Cochabamba to Santa Cruz

We spent a few days in Cochabamba to break up our journey over to Santa Cruz in the South east of the country. Not much to write home about there, it's growing in wealth and felt like a city in transition and of stark contrasts with plently of folk enjoying the good life in restaurants, bars and ice cream parlours but lots of people living on the street. There were lots of families of mum and kids begging or selling a few sweets or singing or playing a guitar for a few Bolivianos. There only possessions appeared to be in the clothes on their backs, a few blankets and a metal container for water, washing etc.  

We took a cama night bus and a long ride to Santa Cruz at the end of last week. It was a slow ride at times and in very heavy rain, but we reached Santa Cruz safe and just about soundly. Santa Cruz feels very different to the rest of Bolivia so far. First of all it is very warm, 25-30, with lots of tropical fauna about. Secondly it is a lot more prosperous than the rest of Bolivia. 

We haven't been doing too much here other than relaxing in the sunshine and the manycafes and trying to brush up on a bit of Spanish. I endeavoured to find a private teacher for a few hours lessons this week but failed.

The main squares in Cochambamba and Santa Cruz have both set up their Christmas decorations, a tv screen was even set up here to show religious themed cartoons to children and earlier this week Santa came to visit. 

I'll leave you with a picture of Simon, the pet toucan at our hostel. He likes to nibble feet, flip flops and anything plastic! 

La Paz and Corioco

We arrived in La Paz from Copacabana last Wednesday. Buses leave town about 1.30pm, and head through the hills following Lake Titicaca until they reach its narrowest point. Here you have to get off and take a small passenger boat for about 10 minutes whilst the bus goes separately on a barge. It's an interesting break to the journey!

We reached La Paz at what the time seemed like the start of evening rush hour (about 4.30pm) but as we sat enjoying a glass of wine later in the evening and saw the traffic outside we soon learnt the chaos we had seen was normal everyhour of the day. The roads and streets here are with the exception of Sundays, constantly busy. Imagine the crowds and traffic of Londons Oxford Street everywhere! 


The city itself is an ecellctic mix of the old and new, high skyscrapers, flanked by colonial style buildings. Modern middle-class business folk wander the same streets as campesinos selling fruit and all manner of other goods on the pavements; on the main road to our hostel I have seen fruit, remote controls, kitchen equipment and children's toys being sold, Delboy eat your heart out. We have also been offered 'fossils' to buy numerous times, quite frankly they could just be rocks or a bit of dried llama poo. Mt. Illamani (6402m) looms spectacularly in the background of La Paz and occasionally you can catch a glimpse through the hotchpotch of buildings. There are markets a plently but we have been avoiding buying things in the relatively early days of our travels as we will only have to lug it around for months and quite frankly I've no desire to add a llama patterned jumper to my micro wardrobe just yet. 

                 

                              

Our first mission here was to head to immigration and extend our visa, you are only given 30 days on arrival, which with Christmas holidays and potential delays due to the rainy season we were worried might not be quite enough for our travel plans. Once we had found immigration, (it wasn't quite in the spot either of our maps showed us) we were told we needed copies of various pages from our passport and our green visa slip. Thankfully, this was easy enough to do for about $0.20 as there are photocopying places everywhere. Once we'd got our copies, it was a 5 minute job at the immigration office to get another 60 days (more than enough) and we were off to explore the rest of La Paz. We settled on lunch in the lonely planets recommendation for a splurge (now and then we can afford to in Bolivia), Restaurant Vienna. It was an interesting people watching experience, lots of suited ex-pats and businessmen, but the food was average and the decor a time warp (pink tablecloths etc). I was particularly amused by the signed poster of Arnie S in the ladies loos, posing in his muscle days in front of the Sydney Opera House. 

We have just spent a few relaxing days in Corioco, in the Jungas 2 hours outside La Paz.  It's a bit of an enclave for the middle classes of La Paz to escape too and there are a fair few European expats running hostels and restaurants. There is a bit of a hippie, Eco vibe going on too. 


We set off on Friday morning. To get there, the choice is a minivan or minibus ride shared with others, or a very expensive taxi ride.  We took the minibus option and bought a ticket in advance from a local agent for about $5.00 who then helped us get a taxi to the suburb of Villa Fatima where our bus would leave from. The ride itself was fine, not that comfortable but I've known worse and the scenery along the way is spectacular. The old road to Corioco is the infamous  'worlds most dangerous road' this is now closed to motor vehicles, and a tourist attraction to head down on a mountain bike.  It was nice to be on the relative safety of the new road!


We stayed in a cabin at Villa Bonita, about a 5 min walk out of town. The cabin itself was pretty basic but the settings fantastic and the breakfast, fresh juice, good coffee, scrambled eggs with tomatoes and herbs, Swiss bread and homemade jam is one of the best we have had so far in South America. The hosts (the owner is Swiss) also spoke great English and gave great advise on where to go walking.  This was the view from our bedroom window: 


On Friday we explored the town and relaxed at our cabin. On Saturday we took a walk (around 5hrs) down to the river at Vagantes and back to town. We didn't go swimming as after a nights rainfall it was looking pretty rough, but you can normally do so there. Along the way down and uphill we saw plenty of birds such as condors and caiques and a variety of different plants. As you might tell from the photos it was pretty hot and humid! 








 There are lots of walks you can do around Coroico, some more challenging than others, and for most the tourist office and police advice you take a guide for about $35 a day. This seemed a lot and I couldn't help thinking the tourist office was playing on tourists fears with inflated prices so we stuck to one that we could do on our own. 


We came back on Sunday as the heavens had opened and showed no sign of closing. Getting a bus back was easy enough, although we ended up in a smaller minivan (basically a 7 seater estate car) with just 3 other people. It was a quicker journey in a more comfortable seat but being sat in the middle I was a bit more cosy with the other passengers than I would have liked to be! 


Back in La Paz we are chilling out and sorting the next steps of our journey from La Paz to Cochabamba then Santa Cruz. 

Copacabana

We entered Boliva by bus on Saturday, immigration was a breeze. You get off the bus in the border town, first off you change some money into Bolivians, then go into one Peruvian office get papers looked at, go next door and get your passport stamped for leaving Peru, you then walk three minutes up road and go to a Bolivian office to get your  passport stamped there. Done. Get back on bus. All sorted in about 20 minutes with no queue. 

About 30 minutes later by bus we arrived in Barry Mannilows favourite Bolivian spot Copacabana, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. After being on the road a fair bit we decided we would spend 3-4 days relaxing here. 

Bolivia is cheaper than Peru and its easy to spend time here just taking in the views. On Sunday we relaxed in a bar by the lake for an hour or so and shared a giant jug of homemade lemonade for about $2.00.  We also took a ride on a pedalo which I was convinced was going to sink with the swells of the lake and was a bit unsure about. 

It's high altitude here and sunny in the day but wooly hat weather a night . Rainy season has kicked in too, but so far it's only rained at night so we have stayed dry. 

On Monday, we took a boat trip to the Isla del Sol, we arrived on the north side about 10.45am, and took a short walk around the sites, had some lunch with a lake side view then got the boat around to the south side. Over there we then walked up hill in search of some Incan ruins (maps, guidance was a bit sketchy to say the least), we found something but it was closed, still we got some fantastic views so the uphill walk was still worth it. We returned and took the boat back to Copacabana at 5pm. You can stay overnight on the island and there is lots to see there but we weren't feeling up to another day of packing and unpacking so opted for a day trip.

Yesterday, we have had an admin day, roughly planning out the next few weeks of travel in Bolivia and booking our accomodation in La Paz for tomorrow and Sucre where we aim to be for Christmas. We also climbed up the Cerra Calvario a hill on our side of town that reaches 3966m for spectacular views of the town and the bay. 

Today its onwards to La Paz. 

Lake Titicaca

Just spent a couple of nights in Puno on route to Boliva and did a day tour to some of the islands on Lake Titicaca . Was a fairly lazy tour, lots of time on the boat, not much walking but plently to see.

Our first stop was to visit some of the floating islands of Uros. 

Here the people are Aymara and live on islands entirely constructed of reed roots and reeds. Like this model 

 They are a tight community and only marry between the islands.  They gave us a very friendly welcome, teaching us all about how they build the islands, showed us one of their homes and even sang us a goodbye song, in Aymara, Spanish and finally in English 'my bonnie lives over the ocean'.  We also took a short boat ride one of their traditional rowing boats/catamaran. These have the heads of Pumas at the front.

We then headed onto the larger land based island of Isla Taquile, a Quecha island. Here we walked up to the main square at about 4,000m and took in the views. Some local boys also joined in our photo, for a sole each. They were later seen heading to the local sweet shop....

We had lunch at traditional restaurant, some quick lessons in local costume, e.g. the colour of the men's hats dictates whether they are married or not, before walking back to or boat and a bit of a bumpy ride back to Puno as the rain came in.... 

Arequipa and Colca Canyon

We arrived in Arequipa early Saturday much to the delight of our hostel manager who we woke up at 7.15am, seemed late to us,  we are getting way to used to early starts.

After a bit of a nap we headed to the streets to sort out our tour to colca canyon. First up we go to the guy recommended in Lonely Planet South America on a Shoestring. He quoted us 680 soles for a 3 day/2 night trip, it seemed a lot so we mentioned it to the hostel guy, he laughed at us and kindly directed us to another agency Peru Schweiz Explorer, where would pay 150 soles, about 56 US$. So nearly ripped off by the shoestring recommendation but saved by our host. 

We spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday having fairly lazy days exploring Arequipa, it's a pretty city, with white buildings made of volcanic rock, flanked by stunning views of mountains and volcanoes.

On Monday it was our earliest start yet, a 3.30am pick-up to start our Colca trek. After a long and at times bumpy ride we arrved at our first stop about 7.30 am, a viewing point to spot Condors. Didn't see any here and after 45 minutes headed off in the bus again to reach the start of the trek. We spent around 3-4 hours trekking our way down the Canyon, Lee and I were pretty slow, first time we have encountered real heat so far on the trip (about 30c) and then even slower after I slipped on my arse and onto my elbow.  We reached our lunch stop and final destination at about 2pm, a sweet home stay in the village of San Juan du Chuco.

Tuesday we had a lie-in, a 7.30am breakfast and started trekking at 9.30am, just when the sun starts to get hot! We climbed for around an hour to reach the villages of Casnirhua and Malata, and the heat and altitude destroyed me. I was one out of puff lady! 

Later our guide Pepe, would tell us how tough life was in these simple villages; such as the school having only one class of six grades, and one doctor and medical centre with very basic facilities. We were also introduced to the cochineal bug/fungus that grows on Cactus and makes the red colour that goes in lipstick! Ladies if you saw it, you might think twice about that dashing shade of rouge.

 After the villages it was all down hill, for lunch we would reach the Oasis' a collection off simple bungalow lodgings and swimming pools nestled in the hills, paradise after a few hours trekking in the heat. 

       

After all that relaxing on Wednesday morning you could say we got lazy or you could say we were supporting local enterprise, instead of a 3 hour trek out of the canyon we took a mule ride up. The mules were amazing, we were reassured they could carry double our weight. They seemed to plod along happily enough, mine was quite keen and  kept trying to overtake the one in front. They also stopped to assess any tricky ground before making a go for it. 

After an 1 1/2 hours on the mules we breakfasted in Cabancode before visiting a few more traditional villages then some hot spring swimming pools before lunch. We rounded off our trip with a few more viewpoints to see terraces (where the people still farm the way the Incas did),  Volcanoes, and lunch in Chivay before the long drive back. 

   

I finally saw a Condor from the bus along the way. 

 

Adios Cusco

Off on the road again tonight from Cusco to Arequipa.

We have spent the last few days soaking in the atmosphere of the city, visiting a few sites such as  Qorinkancha which is a fusion of an old Incan Temple and a Catholic Church, having a glass of pisco sour and tasting grilled Alpaca.

Today we have been to the Inca museum to get the low down on Incan and pre-Incan history.  There was a lot going on before the Spanish got here, and it was fascinating to learn about aspects of Incan culture, such as agriculture techniques which still survive today.  It's very clear that the Spaniards and archeologists after that plundered most of the gold though as in terms of artefacts to see there was a lot of pots and stone cutting tools and not much else.

Although the city's architecture is largely Spanish in style, some Incan walls still survive in Cusco and here Lee can be seen examining a 12 sided Incan stone, or something like that.

Hasta Luego x 

Inca Trail

We arrived back last night (20/11) from our four day trek to Machu Picchu. It was an incredible experience but very tough at times. Lee was very sick at the start of day 2, with dehydration but pulled on through after force feeding of Gatorade, rehydrate sachets, and lots of words of encouragement from our guides. Our group was also super friendly, and although mixed in fitness and ability, everyone was very supportive. No one made you feel crap when you were the last to reach camp, in fact quite the opposite,  as every last person was cheered in. One guy,  Michael even carried Lee's day pack for a few hours having previously freed himself of his gear with a porter.  

The tough bits:  

The early starts - at least 5am in the morning if not before.

The altitude -  on day 2 we climbed to 4200m. It is not only tough work on the legs but the lungs. Our guides taught us to chew coca leaves to help and drink plenty of water, and if in doubt, take it slowly, slowly. 

The knees - day 3 has an ascent known as the gringo killer, it's that steep. Wisely we had purchased walking poles in Cusco. Well worth it.

The toilets - Glastonbury has nothing on these delightful bad boys. All holes in the ground. All stink. 

Shower - see above, you expect a wash? 

Why it's worth it:

Incredible scenery,  you take in mountains, cloud forests, stunning valleys, and Inca ruins. 

The culture - as well as reaching Machu Picchu before the bulk of the crowds you also see plenty of other smaller Inca sites along the way. Our guide Cesar was full of knowledge to share about these. 

The achievement....

We couldn't have done it without

The porters - these guys carry all the camping kit, food etc and even your personal kit for an extra cost. The cook also feeds you an excellent varied menu, each meal time to keep you going. They arrive at camp before you, so the pretty much run past you at points along the way. Some are young guys but others are in their fifties. I think they are super human 

The guides - so supportive and full of knowledge.

Each other