The Adventures of Mike & Keely

Day 1 was spent recovering from another horrifically long and uncomfortable over-night bus. Uyuni to La Paz took 11 hours on what was supposed to be a mostly paved road but was actually 90% ginormous pot holed dirt roads, and 10% badly paved roads. Added to this misery was one of our seats not reclining to the proper ‘semi-cama’ position. 3 hours of hauling on the handle and a few sore fingers later and the seat finally was behaving!

Day 2 was spent doing what we always do first in a new city – go for a walking tour of the main tourist areas. This is somewhat more difficult in La Paz than in other cities due to its staggering 3660m altitude. Just breathing was noticeably difficult, and the number of steep streets far outnumbers the flat ones. Who builds a city inside a canyon anyway? Of particular interest was the witches market (declined the temptation to buy a llama foetus) and the craft market (very colourful). It felt good to be back in a large(ish) city again although La Paz isn’t as big as we thought it would be. You see some strange things on the streets: a balaclava clad jewellery seller takes the cake though. So dodgy! In the evening we headed to the movies and for £2.30 why not? Love Bolivia. Then it was time to see what the night-life situation was like, rolling into bed well past 3am.

9. Sleeping on the job

10. What colour trousers do you want

Day 3 was largely spent at the tourist police station, British Embassy and immigration office as we sorted out our visas. We got 30 days on arrival but to do our volunteering in the jungle needed to extend this to 90 days. Normally this would be a relatively easy process but seeing how we had managed to misplace our immigration forms had a few days of anxiety while we contemplated just how much of a ‘fine’ we would have to pay to get new immigration forms. Getting a police report for our lost forms was easy enough (we (think we) left them in the immigration office in Sucre trying to sort the visas there). Getting new immigration forms was also really easy. And finally extending our visas was surprisingly really easy. No problem, no questions, no hassle and no fine. Result. After that we had a celebratory “Gonzo” ice-cream as we were so pleased with ourselves followed in the evening by quite possibly the best steak I’ve ever had (and yes that does include the steaks we had in Argentina!). 400g of flame grilled Jack Daniels goodness. Delicious!

8. We love Gonzo

Day 4 was all about adrenaline, adventure and awesome-ness. Biking down the ‘world’s most dangerous road’ doesn’t seem like a good idea but let me tell you it was great fun. Decked out in waterproof jackets and trousers, elbow pads, knee pads, full face helmets and gloves we were ready to go biking. The highlight of the day was cycling underneath waterfalls (the quality of the video is less than perfect, but you get the general idea. Mike is the 2nd rider, I’m the 5th). Our only slight disappointment was the terrible weather which prevented us from seeing the valley views in all their splendour. But the mist obscuring the 300-400m sheer drop off may have been a blessing in disguise; not being able to see how far we would plummet to our deaths had we gone over the side probably made the biking down the narrow rocky road that much easier. The bikes were excellent though, dual suspension and top quality brakes. Just what was needed. Didn’t stop Mike from getting a puncture but one of our guides had to all patched up in less than 5 minutes.

The photos and video were taken by our guides; the quality is a bit suspect but I hope you get the general idea. The videos will have to wait - not enough time to wait for them to upload!!!! Grr!!!!

1. Before

2. My 'small helmut' padded with extra foam still feels massive

3. Half way down

4. The scariest bit

5. After, I'm on the left, Mike's MIA

6. Back view, covered with mud

7. Front view, covered with mud

Day 5 we didn’t achieve much, being the day after another huge night out, this time rolling into bed just before 5am. The night life in La Paz isn’t particularly awesome but the people we were hanging out with are. So thanks to Matt, Max, Sharne, Trish, Kath and Pete for another great night out. Good times with good people.

Day 6 saw us recommencing our tourist activities. First with a hike to a viewpoint with stunning views of the city and mountains, followed by a spot of shopping (we need clothes we can destroy working in the jungle). We walked by the famous San Pedro prison but weren’t tempted (at all) to go for a ‘tour’ inside. It probably would have been perfectly legitimate but I for one wasn’t about to test it.

11. Typical La Paz street

12. La Paz

13. More La Paz

Day 7 (how had a week gone by already?) was another day of achieving next to nothing; mainly because we were both feeling decidedly average. Nooooooo – we absolutely can’t get sick before going to the jungle for a month. With bus tickets already bought we soldiered on, checked out and waited for the 16 hour overnight bus journey to begin. Wah!!!!

L – Lazy days (hanging out with friends in the hostel garden, drinking mate and chatting).
A – Alcohol (the strongest drinks EVER, in all of South America).

P – Protests (every day, police with riot shields, crazy streets, dynamite explosions but totally peaceful).
A – Altitude (a week spent at 3660m).
Z – Zzzzzzzz (some of the most comfortable beds in South America can be found at ‘Bacoo’ Hostel).

Keely

P.S. This will be our last update for a month. Tomorrow we head deep deep into the Bolivian jungle for what will hopefully be one of the highlights of our trip. Never fear though, I’ve got a notebook and a pencil and every intention of taking notes; the better to recall what life looking after a Puma is like. Stay tuned, and see you back here soon…………….

To be honest I’m not sure the following words of mine are really all that necessary, as they simply won’t do the experience justice BUT I’ll give it a shot anyway. This trip involved spending the best part of four days in southern Bolivia, starting in Tupiza and finishing in Uyuni which is located on the perimeter of the famous salt plains, or Salar de Uyuni to refer to them by their proper name.

We departed Tupiza in the early morning in a 4x4 jeep, along with 3 other ladies that had been grouped with us by the tour agency. As soon as the tour commenced, we started climbing some fairly steep mountains and before we had reached 4,500m and were all feeling just a little light headed and woozy in the jeep! The scenery and landscapes encountered on the first day weren’t actually all that spectacular, well certainly not in relation to what we would see on the remaining days anyway. The highlight of the first day was probably ascending a rather sketchy road that skirted the edge of a fairly steep canyon, and chasing numerous llamas and alpacas off the roads! We also visited the ruins of an old mining village that is now deserted apart from some strange rodent/rabbit things running around. According to our guide (Spanish speaking only) some sort of tragic accident occurred which is why the village was abandoned. Unfortunately none of our tour could understand Spanish well enough to understand exactly what he was saying, but judging by the state of the ruins it happened quite some time ago. We eventually arrived at our very basic accommodation well after sundown, and hit the sack after a quick dinner.

Day two commenced with us visiting a small but perfectly heated thermal pool! Having a spa whilst at 4,000m was a fantastic experience, but sadly we only had about 20mins with which to enjoy the water. Even though it was a very quick spa, we all left feeling extremely relaxed and ready for some new scenery. This area contains quite a few lagoons, and we shortly arrived at a rather large lagoon which was home to approx 1,000 flamencos. En route to the lagoon we drove along a road flanked by landscapes which felt almost alien. Having not been to the moon yet I can’t say this for sure, but it felt distinctly lunar here, well apart from the snow-capped mountains in the background that is. The next stop reminded us of home a lot, well Rotorua at least, as we arrived at an area with geysers. To be fair they weren’t as good as Rotorua as the geysers only seemed to emit steam rather than tall jets of water, but you could walk right amidst the pools which was a nice touch, and you could even stand right in the middle of the steam clouds. Keely took some convincing, which is why the photo below has her running away from the steam! After the geysers we reached firstly Lagoona Verde, which had amazing turquoise coloured water, followed by Lagoona Colorada, which was a deep red colour. Contrary to my explanation which was tons of flamenco shit, the colour actually comes from an algae that resides on the surface. Colorada was the last stop of the day, so we had dinner and went to bed, sad to see the back of a day which has to be the best landscape viewing day of my life, but also excited about what would come tomorrow.

Day three commenced with a visit to some fantastic rock formations which appear out of nowhere and yet more lagoons flanked by snow-capped mountains. We stopped for lunch at some more rock formations, but these ones resembled much more the scenery you would expect to see in the wild west of the US. From there we drove to the town of Uyuni where our accommodation was, but not before stopping at the train cemetery where you are allowed to climb all over rusting old train wrecks – got to love Bolivian health & safety, or lack thereof! If I was ten I would have thought this was the coolest place on earth! Again we had a fairly early night, especially as we would be up at 5am to watch the sunrise over the salt plains in the morning.

So after waking up at 5am and getting dressed in our warm gear, the jeep headed out to the famous salt flats to watch the sunrise. It was bitterly cold, but awesome to finally get to what is the highlight of the trip for many, and watching the sun rise over the plains is certainly an experience we won’t be forgetting any time soon. Once the sun was up, it was silly photo time! As the plains are so flat, you can take “perspective photos” which basically involve making people / things look bigger or smaller than they really are. Once you introduce a couple of props such as toy dinosaurs, wine bottles etc, you can really have a whole heap of fun playing around. The best pic of the day was actually a video that our guide setup, where it looks like we are all miniature people emerging from a box of hot chocolate to dance! Upon finishing with the silly photos (almost covered from head to toe in salt!), we drove over the flats to a small salt mining village. The salt digging is still done manually with a shovel, so there are hundreds of salt pyramids made by the workers, which are then shovelled onto the back of trucks and transported to the mining facility. After a little shopping at the local market, it was back to Uyuni and the end of the tour.

Keely and I both instantly agreed that this trip had been the absolute highlight of South America so far, and can only see it being knocked off the top perch by Maccu Pichu in Peru - although I’m not sure even Maccu Pichu can do that!! Only time will tell….

Mike

In no particular order:

Hope the video works? If not, try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn2nltvOlfI

Here’s just a taste of what we saw on our 4 day jeep tour from Tupiza to Uyuni in southern Bolivia. Probably THE best landscapes in the world and without doubt the highlight of our entire trip (so far). Landscapes so incredible they don’t look real or perhaps could be from another planet. Mike is going to write this blog, but until he does here is just one of countless photos we love from the tour. I’m already working on the next blog: fun times in La Paz, but watch this space. “Un-Bolivia-Able” coming soon to “The Adventures of Mike and Keely”!

Caballo is Spanish for horse. It took me just over 6 months to convince Mike that horse riding would be fun and all things considered, Tupiza in Bolivia is probably THE place to do it for the first time. Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance kid are legendary here. Strictly speaking we’ve both been horse riding before but I can’t remember when, and Mike has bad recollections of being thrown off when he was like 10 years old. Never mind: we knew how to say “a nice calm horse please” and “stop” in Spanish so what could go wrong?

Baiyo seemed like a nice horse for me; certainly her tan and black colouring was appealing, as was her awesome side parting hair style (see photo below). She looked small but capable, calm and most importantly slow. Mike was given Taleda a solid and sturdy looking brown horse. So far so good!

There aren’t as many photos as the spectacular scenery deserves. Normally I would have taken several hundred photos on a 5 hour tour of such beautiful countryside. There were certainly plenty of photo worthy shots: giant cactuses, red rocks and massive rock canyons. But I needed both hands to hold on as my (seemingly tranquil) horse trotted and galloped all over the place jostling and bumping me up and down in the saddle making it impossible to hold the camera at the same time. Did I mention that I can’t actually horse ride?

The first twenty or so times my horse galloped off into the distance I found ridiculously funny. Back pack thumping up and down on my back, sombrero sliding down so I couldn’t actually see where I was going, Mike’s laughter drifting towards me while I tried to hold onto the saddle or reigns for dear life. Who knew horse riding was so much fun? After a few hours of that though the agony set in as muscles I didn’t even know I had started to ache and ache and ache. I managed to portray to our guide I wanted to take it nice and easy on the way back to town, pretending I wanted to take photos but really I couldn’t handle any more cantering off into the sunset stuff.

In hindsight the shorter 3 hour tour would have been perfect for our first time horse riding in 2 decades. Walking back to our hostel was rather slow and painful but the experience and scenery were incredible and more than worth the body aches. I haven’t laughed so much or so hard in ages. Needless to say my horse-riding desire has well and truly been met and I won’t be asking Mike to go again for a very long time.

Ironically Mike was feeling fine the next day, no aches and pains at all.

Keely

1. Check out my hair style

2. Muy tranquillo, este es Baiyo me caballo por un dia

3. Entering one of many canyons

4. Gaint cactuses

5. Red canyons

6. More cactuses

7. Mike the cowboy

8. One of only a few tranquil moments to enjoy the scenery

9. My horse liked to be in the lead

Condor Trekking, the organisation we choose for our 3 day tour of the Bolivian ‘Inca Trail’ and Managua crater, is a non-profit company started a few years back by a keen (and slightly crazy) Australian. He employs some great local guides but also relies on foreign volunteers to help prepare and run 1-4 day trips in and around Sucre. It is the only non-profit organisation running such tours, and as the guide book recommends taking a guide to a) avoid getting lost and b) avoid paths with bandits we thought we may as well use a company that gives something back to the community. Thus we found ourselves in the hands of Elvis and David (our trusty local guides) and Travis (our American volunteer).

Day 1 started at 5am at the Condor Trekking office. Overnight two other people had become 10 other people, so departure was rather chaotic while everybody got sorted with equipment, sleeping mats, foam rolls, payments and introductions.

After a drive of about an hour and a half we arrived at Chataquila; Sucre’s highest church. Any chance of getting a bit more much needed shut eye was unfortunately impossible due to the horrendously bumpy roads. This is Bolivia after all.

Breakfast consisted of a mountain of home-made chocolate and banana bread and a local hot drink made from red corn, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Both were delicious. Then it was time to distribute the food! A ridiculous number of plastic containers were laid out along with individual fruit bags containing three apples and three oranges each. One thing was certain; we were in no danger of starving. I had Mike’s little day pack which filled up quickly with a sleeping bag, a few spare clothes (not enough it would turn out), the camera and a raincoat. I didn’t have a lot of extra space, nor did I want to carry tons of heavy food (enough for 15 people). Selection of my plastic containers was therefore crucial, but I’m no dummy: I choose one medium sized one with lettuce in it. So super light. Result. Mike on the other hand chose not one but three enormous containers, one with two chucks of cheese in, another with about 7 blocks of chocolate and dozens of soup packets and the final one had 4 avocados in it. So super heavy. Muppet! But a very lovely Muppet for obviously carrying my share as well as his own.

Luckily the walking was mostly downhill the first morning and we ate some of Mike’s chocolate and cheese at the first stop on day 1. A couple of German lads carried more cheese and a ton of bananas until the third day, the bananas slightly the worse for wear for being in the bottom of their bags for three days.

The scenery was spectacular. Everywhere one looked green fields could be seen, farmers tending livestock, donkeys grazing and thousands of wild yellow daises. But what really caught my attention was the colour of the soil. Purple, red, orange, silver, brown; I have never seen such multi-coloured soil before. It was incredibly beautiful. That is until the heavens decided to open and change the previously beautiful red and purple soil to rivers of mud. I no longer cared what colour it was. The only upside of the thunderstorm was the lightening. Thunder would boom in one place, and then zigzagging lightening would flash across the sky in another. Grey cloud was rolling in from somewhere but the lightening was so bright the path was illuminated for several seconds afterwards. By this stage the camera was safely tucked away in a nice dry-bag but unfortunately the rest of our clothes were not so lucky. We normally use plastic bags to keep everything dry but didn’t bring any this time (brain melt). Luckily the accommodation was more than decent – real beds with linen – so having a slightly damp sleeping bag was no big deal. Having no dry trousers to wear once we reached the crater was also no big deal: no-one seemed to care I wore my pyjama bottoms to dinner!

After dinner we braved the chilly temperatures for a fine visual display. In one part of the sky we had lightening, in another a red glow across the horizon after the sun had set, and straight up a million stars. Some saw a shooting star but I wasn’t one of the lucky ones. Seeing the ‘southern cross’ always makes me think of home and when I’m far away miss it just a little bit.

The crater itself was nothing like what I was expecting; a steep sided and totally isolated barren depression for instance. But no: a whole community lives down there, tending crops and keeping livestock inside its gently sloping sides. It’s fertile and it’s green. There’s accommodation for travellers (although we had the place to ourselves), a school, several houses and a church. No shops though, and no-where to buy beer. Interestingly beer is about the only thing that is expensive in Bolivia.

Day 2 was much the same as day 1, with the exception of some rather cool dinosaur prints. One minute we were lugging our bags up a small hill, huffing and puffing and sweating in the midday sunshine, and the next we were enthusiastically climbing all over the hill looking at the indentations. The most impressive set belonged to a T-Rex (4 legged) with flat feet but I also liked the 3-toed 2 legged dinosaur impressions. The prints, estimated at 65-69 million years old are in exceptionally good condition; especially considering the complete lack of protection either from the elements or from people touching them. This is Bolivia after all. With a little bit of imagination the inner kid was unleashed in us all and I think our guide Travis had the right of it in simply declaring: “dinosaurs are cool”. Well said! (Jurassic park is not surprisingly one of his favourite movies).

Over the three days our path crossed that of several locals; here a few of my favourite situations:
•On walking out of the crater on day 2, we encountered quite a few children running down into it. Their journey to school takes three hours each way so not surprisingly they were pretty pleased when our guide gave them some crackers. They only just remembered to shout “gracias” over their shoulders as they raced on by.
•We came across a woman who looked about 100 judging by her skin and lack of teeth but who was probably more like 50 years old. I’m not entirely sure what happened (as I’m not fluent in Spanish) but we traded her 5 Bolivianos and a huge handful of Coco leaves for some of her home-made bread. Only trouble was she had no-where to put the Coco leaves, so what does she do? Take off her hat, put them in and then plonk the hat back on her head. Simple yet effective – but that’s the way of the Bolivians.
•While waiting for the local bus to take us back to Sucre on the last day, most of us realised we still had quite a lot of fruit left in our individual bags. Mike, like a few others, still had all 6 pieces. You would have thought we were giving the kids candy or Christmas presents based on the expressions and shy smiles we got.
•Bolivian women use strips of brightly coloured fabric to carry things on their back; anything from firewood to small children. According to our guide David, the locals find us back-pack wearing hikers a strange sight; so unused are they to seeing foreigners.
•Most Bolivians don’t have nice sheep-dogs to help herd goats or whatever. Some have a shaggy skinny sorry excuse for a farm dog but these tend to be rather ineffectual. Solution? Throw rocks at your sheep/goats/donkeys. Simple but brutal, seems to work every time though.

After getting back to Sucre for a much needed shower and a sort out of the bags (with still slightly damp clothes) we had just enough time for some lunch and a bit of football watching at the pub before yet another over-night bus loomed: this time to Tupiza.

Overall we were thrilled with our Condor Tour, especially knowing our money would benefit the local community: they certainly need a helping hand. After a week of hanging out in Sucre it was also good to get out and about and see a glimpse of rural Bolivia, away from the main tourist route. The people at ‘Condor’ are in the process of opening a non-profit café in Sucre where tourists can meet and sample traditional food with locally grown produce. At the moment the project has been buried in Bolivian red tape but we wish them all the best when (not if) the café opens.

Keely.

1. The Inca Trail

2. Green pastures, day 1 scenary near Ravelo river

3. Don't look down. Spot the trekkers on the ledge, left hand side

4. One of thousands of yellow daises

5. Maragua crater, local farmer

6. Herding sheep, donkeys, goats and pigs in the evening

7. Walking out of the crater, day 2

8. Local woman chewing coca leaves, just chilling

9. Unleashing the inner kid in us all, Dinosaur Time

10. Potolo valley, way home 1

11. Potolo valley, way home 2

12. Do you want my fruit...

13. The road home