way from the wind



The second night we stayed at a hostel even more basic than the first one. And much colder. I´m not sure how cold it was that night, but the next morning the puddles outside were frozen over. We slept with all bundled up, even with hats and gloves. Seth also happened to get pretty sick again in the middle of the night. He can sure pick the best times for that to happen. So we didn´t get much sleep and had to get up at 5am to leave for our third day. Luckily, he was already feeling better by that afternoon.

 end of day 2- the entire group at dinner in the hostel/shelter

we taught everyone how to play the card game spoons- we had to improvise with dice since we didn´t have enough spoons

day 3- geysers at 6:30am. there were several sets of these huge geysers, as well as boiling mud

natural hot springs in the desert- we had planned on getting in but it was only 7am and so cold...

our group

resting vicuna- we saw lots of wild ones all over

Laguana Colorada (Red Lake)- Normally its much more red, but since there wasn´t enough wind to stir up the red minerals inside, we saw a mirror finish instead. There were lots of flamingos at this lake, too.

llamas

This place is called La Ciudad Perdida de Italia (Lost City of Italy). It was named that because the rocks look so much like buildings in a city. We climbed to the top of one to get this picture.

More from the lost city. These rocks have also been shaped by the wind.

Seth and I in the Lost City

Some type of rice plant that is grown in the desert

Seth and I on the edge of a canyon. There was a little stream with llamas way down at the bottom.

We got back to Uyuni around 6pm on Monday, the 25th. Since we weren´t able to take showers for our entire 3-day trip, the first thing we did was find a place to clean up. After that, we went out to dinner with our group from the trip. All seven of us were taking the same train that night to Oruro (on our way to La Paz) and had lots of time to kill. Our train left Uyuni at 1:45am. So we sat at the pizza place, then used the internet until they closed at 11pm. We walked over to the freezing train station and waited. Time went by pretty quickly since there were several of us waiting together. The girls from Czech Republic were nice enough to share a sleeping bag with us while we waited. Finally our train came (it was just as cold on the train) and we arrived in Oruro around 9:30am. From there, we immediately took a bus to La Paz, where we are now.  We got here around 2pm on Tuesday. So, needless to say, we were absolutely exhausted when we got to La Paz. More about La Paz in the next post!

Trying to stay warm in the train station. These are the girls from Czech Republic/Slovakia and an unidentified Bolivian to my right.

Getting off the train in Oruro before heading to La Paz

Uyuni, part uno

Uyuni is in the Bolivian Altiplano (Andean high desert). It is one of the highest deserts in the world. Uyuni itself sits at about 12,000 feet. When our train arrived in Uyuni in the middle of the night we were immediately struck by the cold. Its been a while since we´ve been in such cold weather and we didn´t have our warmest clothes on. We walked the couple of blocks in the dark to the hostel that we had picked out only to find that no one would answer. Several hotel/hostels were not answering so almost all of the backpackers from our train ended up at the same hostel. Luckily there was room for us and it ended up alright. One of the rough parts about Uyuni is that no buildings have heat. So if we weren´t under the covers we were freezing.

There´s not much to the town except for the train station and all of the travel agencies that take you to the nearby Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. That is why we were in Uyuni, to take a three-day tour of the salar and the surrounding desert. Without these nearby attractions, Uyuni is a dusty, cold and desolate place. We enjoyed our time there, but we will not be in a hurry to return! 

Bolivian women in their traditional dress at a street market in Uyuni

main street Uyuni

Salchipapa- french fries with bits of fried hot dog on top. Eating cheap is not always easy on the stomach!

Since we were in Uyuni on Good Friday, we got to see some interesting things. This is a parade down main street. They were carrying statues of the virgin Mary as well as a statue of Jesus in a glass coffin.

We took a day in Uyuni to catch up on the blog, laundry, etc. We walked around town comparing prices for the Salar tour. There are over 80 agencies that take an almost identical trip and all of them want your business. We finally found one and decided to leave on Saturday (the day before Easter). So we met our group on Saturday morning and away we went.

Since we have so many pictures, we will have to break the trip in half and continue it with the next post. This first set is of our first day of the tour and part of the second. Our first stop was to the Train Cemetery right outside of Uyuni. Apparently many years ago when the government shut down the nearby silver mines, all of the existing trains in good condition were sold to Chile. Those that didn´t make the cut were abandoned in the desert. And there they sit.

Our next stop was to the salar. Most of those pictures will be self-explanatory. It was amazing. Salt as far as we could see. In total, the Salar de Uyuni covers 4,632 sq. miles. April is the end of the rainy season, so we were lucky to get to see the salar partly wet and partly dry. When its too wet, the trucks can´t go out very far and when its dry, you don´t get to see the way light reflects off of the wet surface. So we got the best of both worlds.

At the end of the first day, we drove about 3 hours away from Uyuni to a hotel made of salt! We ate dinner there and then spent the first night there. The next morning we drove to several beautiful lakes. As you will see, the landscapes we passed through were bazaar, to say the least. Every 30 minutes or so our surroundings looked totally different.

Seth being Seth. :)

Steam engine at the train cemetery

HELP!

At the Salar. To harvest the salt, the workers scrape the salt into mounds like these and wait for it to dry.

Having fun with perception!

our group- 5 from Israel, 2 from Brazil, 2 from Czech Republic, 1 from Slovakia, and 2 from the U.S.

Check out Seth´s air!

driving through the wet part of the salar

Our room at the salt hotel. Pretty much everything is made of salt except the sheets. And yes, we licked the walls to make sure it was real.

Dining room in the salt hotel. All of the floors in the hotel are loose salt!

Day 2- driving through the desert. There were never roads during our three days of driving. We just followed very rough paths or tire tracks.

We stopped at a lake for lunch. This lake is full of the mineral borax. That is the white you see around the edges.

Lunch at the borax lake. Our group was split up into 3 SUVs.

To be continued...