Impressions of La Paz

La Paz has been an interesting place to visit. Always something happening but we are never sure what it all means.

Our hotel, the Senorial Montero, has been good to us. The breakfast guy has finally stopped asking for our room number since we have been the only ones eating breakfast for the last week. However, they have a new trick now. In the evening, they do not turn on the lights in the hallway on our floor. We keep forgettng to take a flashlight with us when we go out in the evening so it is a bit of an adventure to find our room. Cost cutting measure I am sure.

Downtown is quite different. We walked aways further south (and down) to find that the streets become wider and the whole scene is a bit more upscale with fancy hotels and restaurants. A little rich for us as we now consider that if we pay more than 4 or 5 dollars for a meal, we are getting ripped off!

Life in the older part of the city, around the Plaza Murillo, is still the most interesting. Some days, for no apparent reason, there will be a huge police presence, with full riot gear, sometimes blocking off several blocks and holding back noisy crowds of people. In all cases they never let these disturbances get within a block of the Plaza and life goes on there as if nothing is happening. We tend to stay clear of such gatherings on general principal.

Another odd development is the appearance of some ¨traffic zebras¨ at most of the major intersections near the Plaza. Their job seems to be to educate the drivers as to what to do when they are faced with a red light. Seems to work too, except that quite often some official looking person, in some sort of police or army uniform, will show up on one of the corners and start directing traffic, often contradicting the actual traffic lights. Fortunately the drivers ignore them for the most part and after a short while they wander off somewhere else.

I have to mention the city center revitalization project which is going on quite near our hotel. Each day we watch as the construction progresses and it is quite enlightening as so much is done by hand. To give them their due, most of the time they do seem to be working quite diligently. Of course, some of the time they look just like any construction project back home. Lots of supervisors and very few workers. We are kind of disappointed that we won´t be able to see the finished project as we have invested considerable time in overseeing the work to this point.

As for us, tomorrow we join our tour group for the journey to Rio. We are apparently joining a group that has just done the same three-week tour that we did in Peru two weeks ago. The list of people on the tour, including the 4 people joining here in La Paz, adds up to 22 persons, unless some of them are leaving here in La Paz. I guess we will find out for sure tomorrow when we meet our tour leader. We may skip the orientation tour of La Paz as we probably know this city better than most tourists here.

Oh ya, yesterday was my birthday. Susanne took me out for ice cream.

Cholitas Wrestling

La Paz

We have settled into a sort of holding pattern in La Paz. Each day is much the same as the last.

In the morning, we drag ourselves out of bed and have breakfast on the top of our hotel. Lately it seems as if we are the only guests at the hotel and we usually have the restaurant to ourselves. In spite of this, the attendant always has to ask for our room number and exclaim as if he has never seen us before.

We came home last night a little later than usual and found that the staff had all disappeared but our key was conveniently left on the recepetion counter for us, just reinforcing the idea that we are alone here.

Each day, we usually set of in some random direction and walk for an hour or two (always uphill or downhill of course), just absorbing the daily life in La Paz. It seems you can walk forever along some of the streets and never run out of street vendors lining the sides of the road, selling everything your heart could possibly want. If the streets happen to be extra wide, they just set up two rows of vendors along the sides so there is never more than 1 or 2 lanes left for traffic. For some reason, this seems to work quite well here and makes for a lot of fun just cruising the streets.

When we get tired of walking, we usually find ourselves drawn to a place like Alexander´s Cafe, where you can actually get a real cup of coffee and a muffin. For some reason, coffee is a difficult commodity to find in both Bolivia and Peru (outside of Nescafé instant).

Then, we invariably end up at the Plaza Murillo, where we can sit on the steps and just watch people for hours. This seems endlessly fascinating, with the rich mixture of cultures that seem to meld in the square. You can see ladies in their lovely huge skirts and bowler hats, mixing with serious men in suits and ties, young families with little kids having a ball feedng the pigeons, a few military types patrolling the park and eating ice cream and a sprinkling of tourists from around the world.

We try to vary where we have lunch, tryng various restaurants we have found and have been making lunch our main meal of the day. The afternoons seem to fly by, usually just more walking and possibly taking a much-needed nap. Supper is more or less fast food, picked up at some local eatery and we are usually totally exhausted by the end of the day. I don´t think we are fully aclimatized to the altitude yet, after more than a week in La Paz.

We have made an effort to find an English book store, with no luck. However, we have found a couple of places where you can exchange a book for another for about a dollar. This is actually not a bad solution to Sue´s readng drought.

Oh ya, we did manage to stir up our lives a bit on Sunday by attending the Cholitas Wrestling.

This was a bit of a strange outing for us. We were bused up to El Alto where there is a wrestling ring in a small arena. Seating for the locals is all aroung on bleachers, but us tourists get the VIP seating (plastic chairs set up right around the ring).

We then sat through 2 hours of preliminary wrestling bouts with strange characters wearing outfits like skeletons and ninga turtles (and one midget for Russ). Very amateur hour theatrics but the locals sure seem to get a hoot out of it.

Finally, there was one bout with the promised Cholitas. Actually it was a tag-team effort with one man and one Cholita on each team. It was surprisingly very entertaining. Another one of those things you have to see to really understand.

So, that is our current daily existence here in La Paz. We have a few more days before joining our next Adventure travel group for the trip to Rio. For our part we are just going to continue to take it easy and enjoy the local life for now.

Death Road

Yes, after weeks of talking ourselves in to and out of this possibility, we finally decided to give the death road a try. For those who don´t know, this is a road, not far from La Paz, that goes over a pass to get to the town of Coroico and beyond.

I has a reputation as the ¨Worlds Most Dangerous Road¨, based on the huge loss of life on this road over the years. It was build in the 1930s and was simply blasted out of the edge of the mountains, one lane wide gravel or dirt(mud) surface, with sheer drops and no guard rails. And two-way traffic just to make it interesting.

Not surprisingly, they recorded an average of 200 to 300 deaths on this road every year until just a few years ago when a new road was finally completed which took the bulk of the traffic off of the old road. Now it is primarily used by the many adventure biking companies that offer a 64 km downhill ride of your life. While it is not quite as dangerous for bikes (they only lose about 1 rider a year), it is still not a ride everyone would choose.

We had spoken to various people who had done the ride recently, and got opinions from ¨boring¨to ïncredible¨to ënjoyable¨to ¨scary¨. The last girl we ran into, just after booking our ride, had fallen and broken her clavical and had spent the last two months in La Paz recuperating. In the end, we believe the ride is whatever you want to make of it. If you go off hell-bent for maximum thrills, it is possible to get into serious trouble. If you stay in control and choose your own pace, it is not too scary and quite enjoyable. At least, that is what we found when we did it. The company we chose to use http://www.madness-bolivia.com/ was based on some good feedback we got from some people we met in Cuzco, combined with the fact that they use Canadian made bikes.

The ride down starts on pavement and is very fast. A good oportunity to get to know the bikes.

There is a 4km uphill section which we opted to skip and ride in the van. Russ and Richard did try it but did not make it far. Just too high altitude for us to get our breath.

Then we diverged from the pavement and started the actual ¨death¨part of the road for the last 40km or so. All downhill on loose gravel, dirt and mud. We went through a couple of waterfalls and forded two small rivers along the way. Unfortunately for us, we encountered quite a bit of rain and fog (cloud?) on the way down and it was not always pleasant.

At the top it is 4655m and very cold. After descending 3345m in height, the end is in a subtropical jungle in the small town of Yolosa, where beer and soft-drinks were available for the thirsty riders.

After everyone was down, they trucked us up to the town of Coroico where we elected to spend the night, in hopes that the weather would improve. The hotel had a nice pool and a beautiful setting in the jungle, with magnificent views all around, but the sun would just not come out for us. As a result, we grabbed a taxi back to La Paz after only the one night.

Back in La Paz, we continue to just wander around, soaking up the different cultures of the place. We did find a theatre where we were able to take in the latest James Bond flick (English with Spanish subtitles). Pretty neat that it is partly set in La Paz.

Russ and Val are leaving us tomorrow, so we will be on our own. No telling what trouble we will get into now...

La Paz

La Paz is a fscinating city. At an average height of 3600 Meters, it is the highest capital city in the world. Everything you do here seems to take a little more effort. And of course, everywhere you want to walk is either uphill or downhill. The views in all directions from all points is quite overwhelming.

We have spent the last few days exploring the city and generally hunting down places to eat, etc.

Our hotel is very nice and quite economical, but is in a very dodgy area of the city. During the day it is no problem but at night it can be quite scary.

We have taken a city tour and a tour to the ¨Moon Valley¨, which is at the lower end of the city and enjoys a much warmer climate. A very eerie place, surrounded by some of the nicest homes in the city. Generally, the lower the altitude, the higher the wealth.

At the top, on the Altoplano plain where the airport is, is over 4000 Meters high and is a city unto itself called El Alto. Not nearly as nice as La Paz proper.

Yesterday, we took a tour to the most important archaeological site in Bolivia at Tiwanaku, on the shore of lake Titicaca.

This is a pre-Inca site dating from about 500 AD and is currently still being excavated. Interesting but nothing as impressive as what the Incas left behind at Machu Picchu and such.

We are not sure what the plans are for the next 1-1/2 weeks but I am sure we will keep ourselves amused somehow.

Lake Titicaca and Bolivia

Some very hectic days...

Day 18

This morning, we took some sort of cyclos (pedel powered transport) down to the port in Puno.

Here we boarded a boat for a visit to the Uros floating islands in the bay of Puno.

Very different exsitance for these people, living on a bed of reeds complete with all the basic needs for life. They seem to be a very cheerful bunch, and eager to meet visitors.

After visiting a couple of these islands, we continued on to the larger, more normal, island of Amantani. Here we were met by our ¨families¨ who would be our hosts for the night. These are the local Aymara/Quechua Indians who actually live in a very nice village on the slopes of the island. They basically act as boarding houses for visitors, two persons per family, and they provided beds and all meals while we are there. We brought some gifts of rice, pasta and other basic needs that we had purchsed in Puno the day before. Facilities are quite primitive and they speak primarily the Quechua language, but we were able to get along quite well for the short time we were there.

While on the island, we participated in a football match (tourists against the locals), a hike to the top of the island for a view of sunset, and a dance at the local hall. All us tourists had to dress up in local garb for the event (harder on the girls than the guys). It is quite cold at night at these altitudes and many layers is a good idea.

Oddly enough, even though it is very cold at night, it can be quite warm during the day, and the risk of sunburn at this altitude (about 3700 Meters) is severe, as some of our group discovered. Between that and the injuries from the football match (on a paved pitch) and hiking on very uneven cobblestones, there were more mishaps on this one day than on the rest of the entire trip.

Day 19

The next morning, we left by boat from Amantani island and travelled to Taquile island. Completely different culture here, where the men stand around knitting distinctive woollen hats while the women work the fields and do some weaving. Of course, we hiked to the top of the island (if there is an opportunity, we will climb), had lunch at a restaurant near the main square of the village there, and then descended via 526 steps to the port to re-board our vessel for the return to Puno for the night. A few brave souls went swimming in the lake on the way back (9 degree C water). As for us, only Russ was brave enough to try it, and he was back on the boat pretty quickly.

Day 20

Last night, our tour leader got word that some sort of strike was imminent today. Apparently, the idea is to block the highways so no-one can move about the country. With this forwarning, we got up at 2 AM to board a bus that took us to the Bolivian border before the strikers had set up the blockades. As a result, we got to the border about 5 AM and had to wait for it to open at 8 AM before we could cross. The actual crossing was pretty smooth.

Once in Bolivia, we went a short distance to the town of Copacabana, still on the shores of Lake Titicaca, where we changed to a Bolivian bus for the rest of the trip to La Paz. We travelled across the Altiplano (a high-altitude plain), following the shore of the lake, most of the way to La Paz. At one point we had to cross a bit of the lake via a small passenger boat while the bus was brought across via a barge.

As a result of the early start to the day, we arrived in La Paz earlier than originally anticipated, so we had a chance to walk around the city a bit before we all headed to a lively restaurant/night club for a group dinner. Tonight is our last night with this group and there were many goodbyes to be said. As an aside, our taxi driver that we found to take us to the restaurant got totally lost and it took over a 1/2 hour to travel what should have been a 10-minute drive. We did get to see a lot of La Paz by night though, that we otherwise might never have gotten to see.

Day 21

This is officially our last day on this tour and we decided to just make a lazy day of it, actually sleeping in. Our plan for the day is mostly to try and figure out what we are going to do for the next two weeks before our second tour starts.

So far, La Paz is quite an interesting, busy and confusing place. Everything is very cheap and there are a million little shops selling anything you could possibly want. But walking about is a bit of challange. The streets are all up and down hills and at all angles, with lots of motorized traffic that seems to have the right of way over pedestrians at all times. Not really a lot different from the other cities we have seen such as Cusco, just bigger.

Jungle Adventure

Day 13

Today we took an all-day tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas. We stopped at the Pisac ruins, strangely enough right above the town of Pisac, perched on a hilltop. The usual incredible views of the snow-capped mountains and the industrious Inca terraces - no longer used by anyone.

Spent some time at a traditional Indian market in Pisac where I broke down and bought a tee-shirt (the first of the trip).

We stopped at a local Llama and Alpaca farm which was sort of like a petting zoo. Kind of fun getting up close an personal with these animals though.

We then continued on to the temple-fortress of Ollantaytambo. This is actually where our Lares trek ended but we did not tour the ruins at that time. Another impressive example of Inca terraces on the sided of a steep mountain. Returned to Cuzco once again for the night. Big party for some of our departing travelling companions at a local restaurant.

Day 14 to 16

The Amazon Jungle...

We flew from Cuzco to the comunity of Puerto Maldonado, the starting point for a visit to the Amazon rainforest. We travelled by motorized canoe about 2 hours to a jungle lodge where, over the next couple of days, we did various treks into the jungle, viewing monkeys, birds, giant spiders, wild pigs and such. Huge climatic change from Cuzco.

In Cuzco the days are warm but the nights are quite cold but in the jungle ( a 30 minute plane ride away) it is hot and humid. Hard to believe what a change a drop from 3300 Meters to 700 Meters can make. And we can breath again!

We spent two nights at the lodge, getting up very early each day to make the most of our short time here. Not really much of a problem as the jungle awakes to the loudest variety of hoots and howls you could imagine about 4:30 AM each day.

We flew back to Cuzco again for one more night.

Day 17

Today was a travel day, a 7 hour bus trip south to the town of Puno on Lake Titicaca. Tomorrow we will be heading onto the lake to visit the floating islands and apparently live with some local Indian families in their homes. In preparation, we have stocked up on rice and flour and such as gifts for our hosts to be. Meanwhile, we spend a leasurly evening walking about town, dining and drinking at some local establishments.

Appologies for the poor selection of pictures for this posting. Sometimes our itinerary is so busy and I get caught up in the whole experience that I forget to take any pictures. I have lots of video and I am sure the others have lots of pictures but the only ones I use on this site are the ones taken with my camera, because it is only one taking pictures with a low enough resolution for posting on the web.

I will try and do better in the future.

Trekkers are us

On this little pilgrimage of ours, we are travelling for the first three weeks as part of an "Adventure Tour" from a company called Tucan. We started with 15 people in Lima and picked up two more in Arequipa. We will have some changes while in Cuzco and we will be leaving this group altogether in La Paz.

We are travelling in the company of two of our good friends, Russ and Val, who will be flying home after a week in La Paz, while we go on to join another "Adventure Tour" from there a week later.

This style of touring is new to us. Basically, the tour includes all of the hotels (some camping, etc.) and we have a leader for the group who keeps everything running smoothly. But we use only local transportation, usually meaning taxis to bus stations and buses between places, with a few other modes of transport thrown in, and we are on our own for most of our meals and other enternainment. Pretty interesting way to travel. The group we are with is all a lot younger than we are (typically early twenties), so we may slow them down sometimes, but they are a fun bunch.

As with most any organized tours, there are options that you can take at various places. In general everybody is taking all the options, but here in Cuzco there are just too many to take them all. The highlite for most people who visit Peru is Machu Picchu and there are a variety of ways to get there. This being an adventure tour, we of course are hiking there. Unlike everyone else on this tour however, we are not hiking the famous Inca Trail. Instead, we are doing a different, possibly more difficult, Lares Trek. And this is where our story continues...

Day 9

Last night we had our Lares Trek Briefing where we discovered that the transport workers, amongst others, are scheduled to go on strike on November 4th, which was to be the last day of our trek. Because our trek does not actually end at Machu Picchu, we need to take a train for the last 42 km. So it has been decided that we will be doing an accelerated trek, covering the 35 km distance in two days instead of 3, so we will arrive at the train station on the 3rd instead of the 4th. This means we had to leave our hotel at 4 AM this morning to take a car to the start of the trek, about a 4-hour drive from Cuzco. We are having a lot of misgivings about this as we are not sure we physically up to the challenge. However we have little choice.

So it is that we set out with us (the only 4 trekkers), a guide, a cook, 2 porters and 3 horses to hike over the Andes mountains.

And hike we did. Our first day was a non-stop 6-1/2 hour trek up hill, starting at 3800 Meters and crossing two passes, at 4560 Meters and 4520 Meters, before descending to our camp at a mere 4100 Meters. It was very cold at the top, probably a few degrees below zero C. For the last 3 hours, including the passes, it rained and/or snowed and/or hailed on us pretty much non-stop. Between the steep climb and the high altitude, we were at times very discouraged and thought we were close to death (at least thats the way it seemed at the time). Somehow we made it through, but have little evidence of it as no-one was in any mood to take out a camera to document the event.

Day 10

After a restless sleep (basic winter camping),we awoke to a much nicer day. The sun came out and were hiking primarily down hill. We hiked for about another 6-1/2 hours before we arrived in a small town where we had a lunch and caught the train to the Machu Picchu Pueblo, where we are going to spend two nights instead of the originally scheduled one. We were very happy to see that hotel.

The best part of this hike was the interaction with the locals. Before we began the hike, we stopped to buy bread at a local market. When we would pass by some of the local hill people, the children would come running out to greet us and, very shyly, accept a small loaf of bread. It was a very rewarding experience.

We also saw some amazing scenery, huge mountains and deep valleys sprinkled with Inca terraces and ruins. You have to see it to believe it, and the only way to really get to this place is on foot, as there are no roads where we were.

Day 11

This would have been our third day on the hike, but due to the rail strike, we took the short bus trip to Machu Picchu instead. We were blessed with a beautiful day and were able to spend as long as we wanted at the site because of the extra day we had gained by shortening the hike. In some ways, this could not have worked out better for us and we thoroughly enjoyed our time at the famous Lost City of the Incas. Words fail to descibe it and pictures cannot really do it either. You really have to go and see it for yourselves (You could skip the trek however).

Day 12

We were able to return to Cuzco earlier than we would have on the original itinerary, so we had a lovely afternoon in Cuzco, site seeing and eating, napping, etc. So all in all, it has been a great 4 day trek.

Peru Continued...

Day 3

Today, we travelled by taxi (very noisy 1966 Dodge Coronette) for a couple of hours along the coast to the sand dunes around Huacachina Oasis, where much fun was had in sand buggies and sandboarding down the dunes (not for the faint of heart).
We then relaxed by the pool at the Oasis before taxiing to our hotel for the night in Nazca, a little further south down the coast.

Days 4 & 5

We spent the day in Nazca which is a small city, most famous for the nearby Nazca lines. Naturally, we had to take a small plane for an arial view of the lines. While very interesting, we found them a little harder to spot than we thought they would be - maybe we were a little higher off the ground than we thought.
We wandered into the center of the city for supper and spent the rest of the afternoon lazing by the pool and having the odd cervesa. I attempted to update this site but the internet connection was not quite up to it.
Then we had the wonderfull experience of an all-night bus trip down the coast and inland to the City of Arequipa (2nd largest city in Peru, after Lima).

This proved to be a very nice city, lots of character, restaurants and night clubs etc. Some of our group partied pretty hard - not us of course!

Day 6 & 7

In the morning, we were collected from our hotel "Casa de mi Abuela" by a mini-bus and guide for a two-day trip to the Colca Canyon. The bus took up up over the mountains to look for Vicunas, Llamas and such.
At the top of the pass we were at 4910 meters and the air was very thin. Any exertion would get us breathing very hard. Some of our group suffered a bit from altitude sickness - headaches and such, but we survived ok for the most part.
As it was very cold up there, lots of us bought some local sweaters and hats, which will no doubt be very useful on the upcoming Trek in a few days.
We drove along the Colca valley until in turned into the Colca canyon. Both were incredibly spectacular and quite a surprise to us. The Colca canyon is the deepest canyon in the world and is the home to the giant Condors, of which we did see a couple.
Our mini-bus then took us back to Arequipa for the night.




Day 8

Up at 4.30 in the morning to get a bus to the airport for a flight to Cuzco, where we have spent some time walking about the town and getting aclimatized to the altitude. Very pictureque city where we would love to spend some more time.

Tomorrow we start the 4-day Lares Trek. Hopefully we are ready for it.