La Paz and Copacabana, Bolivia - June 17-28

Illimani, one of the several 20,000+ ft mountains in the area, is seen from many parts of the capital of La Paz.

This says "Bolivia advances, Evo doesn't get tired."

It seems like Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, has a lot of protesting workers to deal with.  On our overnight bus from Uyuni to La Paz, our bus had to turn around and take a different route due to protesting miners.  Even on the second route, the driver had to pay another group of miners to let us through.  Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, has definitely boosted the image and the confidence of many of the country's poor class.  He has also done some interesting things - like giving constitutional rights to the natural environment, nationalizing several private companies and giving the US drug program the boot.  Oh, and we don't have an ambassador there anymore.  It is interesting that even Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, didn't attend the June Summit of the Americas that took place in Bolivia.  Basically, the Bolivia-USA relationship is on the rocks...

And I don't think it is a high priority for Morales, either.  While we were in La Paz (2-3 million people depending on the source), countrywide demonstrations by the national policemen and their wives were coming to a head.  Apparently, policemen have periodically asked and demonstrated for their wages to be in line with those made by military personnel.  Come to find out, an ordinary policeman was making the equivalent of $170/mo.  Bolivia is said to be the poorest of the south american countries.  But when we first heard that, we were shocked.  Thanks to countrywide hunger strikes (by the wives) and demonstrations, an agreement was reached with the government and now the policemen will be on par with the military - pulling in about $350/mo.  Still difficult to comprehend!

The main drag with an overabundance of white vans to take you to any corner of the city.

If you miss your van, there are also an overabundance of buses...

Example of higher class indigenous dress.

The sea of indigenous people gathered for a solstice celebration.  The winter solstice in June is the indigenous new year.

One afternoon we sat in one of the many pleasant plazas and watched a couple of kids having a great time on their cars!

A bit of memory lane...  I was in Bolivia in 1998 and did some nutty things.... like climb a mountain.  Which, in itself is a crazy thing to do given that La Paz is just under 12,000 feet elevation.

From La Paz, this is the 20,000ft mountain I climbed back in 1998, Huayna Potosi.  It was nuts, because I had never climbed with ropes, crampons... jumping crevasses...

In 1998 and to this day, this hotel has a kick-ass vegetarian lunch.  Today it costs BS 30 - or about US 4 -  for more than you could possibly eat!

The most visited archaeological site in Bolivia is Tiwanaku, less than an hour out of La Paz.  These ruins date to somewhere around 300 BC to 300 AD.  While nowhere near as extensive as the Inca ruins in Peru (which date from somewhere around 1200 AD), still very impressive for their age.

About 4 hours of La Paz is Copacabana.  You have to cross the Strait of Tiquina to get there.  There is no bridge.... still.

This is how the buses and cars go across.  They push off from the shore and then use outboard motors power these "barges".

The people are shuttled across in motorboats -- just a 10 minute crossing.

After La Paz, Copacabana is a welcome relief.  On the shores of Lake Titicaca, it is calm and has the fun quirk of being the place where people come from all over to have their vehicles blessed.

All vehicles are worthy of being blessed - trucks, buses, vans.....

Blessings are done by the priests, but other components include flowers, beer/champagne, popcorn, fire crackers...

The beautifully green plaza with the cathedral in the background.

Lots and lots of agriculture in the surrounding countryside.

We stayed in a great place up on the hillside looking out over it all.  Lots of windows, a good TV to watch the Euro Cup, area to lounge outside with hammocks, a slack line... 

Duane perfecting the slack line.

My search for people to talk Spanish with ended up with conversations with Alejandra and Benjamin rather than their mother.

The beer of La Paz -- and Bolivia.  The normal light beer "tastes like a disgusting lager" according to Duane.  Less popular, but much tastier is their dark beer.  Even I like it -- because it doesn't taste like beer!

Lake Titicaca is shared by Bolivia and Peru.  So, next stop, Peru.  And Peru is where we are wrapping up our travels....

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia - June 14-16

The Salar de Uyuni in southwest Bolivia is one of those places where a landscape photographer would think they have died and gone to heaven.  It is the largest salt flat in the world (4,086 sq mi) and is at 11,995 ft above sea level.  The Salar was formed as a result of the drying of prehistoric lakes. It is about 60 km from the town of Uyuni (20K population) which seems to exist solely for tourism.

A few more interesting facts...  The crust is a source of salt and covers a pool of brine which is very rich in lithium.  It contains 50 to 70% of the world's lithium reserves, which is in the process of being extracted. The large area, clear skies and exceptional flatness apparently make the Salar an ideal object for calibrating the altimeters of the Earth observation satellites.  We heard various reports on how deep the salt flat is - anywhere from 12 meters to 20 layers of 12 meters....

We decided on a 2 day tour.  There were 6 of us tourists and a driver/cook/guide.

Various groups that live around the Salar are given rights to process salt.

We saw groups of people making these piles of salt with a shovel.  Then it is loaded - by shovel! - into a truck.

Server-yourself lunch off the back of the truck.

Some tourist acting like...

There are various islands in the Salar.  Incahuasi has a forest of giant cactus.  Many of these cacti are several hundred years old and they can reach 30 feet.

No, that is not cloud cover out there, that is the white of the salt!

We stayed overnight in a small pueblo at the foot of the volcano, Tunupa, on the "shores" of the Salar.  It was comical that the hostal where our tour company normally took tourists was not in operation because the town was having a festival.  We overheard our guide explaining to his boss back in Uyuni that the staff where drunk and could not attend to us.

We ended up staying in a "Salt Hotel" - very basic, but cool.  A composting toilet, no shower, no running water (they were saving it up for the festival), no electricity.

Salt bricks which make up the walls.

All six of us tourists shared a room.  It was super COLD that night - I don't know the numbers.  But they have some seriously heavy blankets that do a great job of keeping warm!

Tea time before dinner.  Duane was the only guy -- two girls were from Japan and two from Spain.

A gorgeous sunset that evening with the reflections of the sky on the salt flat.

 

Just enough water on the edge of the Salar to attract some flamingos.

These llamas must have belonged to the place we stayed.  This baby llama was so adorable -- and not too sure about being photographed.

The next morning, after breakfast, the six of us headed up the mountain.  We made it to that red ridge which is directly in front of the peak -- somewhere around 5,000 meters.   

Duane and the Japanese girls.  The Spanish girls had already stopped hiking.

Awesome view out over the Salar going up and down!

I liked taking pictures of the cactus as much as the views...

The six of us ...  While our driver had stopped to help another driver with some sort of mechanical problem.

Southern Bolivia and Duane's Birthday - May 29-June 14

Had to include the sign in case anyone doubted such a name.

 
Once we were past the border guard at Ibibobo, we found that Bolivians were quite friendly and helpful.  Villamontes, Tarija and Tupiza - the three southern towns we stayed in - all had the cool markets with the typical mayhem of vegetable, fruit, and meat stalls.  The markets actually include clothing, tools, office supplies, too.  But my favorite part is the where you can get "licuados" - fruit juices.  Almost like  a milkshake but not as sweet.  And, of course, my least favorite would be the meat section.

Dogs are a part of market life -- in the meat section!

Another familiar sight to me in being in Bolivia again is the typical garb of women and the plentiful supply of street food.

Seems odd (but I guess it is what humans do) that both Bolivia and Paraguay have an abundance of memorials and museums honoring their respective soldiers who fought each other in the Chaco War (early 1900's) which resulted in a whole lot of lost lives and no clear winner.

...And then just a few blocks away there is a huge monument to San Francisco with the more lofty hope of:  May peace fill the earth.  Ah, humans!

We stayed 10 days or so in pleasant Tarija (population 132K).  In part it was because we ended up in such a pleasant hotel.  For about 200 bolivianos/night (28 USD) we had a very comfortable room, our own roof top terrace, a very nice buffet breakfast and a very decent bathroom with hot water (not to be taken for granted) and no distasteful odors (definitely not to be taken for granted!).  Oh, and there was good wi-fi, too!

June 4 - Duane's birthday!! - we had the fun adventure of renting a 125cc motor scooter with the plan to see nearby towns, a waterfall and the countryside.

Here Duane is in the San Lorenzo Plaza - undoubtedly contemplating the significance of his birthday.

As Duane is prone to do - we headed off out of San Lorenzo up a random valley to see what was there.

Checking the map to see if there would be a short cut to the waterfall...

It was beautiful, peaceful, fun, adventuresome - seeing first hand the rural houses, livestock, crossing a stream...  Until... Yep, the flat tire.  By this time we were several kilometers outside of San Lorenzo.  We figured it was a slow leak, so we set about to find a bike pump thinking the tire would hold air long enough to get us back to town...

The first house where we asked had a few angry geese we had to get passed to ask the indigenous ladies if they had a bike bump.  They did.  But, it leaked air as we pumped so there was some rigging to do.  Duane is good at that.  But this pump also seemed to be motivated to thwart our efforts.  We got the tire full of air only to have it all leak out.....  After about 30 minutes (if not more) we said a heartfelt thanks and decided to try to find a better pump.  Duane pushed the scooter and I walked (and helped push it on the uphills).....  At another house they had a pump but it didn't have the right stem type.  So we kept walking & pushing - maybe an hour or more?  Since we wanted to maximize getting closer to town, the plan once we found the next functional pump was for me to get on the scooter alone after the tire was pumped up and ride as far as the tire would let me.  Duane would run and catch up...  That got us back to where there was pavement, but people still were telling us that we were a long ways from San Lorenzo.  What we really needed was a vehicle to put the scooter in.  We were told that there was a "micro" (public transportation van) that went to town.  That didn't seem to be an option in my mind.  But Duane thought otherwise.  And somehow, the driver of the next "micro" that came by agreed to try to get it in the van.  Crazy!

Duane and the motorbike in the van...  Lucky that the van had doors on both sides so the passengers could get in and out the opposite side!

We made it back to Tarija right about sundown.  We didn't make it to the waterfall but we certainly saw the countryside -- and it really was a hoot trying to find a pump, having the "micro" driver let us cram the motor scooter in his van, and then talking with "gomeria" guy (tire fixer) in San Lorenzo.  He fixes  tires by day, works as a security guard at night and has people come to him for medical issues - he diagnoses and sells natural medicines.  He thinks he has abilities that surpass what his son who is studying medicine in Cuba is learning.  All told, it was the perfect adventure for a birthday!



Another hightlight in Tarija was meeting Cecilia through couchsurfing.org.  We had a great time asking all sorts of questions about life in Bolivia over dinner one evening. Then she invited us to play volleyball with her friends.

Volleyball in a racquetball court - use of the walls makes it a whole different game.  Given that we haven't played sports during our trip, it was really fun.

Cecilia is next to me -- many of the group are actually part of her family. 

Tiny Tupiza (population 22K) is a place known for it's red, gray and crazy rock formations.  No motorized bikes here, but we managed to create another adventure for ourselves on bikes. 

About the time of the 1st flat tire, the dirt/gravel road we had been on disappeared and we ended up having to walk/lift our bikes along.  Of course we tried to ride a bit more...  Duane rode through this river for a ways - then we just ended up crossing the river walking the bikes through the knee deep water.

Flat tire #2.  They had given us two extra tubes....  But there are lot of cactus around here and apparently we didn't know how to dodge the prickly spines.

Once we got done with the trail finding/bushwacking part, we joined the rail road.  A smooth and relatively easy end of the loop back to town.  Thankfully we avoided a third flat tire!!  Yes, another adventure in beautiful scenery.