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Chilling out in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, at the moment. You may have seen some protests here and in other parts of Bolivia on the news. Not actually seen any but they´ve caused us no end of problems. We didn´t think we´d make it here as the place has been blocked off. Had to get off the bus at 3am today and walk the 4km through the roadblocks. They weren´t very exciting, no burning tyres or rubber bullets flying around but we got through okay and on the last leg of the trip. Flying to Rio on Wednesday from here.
Been a little while since my last email, discounting the prison, so there´s a lot to tell but hopefully I´ll have forgotten the boring bits that make these emails too long for some of you. If you can´t be bothered to read, there´s a fair few photos this time.
Lake Titicaca is huge. It took us over three hours to get from one island to another and we only touched a tiny fraction of it. However, being a big lake doesn't make it a good tourist attraction. I was in a cynical mood that day and had dismissed the floating islands (Uros) built up from vegetation as a bit of a tourist trap.
The visit and stay at the family´s house made the overnight trip worthwhile. We spent the evening with the family and other locals, had dinner with them, danced with them etc. I was no Bruce Parry but was still interesting.
Bus to La Paz, Bolivia´s capital. I finally had my chance to go to this prison I´d heard so much about. I won´t repeat what I said in the email about it. The two gringos who came in with me left soon after we got there and if it hadn´t been for the fact I bumped into a couple I´d been on the Maccu Picchu trip with, I´d have left too. Thankfully they were more keen to stay and spend time with Jacques all afternoon. Apologies for the crap photos. I went back the next day for them and they were all I could get without getting my camera taken off me.
Went out in La Paz that night with the couple from Maccu Picchu and the prison and a mate of theirs from their hostel. Next day was pretty much a write-off. All I did was write that prison email and go out again in the evening. Got a cab back from an underground coke den that night and I was certain that the taxi driver was gonna kill me rather than take me back to the hostel. The place was in the middle of nowhere and the cab driver was huge. His cab had holes all over it which I´ll presume were from stones rather than bullets.
One thing South America is notorious for also is that no one has change. They will rather not make the sale than go and find change for you. The cab driver did take me back okay but at half five in the morning, however, and without a cash machine, or anyone to help nearby, I wasn´t going to argue with this guy about change and gave him ten times his fair and wished him ´Feliz Cumpleaños, Happy Birthday.´
We booked our trips to the Bolivian jungle, pampas (wetland) and salt flats. The pampas trip was essentially a chilled out boat ride through the wetlands. You´re guaranteed to see crocs, caimans, birds, capybara (world´s largest rodent) and river dolphins which is pretty cool. It´s a very easy going trip which is great but I had hoped the jungle would be a bit more hardcore.
Jamie and Nick were especially excited about the jungle though I was less so as I´d done it in Guyana. And I think Guyana won out. The jungle I don´t think is about seeing animals, yet that is what those three days focused on. The jungle´s more about the atmosphere and nature that´s around you, and the inhospitability of the place. In Guyana we had a bit more of that as we cooked for ourselves etc. Also, I´d done jungle treks before so the novelty wasn´t there. Did see some pigs and a few monkeys though.
Went out in Rurrenbaque, the set off point for the jungle and pampas tours the night we got back with a couple who´d been with us in the jungle. Was a fun night. Ended strangely as some local decided to take me to some bar about ten minutes out of town which turned out to be a brothel. He clearly got some commission so I ran back in the pitch black and fell into a swamp.
The salt flats in Bolivia were formed when a huge lake dried up forty thousand years ago. Now it´s a tourist attraction due to its incredible landscape. Again, cynical, I thought three days seeing a dried up lake was a bit excessive but I was wrong. The place is a huge, inhospitable desert which we spent three days driving around. It´s a godsend for photographers as everything is white as far as the eye can see in some places, and if it´s not white, it´s backed by stunning mountains or endless desert. Lots of people buy a toy and use the blank canvas to play with perspective.
Left the salt flats for Sucre, Bolivia´s de facto (La Paz is where it´s at, however) capital. Spent a day there yesterday, like I said, and last night travelled over to here. I don´t talk about them much, as they´re not very exciting, but I´m pretty sure we´ve spent more nights sleeping on buses than in hostels since we´ve been out here.
Hope that was okay. Next stop Rio.
Girish
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