Waiting, waiting, waiting and wow - what a nice city

At the crack of dawn yesterday morning we loaded up the packs once again and headed out of La Paz – well to La Paz airport anyway. There we joined a queue, a long queue, where we waited, occasionally inching forward. They announced our flight was pre-boarding while we were still miles away from the front, but we were told to stay in the line. We noticed other people had departure cards, so Anna found them and we filled them out, along with another form the airline gave us. We finally managed to check in, pay out airport tax (you have to pay tax just about every time you travel anywhere in Bolivia) and made our way through immigration. There we got our bags searched for drugs (no comments please, everyone got searched), stood in more queues for immigration. It all took so long that there was barely time for a loo break before we boarded.

An hour later and we landed in Cusco – and were greeted with another slowly crawling queue for Peru’s immigration. We finally got to the front – where we were told that we had the wrong forms and they made us and one other woman stand to the side while they processed the whole rest of the plane first. Finally the immigration woman produced the correct form – which she had sitting there all along. We filled it out and finally got out of the airport.

Once past the frustration of getting here, Cusco is a really lovely city. The center is filled with beautiful old buildings and all sorts of great shops. We have chosen to stay in a hotel so that we are really relaxed ahead of the trek. It is also really good for Amy. She is really quite unwell and won’t be trekking with us (although she does get us to join us for the day to Macchu Pichu) so it is great that she has somewhere nice, warm and complete with room service and cable TV.

We headed out and found a nice lunch then found our tour office and paid for the tour etc. By then Amy was fading fast so Anna took her back to the hotel and I went for a bit of a wander through the streets of Cusco. It was really nice.

Today Amy spent a quiet day at the hotel, hopefully starting to get better, while I introduced Anna to the fantastic array of shopping opportunities I had discovered last night. We had a great time wandering, bargaining, etc. We also managed to stock up on Amy’s preferred medications. Unlike in our countries where a script is required, here you just head into the chemist and request your desired antibiotic etc. It is really quite useful when traveling.

Anna and I also found one of the many massage places and had fantastic hour long massages for 30 Soles (about $15). They certainly managed to get well stuck into the knots.

Anna and I are really enjoying the city and hope that Amy will soon be able to join us.

Visiting Copacabana – the original

Yesterday we hoped on a bus and headed to Copacabana. Now I know what you are thinking – haven’t you already been there, and isn’t it a beach in Brazil? Well actually, the famous beach, which inspired the famous nightclub, which inspired the famous song, was actually named after a tiny town on the shore of Lake Titicaca. The significance of the town is its close proximity to the Isle de Sol (Island of the Sun) where the Incas believed they originated. So for Anna’s birthday we decided to head down there.

Copacabana is a 4 hour bus ride from La Paz on the southern end of Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is huge, seriously it is really, really big. In places it is over 300m deep and when you are on it, you cannot see the other shore, it really feels like the ocean. It is so big the road can’t go around it so we had an amusing stop where we had to get off the bus, catch a ferry over and watch our bus, precariously and somewhat lopsidedly, come over on a barge.

Amazingly, this huge lake is just the remnant of a really truly massive lake. Several million years ago, a lake existed that covered most of Bolivia. The salt flats we visited in Southern Bolivia were created after the lake dried up!

We finally arrived at a (mostly) picturesque small town and after finding a place to spend the night and getting some much needed lunch, we found we were too late for the public ferry to the Isle de Sol. We found a private boat and tried to be able to go to the north of the island which we had heard was the best bit but there wasn’t even time for that so they said would take us to see the ruins at the south. We put-putted our way for 1.5 hours out to the island to arrive at a shear wall of land, with a set of stairs going up. It was there that the boat driver demanded more money, but we managed to convey that we had paid his boss the whole amount and he seemed ok with it – we just hoped he would be waiting for us when it was time to go back.

We were told to go up and they would meet us further south at “the temple ruins”. We headed up the seemingly endless set of stairs, which somewhat discouragingly kept turning towards the right, when we knew we had to somehow get to the left.

After various encounters with people selling souvenirs, donkeys, llamas, etc, we found a guy who could speak both English and Spanish who found us directions. We headed back the way we had come and found the goat track we needed to follow. Actually it was a sheep, donkey and llama track as we discovered as we made our way along it. We continued through an incredibly dry, dusty and boring landscape (although the view across the lake to the snow capped mountains was pretty special) until we finally saw our boat far, far below.

Between us and the boat was the “ruin of the temple”. It was pathetic, particularly the day after we had been to Tiwanaku. It may be old, but it just looked like an unkempt stone building. To add insult to injury, they made us pay to see it! We didn’t want to see it but it was the only way to the boat!

Finally we got back down and headed back the 1.5 hour trip to Copacabana. A little discouraged by the day, we decided to celebrate Anna’s birthday in style. When looking for a place to stay we had found a lovely looking hotel. Rooms were a bit pricey for us, but we went there for dinner and it was a fantastic meal. All of us loved our food and drinks so it was a very nice way to end the day.

Unfortunately Amy woke up very ill this morning. The return bus was a 1.30pm, so we spent a quiet morning making our way up the souvenir/handicrafts street and sitting in the sun eating popcorn. The popcorn here is really different. Honestly, each piece is at least 4 times the size of what we are used to. Of course, this being South America they pop it with some kind of sweet topping, but it isn’t too overwhelming and we enjoyed it.

Sitting for awhile afforded a great opportunity to do some people watching. For a reason we couldn’t figure out, heaps of the cars were decorated with fresh gladioli tied to the side mirrors and front grill – Dame Edna would be proud. Cholitas (the name for the Bolivian women in the traditional attire) bustled in all directions. They all carry things on their backs in kinds of sacks made from large square pieces of cloth (which they try to sell to us gringos as tablecloths). The contents could be the shopping, a load of potatoes, or more often than not, a child. They seem so efficient at carrying things that way.

Finally the bus came and we headed back to La Paz. I made friends with a nice American girl, Hannah who was sitting next to me on the bus and we all went and got Thai takeaway for dinner and brought it back to the hostel. If we were in Australia we probably wouldn’t consider it fantastic Thai, but after 4.5 weeks with no Asian flavours we loved it. Yesterday we also found salt and vinegar Pringles so a few of our cravings have been brought under control.

Amy headed up to bed and Anna and I went out to get some cash for the next few days when we saw one of the funniest sights – an off duty clown. He had taken off the hat, wig and nose but was still in the costume, complete with big floppy shoes as he wandered down the street munching on a snack. It made our night.

Bolivia has had its ups and downs, we have been freezing and hot, seen spectacular and boring sights but we have enjoyed it. Tomorrow we head to Peru!

Discovering the Tiwanaki

Most of you have probably heard of the Inca civilization which built Macchu Pichu etc. What I didn’t realize before I got here was that the Incas were only really around for about 300 years. How then, did they develop such advanced astronomy, pottery, building techniques etc. They had those because the Incas emerged from the remnants of an amazing civilization that over its 6 epochs lasted around 3,000 years – the Tiwanaki.

Before I got to Bolivia I had never heard of the Tiwanaki, and it isn’t really surprising. Most early finds about them were recorded and published as having been Inca, hence the confusion. In our various visits to museums etc we had been hearing more and more about the Tiwanaki so today we decided to head out to Tiwanaku, 19km from Lake Titicaca which is believed to have been the centre of their empire which at its height reached from northern Peru to the north of Chile and Argentina and across into sub-tropical Bolivia.

We decided to go on a tour so we could properly understand the site which was a great idea because we had a fantastically knowledgeable guide. We jumped on a bus with about 25 other people mostly from Germany, Brazil and a couple of other Kiwis and took the 1.5 hour ride out to the site.

It is a HUGE site, although most of it is yet to be excavated. The main pyramid for example was 200mx200m making it second only in the world to the great pyramid at Giza. It was not as high, only 7 levels (a mystical number for the Tiwanaki) and so far indications indicate that it was used to calculate extremely accurate astronomical calculations. They have amazing calendars indicating their complete understanding of the solar year and their worship of the sun. It is believed that their skills in astronomy and mathematics far exceeded those of the Incas.

We started with a couple of museums. The first explained many of the pottery finds they have made on the site, as well as aspects of the culture including food and things like how the high born shaped their heads to have elongated skulls, similar to how several other cultures around the world also do. It was a really good start to understand the complexity of their skills and knowledge.

The second museum is under construction and will eventually house monuments from the diggings to preserve them against the weather etc. Right now you can only see one, but he is the largest monolith found so far. At over 6m tall, he was carved from a single piece of red sandstone. Unfortunately after his discovery he was taken to La Paz where he initially stood in a plaza and then in front of the football stadium. During that time, he suffered major damage from bullets during riots when people hid behind him to get away from the army and then also regularly had bottles smashed on him following home team losses at the football. The last 70 years have done more damage to him than the preceding hundreds of years since he was found.

From there we headed to the archeological site. As I mentioned they have only uncovered a fraction of what is there but you can see how impressive it must have been. What remains is probably only about 30% of the original. When the Spaniards arrived they tried to destroy the pagan culture (by then Tiwanaku had been taken over by the Incas who used it for ceremonial rather that astronomical purposes). They destroyed monoliths and carted away much of the stone to build their own city. If you can see a church in the background of some of the photos it was built with stone from the site. Where they couldn’t destroy monoliths due to the hardness of the stone, they carved in Christian symbols and then covered much of the site with soil. The rest of the site was covered over by a major flood later on.

As well as the pyramid, we saw a temple. It has all sorts of amazing features but one of the coolest is these holes carved in the walls which are shaped like a human ear. Someone speaking on the outside of the temple is hugely amplified into the temple. It also had two major gates, the moon gate which is still in the right position and a sun gate which has been moved as an English Lord in the late 1800s attempted to take it back to England but was disrupted when a war with Chile broke out.

Next to the temple is another construction, this one quite deep in the ground. It was here that the giant monolith was found and all around the edges are carvings of faces. It is believed that this has something to do with their belief in the underworld where the dead went.

After lunch we went to another site where due to lack of funds excavation has been abandoned. It contains stones which weigh hundreds of tones. The site is theorized as being a port as the lake would have been higher in those days.

Of course the massive weight of the stones, the distance they were transported and the amazing precision with which they are carved (some of the lines would be hard to achieve with modern machinery) have led to lots of speculation about extra-terrestrial assistance. Who knows, but however they built it, it is an amazing site and we had a really fascinating day discovering the Tiwanaki.

Back in the thermals

Today we had to bid farewell to the lovely warm temperatures of Rurrenabaque (as well as all that delicious oxygen) and return to La Paz.

Before we left we got a good breakfast at our hostel and due to the airline working on Bolivian time got the opportunity to have a small wander around town. Our gorgeous tour guide Ivan, came and met us on his day off to make sure we got to the airline office fine and also take us to the Bala tours office and give us a CD with more information about the birds and animals we had seen. I should explain that one of the reasons we chose Bala tours is that they work closely with the local indigenous communities of the region, providing ecologically sustainable jobs which is incredibly important in such an area of natural diversity.

Once we had our tickets, we read for awhile then the bus turned up. We got out to the airport and waited a little longer. Eventually the plane landed, disgorged its passengers and we headed on. Landing on the grass runway was one thing, taking off was a whole new experience. It really felt like we were never going to get off the ground as we bounced along, then when we did, we had the steepest accent I have ever experienced in a plane. Heading back through the mountains we hit some major turbulence and the plane went up, down and side to side. The landing was equally as exciting as we skidded a bit on the tarmac.

We collected our bags and headed back to the hostel. We have had a quiet afternoon ahead of a busy day tomorrow and to also to adjust to the altitude again. Tonight we are going to watch DVD’s. They are burnt copies but our passports were required to hire them from the hostel!

Mud between the toes – 7 July 2009

After another great night’s sleep in the jungle (although the creatures in the roof, not sure if they were bats or mice were quite noisy) we had a bit of a rude awakening as they had to fire up the generator to pull water up from the river for the showers and toilets. Loud mechanical noise just seems so alien in such a natural paradise.

After breakfast we were back in the canoe, but not for long. We headed a little way downstream then got out and after a short walk though waist length grass emerged on a road which runs between the flood plains. With pools of swampy water on either side, we were looking for anaconda.

Originally we thought we might have had to wade through the swamps ourselves but they are full of caiman and given it is the dry season, they are a bit agro, so the guides aren’t going to let you do that. The aim (and hope) is that you manage to see an anaconda as they come up to the road edge to sun themselves. It was really hot and humid walking along the road, and Amy wasn’t feeling great, so after about an hour we found her a shady tree and continued on. We went for about a further 20 minutes before turning back, collecting her and returning.

We saw a heap of stick-acondas, a few pipe-acondas but unfortunately no anacondas. It was a great walk though and we saw heaps of birds that we hadn’t seen previously as well as lots of caiman including a whole group of baby ones.

We headed back to the lodge, showered and were served the most massive lunch I have ever seen. Seriously, it rivaled Christmas! We got: fried chicken, beef schnitzel, beef stirfry, rice, mashed potato, boiled potato, salad, lasagna and when we couldn’t move, jelly. It was immediately followed by the evaluation forms for the tour which made us laugh!

We then relaxed as we waited for the time to come to head back to town. An older German lady had been staying there and in some confusion she seemed to take our jeep, but it was bad karma because just as she would have been in the canoe on the way to the car, the heavens opened and we had a true tropical downpour. She would have been soaked – just like the staff and guests playing soccer on the small pitch they have. One would have thought that they would have come in, but there was a bet with a bottle of coke as a prize so pride was on the line. In the end it was a draw and they were all absolutely covered in mud from head to toe.

The rain did stop and we had to leave. We were so sad, it has been really, truly relaxing and lovely, probably the most “holiday” part of the trip to date. We got back in the canoe and headed to the jeep. Now remember I mentioned when we arrived we came down a steep bank, well we now had to go up it and it was mud! The kind of mud slide that as a kid you would have loved to slide down on your belly into a river. Well we took off our shoes (luckily we were all in flip flops) and dug our toes in. Helped by the guides we all made it to the top but our feet had some pretty nice mud treatments!

We washed them and got in the car back to Rurrenabaque. It was real 4-wheel driving to get back, the roads were choppy and slick with sticky mud, I can’t imagine how they manage in the wet season. They are working on improving them which basically seems to involve tipping loads of river stones over the top which they grade and then the cars push in.

We made it to Rurrenabaque just after dark. You can tell it is the main centre from the paved roads. Some are concrete, others are river stones, painstakingly laid and mortared into place. Our hostel for the night, The Oriental, was lovely with a big courtyard full of mosaic paving and hibiscus flowers. We headed out almost straight away to find dinner and went to the place that Ivan had recommended, Camila’s. Food was good, cocktails were great and the restaurant cat came and joined us at the table to keep us company!

After that we decided we did want a bit of a night out so went a few doors down to the Monkey Bar, which couldn’t be much more different from the one in Canberra if they tried. From the thatched roof, carved wooden decorations and anaconda skin stretched across the roof, it was very cute. We had a few drinks, and they were playing some good music so had a bit of a boogie too – just the three of us! We really weren’t drunk but it is amazingly liberating to just dance your heart out when you know you are never going to see those people again!

Our three days in the Amazon have been amazing. Not only have the sights we have seen been wonderful, the people have been lovely and it has been so incredibly nice being warm again!!!! Our feet in particular have enjoyed a few days out of boots in flip flops, we wish we could stay for a week but tomorrow we are back to La Paz and the cold.

Swimming with Dolphins - 6 July 2009

We all slept incredibly well in our warm, jungle lodge last night and woke to a breakfast of fresh pancakes. After breaky, we headed back out on the river, this time heading upstream.

Over the next few hours we saw many caiman, birds of all sorts and lots of turtles from ones the size of a child’s palm to serving platter size (and I’m sure in the past they have been serving platters!). Quite often we saw them swimming along, their little heads poking up above the river, but more often we saw groups of them clustered on tree branches in the sun. It is hilarious to see them piled up, they can’t climb very far up the branch but there are obviously popular branches as turtle pile-ups occur.

There were also lots of pink river dolphins, but swimming was to be later on in the day, we were searching for monkeys! Not too long after we set out we found our first family of yellow squirrel monkeys. When I was a child, my family sponsored these at the Taronga Zoo, so it was a huge thrill to see them in the wild. They were incredibly cute, moving through the trees and even coming right down to the water to drink.

We continued on, still on the monkey hunt, and eventually stopped right in at the river bank so that we could have a loo break. However, there was also another family of squirrel monkeys in the trees at the same spot. They were very curious about us coming so very close to the bank – one even came on the boat! He ran right along the side inspecting us to see if we had any food on offer (which of course we didn’t, but apparently unscrupulous guides do feed them which is really bad for them).

As we headed back down river Anna managed to spot a solitary black howler monkey. Our guide was a bit disappointed not to have been able to show us more but such is life.

We arrived back at the swimming hole and there were a group of dolphins there, so I headed into the water. The water is a muddy brown colour so you can’t see very far into it and there were caiman all around the banks and piranha in the river, but I didn’t care, when else am I going to get the chance to swim with pink river dolphins in South America. I will admit to not feeling entirely comfortable however as I headed over the side!

Amy and Anna decided to bravely take photos of me from the boat!

The water was really nice and the dolphins came within a about 1.5 meters of me, although the water is so muddy I could only see them when they broke the surface, but it was a bit boring swimming about on my own and the girls were keen to get back for lunch so I only stayed in for about 5 minutes. The girls should have come in though because about 10 minutes later the heavens opened and the rain poured down so they were as wet as me. It got pretty cold as we headed back, but lunch was waiting so we were soon dry and warm again.

After a mid-afternoon snooze (for me and Amy, Anna read and wrote in her diary) we headed back out on the river to catch our dinner – piranha! Ivan took us to a couple of fishing spots before we started to catch fish. Amy caught the first and biggest piranha and in the end the tally was:

Amy – 2 piranha, 1 sardine (which was thrown back)
Anna – 2 piranha, 1 sardine and 1 tiger fish (both thrown back)
Lisa – 1 piranha, 1 sardine (thrown back)

I seemed to be much better at letting the fish eat all of the meat off the hook, rather than actually catching them which didn’t bother me at all – especially as they aren’t into the quick kill here, once Ivan took them off the hook (we weren’t allowed to touch them as they have such sharp teeth) they were just chucked in the bottom of the boat.

Dinner was spaghetti (really good) but we also got to each eat one of the piranha, crispy fried. They tasted really great but Amy couldn’t eat hers after catching it herself.

After dinner we headed back out on the river and went torchlight spotting of the caiman. It was fun spotting their red eyes glinting in the torchlight and we even managed to see some green spider eyes and a few fireflies.

Today has been just brilliant and so relaxing, I simultaneously can’t believe we have only been here for a day and a half and that tomorrow is the last day.

Once more in a t-shirt - 5 July 2009

I write this sitting on my bed, shrouded by soft folds of mosquito net, listening to crickets, bats, geckos - the sounds of the jungle, wearing a t-shirt. Yes I can even blog in the jungle! This morning we left La Paz and headed down several thousand meters to Rurrenbaque – the gateway to the Pampas region, one of the most accessible parts of the Amazon.

Just getting here was a bit of an ordeal however. Last night we got word that due to rain yesterday in Rurrenbaque, flights had been delayed, so our 8.40am flight was now at 9.40am. This caused a bit of concern as it would delay the tour and we knew we were on a public tour, so were concerned about holding others up. But the tour company said it was fine.

We decided to get to the airport reasonably early, just in case the flight changed back again, only to see on the board that our flight was only due to leave at 2.30pm!!! Luckily this was a remnant from the previous day’s delays, but our flight had been delayed again anyway. Over the next few hours we ate breakfast and waited, occasionally visiting the counter to find our flight had been pushed back even further. We also rang the tour operator who seemed ok with our delays but we were a bit concerned about the message getting through due to phones cutting out and language issues. The final concern was that we may end up not landing at Rurrenabaque, but a town nearby, it was all a bit of a stress.

Finally, however, at 11.40am, we boarded a tiny, 20 seater aircraft and headed off. It really was small, we could watch the pilots! There wer no seat numbers, you just cramed into one of the seats down the side of the plane and hoped for the best. We took off over La Paz, heading through the mountains – not over them, we flew between the snow covered peaks. I have to say, memories of the film “Alive” did spring to mind. Around 30 minutes later we descended through cloud, around now tree covered mountains and landed on the tiny grass runway of Rurrenabaque. It really did feel rather James Bond-esqe in the setting.

It reminded both Anna and me of Cairns, with the lush tropical forest, the mountains rising steeply behind the town and the humidity. The temperature is wonderful, mid to high 20’s, such a relief after the last few weeks of freezing cold. We were met by our tour guide Ivan (not even slightly Russian despite the name - he is actually from the indigenous tribe which traditionally live in that area) and got into a Pajero for the 4 hour trip to the lodge. Luckily we were the only people starting a tour today so we didn’t disadvantage any other travelers by being so late. Compared to some of the roads we have used recently it was a fine ride, although in keeping with recent experience we did blow a tire at one point.

We finally stopped by a river and headed down the very steep bank into a long canoe. It was a short ride up the river to our lodge but in that time we spotted numerous caiman and lots of birds. Despite the fact that it was 4pm, they served us a wonderful cooked lunch of a kind of beef stew with rice, then Ivan took us out on the river for some wildlife spotting before it got dark. With only about an hour available to us we saw caiman, many types of birds, turtles, capybara (world’s largest rodent, looks like a dog sized guinea pig) and pink river dolphins. It was incredibly exciting. It was getting dark as we headed home and we even managed to see a firefly or two which I loved.


Just after we returned we had a brief tropical downpour. The air smells amazing, so fresh and clean and scented with wonderful jungle flowers. After a great dinner (I can tell the food is going to be amazing for the next few days) we had showers which we shared with the local frogs. It is just river water, but cold showers when it is in the mid 20's and high humidity are fine.

I think we are all utterly enchanted by this place (and are so very happy to be warm again) it is going to be an amazing few days.