Her Name Was Lola...
Greeting Loyal Readers,
It's a big hello today from Copacabana, on the shores of Lake Titikaka. Today's a rest day, after the adventures of the last four days since we departed La Paz to tour the south of Bolivia. It's low tech here in Copa, and I've updated it now to add some pics. Let's run you through what we've been up to eh?
We were all sorted and booked for our trip, including return transport from La Paz down to Uyuni, where the tour began. Thought I'd throw in a pic of La Paz for youse, this is the view coming down from the airport up in El Alto, pretty lovely huh? After pottering around La Paz for our final afternoon we made our way down to the bus station for the 12hr local bus down to Uyuni. This was our first local bus in a while, and a nice reminder of why it can be worth spending another $10 for slightly plusher modes of transport. This was best proved when we broke down literally one minute after leaving La Paz. We were stopped for about an hour and a half, the soundtrack to this being the constant clanging of spanners ourside our window. The fact that the guy who was lying on his back under the bus was smoking showed that the problem probably wasn't to do with the fuel system...
We did eventually get under way, and the trip was around 550kms, with the final 180km 'unpaved'. We made a LOT of stops en route, usually picking up locals who were only travelling part of the journey, including the ubiquitous wizened old lady who sat in the aisle and slept on my legs. Sleep was briefly attained, but once the asphalt ran out we were subjected to some of the most punishing roads I've ever been on. Three hours of constant rattling left my teeth bare and such big gaps between my joints that I felt like one of these.
Uyuni is a pretty barren little spot, in the middle of the Bolivian desert and miles from anywhere. There are a lot of folk offering tours and you are constantly
harrangued on the way to the main street - one of the reasons we wanted to have our tour organised before we left La Paz. We left on time at 10:30, with two couples, one English, the other German. -Our steed was a Toyota Landcruiser, piloted by our guide, the diminutive Oscar. The first stop was the train graveyard, just 3km out of town. Rusty reminders of the might of the steam age are stockpiled here from the days when minerals were profitably extracted from the area. Now, you know I loves me a good train or two, so this was pretty fun, and set the pace for the number of photos I was going to take on this trip.
The next, longer drive was across the Salar; 12,000sqkms of evaporated salt lake. Once you cross the edge of it its horizons quickly disappear and it really does stretch on as far as you can see. The hills and mountains that ring its perimeter are all shimmering with the mirage effect, some of them almost mirrored along the horizon line. We stopped a couple of times to check out the taste (salty), and see how it's harvested (by hand, in antique trucks). We'd heard some stories, which we took to be exaggerated, about accidents that have recently occurred along this route when guides 
have let tourists drive the trucks. 
Turns out they were true, as there are some scary reminders in the form of skid marks and crosses marking the sites. Shudder shudder and we pressed on to the Isla De Pescadores, which sits very lonely surrounded by the salt flats. Altitude still made the climb to the top a little tough, but well worth it. The island is totally covered with gigantic cactii, the oldest we saw was over 1,000 years old. These are the really good, romantic ideal of a cactus - 9m tall, with two arms that come out at different heights. Oh, and 1,000 years old, in case I forgot to mention that...
We camped for the night in a salt hotel on the edge of the flats. It was pretty basic, but warm enough and a great spot, elevated above the flats so you could ponder their enormity. We spent the evening eating our fried chicken and playing quite a bit of cards with the Tim and Jude (the English), and quizzing Wolfgang and Meike (the Germans) for German tongue twisters. Here's the motley crew at left, can you tell it's cold?
It was an early start the next day, creeping outside for my first sunrise of the trip at 6am over the flats. Try as I might I couldn't quite catch the famous green flash that Mike first told me of, but the setting still contributed to one of the best I've seen in a long while, and a good reward for getting up
so early. 
We hit the trail in good spirits and on our second day took in the famous Arbol de Piedra (a wind blown rock formation perched like a tree in the middle of the desert) and the first of what would be many lagoons. The real money shot here was Laguna Colorada, and its 
thousands of pink flamingos. I'm really struggling to convey what this place was like without some pictures (here's one taken from the top of the hill next to the lagoon), but we were completely gobsmacked as we wandered around. By now we'd seen these unearthly salt flats, huge cactii, giant salt lakes with borax islands and hot water bubbling up through them, and all these flamingos. I'm starting to form the opinion that Bolivia is really a rockin' spot, filled with some of the most spectacular natural wonders I've ever seen. I haven't even mentioned yet the active volcano we casually stopped to take pictures of...
We stayed on the shores of Laguna Colorada, and our second night's accomodation was far less, um, accommodating. Six to a dorm (we're all getting on well now tho) and a kindof crappy spaghetti dinner in the cold dining area. No-one was too fussed as were told to be up at 5am, so everyone rolled into bed at a polite hour, and mostly fully clothed due to the extreme cold out here. We'd been up and down all day, but thanks to Wolfgang's altimeter (don't you just love that? He takes an altimeter on holiday, that's my kind of guy) we confirmed that we had reached a maximum altitude of 15,800ft...
We were all very cold for our final day, which we were told was mostly just a long drive back to Uyuni. We took a short detour south to see the geyser area, which we arrived at just after sunrise, and were completely blown away. This place is like the alien planets on Starship Troopers, and I've never seen anything quite like it. A giant steam geyser greets you on arrival, before you walk out over the geyser field where sulphurous steam seeps through the mineral encrusted ground. Health and Safety aren't great priorities here, so you get the whole place to yourself to just wander around the numerous craters, wondering how long before you were cooked alive if you fell in. We went a little mad wandering amongst the steam, and after realising that sulphur was poisonous we headed back to the jeep for our last leg south, to Laguna Verde. The pic below is of our group, Wolfgang, Meike, Ana, me, Jude and Tim.
Laguna Verde is at 4,300m and just on the Chilean border. From here we began the long trip north which would eventually bring us here. In summary, we drove until 6pm when we arrived in Uyuni, took the 8pm night bus back to La Paz (tourist class this time, and all the better for my shaken bones), then local bus over to the shores of Titikaka, where we arrived after 34 hours of travel.
It was a truly amazing trip, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that put together, the sights we saw over the last 3 days easily outrival Iguacu Falls. We fell in quite chummy with the English, and are already hatching plans to take them over to the Coromandel in January when they arrive (any takers for a house over there around the 18th Jan please pipe up...) I saw my first flamingos, and met my first altimeter-carrier - all in all just bloomin' marvelous, and our consciences are clear for doing nothing much while we're in Copa.
Next in line is a trip across the lake to the Isla Del Sol, then we'll wave goodbye (very sadly) to Bolivia and cross over to Peru to try one of their 4,000 varieties of potatoes. I'll do my best to add some pics to this post later, but till then - you folks look out for one another and keep an eye on the postbox, there was a large dispatch sent from La Paz.
OK, off now to climb the little hill overlooking the town. Wish you were here ;)
A
It's a big hello today from Copacabana, on the shores of Lake Titikaka. Today's a rest day, after the adventures of the last four days since we departed La Paz to tour the south of Bolivia. It's low tech here in Copa, and I've updated it now to add some pics. Let's run you through what we've been up to eh?
We were all sorted and booked for our trip, including return transport from La Paz down to Uyuni, where the tour began. Thought I'd throw in a pic of La Paz for youse, this is the view coming down from the airport up in El Alto, pretty lovely huh? After pottering around La Paz for our final afternoon we made our way down to the bus station for the 12hr local bus down to Uyuni. This was our first local bus in a while, and a nice reminder of why it can be worth spending another $10 for slightly plusher modes of transport. This was best proved when we broke down literally one minute after leaving La Paz. We were stopped for about an hour and a half, the soundtrack to this being the constant clanging of spanners ourside our window. The fact that the guy who was lying on his back under the bus was smoking showed that the problem probably wasn't to do with the fuel system...We did eventually get under way, and the trip was around 550kms, with the final 180km 'unpaved'. We made a LOT of stops en route, usually picking up locals who were only travelling part of the journey, including the ubiquitous wizened old lady who sat in the aisle and slept on my legs. Sleep was briefly attained, but once the asphalt ran out we were subjected to some of the most punishing roads I've ever been on. Three hours of constant rattling left my teeth bare and such big gaps between my joints that I felt like one of these.
Uyuni is a pretty barren little spot, in the middle of the Bolivian desert and miles from anywhere. There are a lot of folk offering tours and you are constantly
harrangued on the way to the main street - one of the reasons we wanted to have our tour organised before we left La Paz. We left on time at 10:30, with two couples, one English, the other German. -Our steed was a Toyota Landcruiser, piloted by our guide, the diminutive Oscar. The first stop was the train graveyard, just 3km out of town. Rusty reminders of the might of the steam age are stockpiled here from the days when minerals were profitably extracted from the area. Now, you know I loves me a good train or two, so this was pretty fun, and set the pace for the number of photos I was going to take on this trip.
The next, longer drive was across the Salar; 12,000sqkms of evaporated salt lake. Once you cross the edge of it its horizons quickly disappear and it really does stretch on as far as you can see. The hills and mountains that ring its perimeter are all shimmering with the mirage effect, some of them almost mirrored along the horizon line. We stopped a couple of times to check out the taste (salty), and see how it's harvested (by hand, in antique trucks). We'd heard some stories, which we took to be exaggerated, about accidents that have recently occurred along this route when guides 
have let tourists drive the trucks. 
Turns out they were true, as there are some scary reminders in the form of skid marks and crosses marking the sites. Shudder shudder and we pressed on to the Isla De Pescadores, which sits very lonely surrounded by the salt flats. Altitude still made the climb to the top a little tough, but well worth it. The island is totally covered with gigantic cactii, the oldest we saw was over 1,000 years old. These are the really good, romantic ideal of a cactus - 9m tall, with two arms that come out at different heights. Oh, and 1,000 years old, in case I forgot to mention that...
We camped for the night in a salt hotel on the edge of the flats. It was pretty basic, but warm enough and a great spot, elevated above the flats so you could ponder their enormity. We spent the evening eating our fried chicken and playing quite a bit of cards with the Tim and Jude (the English), and quizzing Wolfgang and Meike (the Germans) for German tongue twisters. Here's the motley crew at left, can you tell it's cold?It was an early start the next day, creeping outside for my first sunrise of the trip at 6am over the flats. Try as I might I couldn't quite catch the famous green flash that Mike first told me of, but the setting still contributed to one of the best I've seen in a long while, and a good reward for getting up
so early. 
We hit the trail in good spirits and on our second day took in the famous Arbol de Piedra (a wind blown rock formation perched like a tree in the middle of the desert) and the first of what would be many lagoons. The real money shot here was Laguna Colorada, and its 
thousands of pink flamingos. I'm really struggling to convey what this place was like without some pictures (here's one taken from the top of the hill next to the lagoon), but we were completely gobsmacked as we wandered around. By now we'd seen these unearthly salt flats, huge cactii, giant salt lakes with borax islands and hot water bubbling up through them, and all these flamingos. I'm starting to form the opinion that Bolivia is really a rockin' spot, filled with some of the most spectacular natural wonders I've ever seen. I haven't even mentioned yet the active volcano we casually stopped to take pictures of...We stayed on the shores of Laguna Colorada, and our second night's accomodation was far less, um, accommodating. Six to a dorm (we're all getting on well now tho) and a kindof crappy spaghetti dinner in the cold dining area. No-one was too fussed as were told to be up at 5am, so everyone rolled into bed at a polite hour, and mostly fully clothed due to the extreme cold out here. We'd been up and down all day, but thanks to Wolfgang's altimeter (don't you just love that? He takes an altimeter on holiday, that's my kind of guy) we confirmed that we had reached a maximum altitude of 15,800ft...
We were all very cold for our final day, which we were told was mostly just a long drive back to Uyuni. We took a short detour south to see the geyser area, which we arrived at just after sunrise, and were completely blown away. This place is like the alien planets on Starship Troopers, and I've never seen anything quite like it. A giant steam geyser greets you on arrival, before you walk out over the geyser field where sulphurous steam seeps through the mineral encrusted ground. Health and Safety aren't great priorities here, so you get the whole place to yourself to just wander around the numerous craters, wondering how long before you were cooked alive if you fell in. We went a little mad wandering amongst the steam, and after realising that sulphur was poisonous we headed back to the jeep for our last leg south, to Laguna Verde. The pic below is of our group, Wolfgang, Meike, Ana, me, Jude and Tim.
Laguna Verde is at 4,300m and just on the Chilean border. From here we began the long trip north which would eventually bring us here. In summary, we drove until 6pm when we arrived in Uyuni, took the 8pm night bus back to La Paz (tourist class this time, and all the better for my shaken bones), then local bus over to the shores of Titikaka, where we arrived after 34 hours of travel.It was a truly amazing trip, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that put together, the sights we saw over the last 3 days easily outrival Iguacu Falls. We fell in quite chummy with the English, and are already hatching plans to take them over to the Coromandel in January when they arrive (any takers for a house over there around the 18th Jan please pipe up...) I saw my first flamingos, and met my first altimeter-carrier - all in all just bloomin' marvelous, and our consciences are clear for doing nothing much while we're in Copa.
Next in line is a trip across the lake to the Isla Del Sol, then we'll wave goodbye (very sadly) to Bolivia and cross over to Peru to try one of their 4,000 varieties of potatoes. I'll do my best to add some pics to this post later, but till then - you folks look out for one another and keep an eye on the postbox, there was a large dispatch sent from La Paz.
OK, off now to climb the little hill overlooking the town. Wish you were here ;)
A
1 Comments:
I totally agree - Bolivia is a pretty cool country! But Peru has gems all of its own. the train trip to Cusco is pretty spectacular. Watch out for the dodgy fake pesos in Cusco!
Look forward to the next installment - bringing back heaps of cool memories for me.
Livvy.
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