Bolivia and Northern Chile (September 26 - October 10)

Part I -- Bolivia Here We Come

After a rough day in Puno, we finally got on a bus to Copacabana, Bolivia. It´s not the hottest spot north of Havanna, but it´s a pretty nice little town along the shores of Lake Titicaca. The first thing you notice when you cross the border from Peru is how cheap everything is in Bolivia. With a conversion rate of about 8 Bolivainos to a dollar, we seemed to be given a new lease on life and a good opportunity to replace our stuff that was stolen.

We stayed at the beautiful La Cupola Hotel on the hill overlooking the city and the lake. The hotel lives up to its claim to have the best showers in all of Bolivia, and the owner, Martin, was so nice to us that he singlehandedly restored our faith in the kindness of others. Martin surprised Amy with flowers, a birthday cake at dinner, and led the resturant in singing "Happy Birthday" in Spanish to Amy on her birthday. The cake was so big that we ended up sharing it with everyone in the resturant that night. The night before we drank wine glass after wine glass toasting the birth of Kathy´s niece, an Aussie traveling the world like us who we met during our trip to the Lake Titicaca islands. (A tradition we continued in Chile when our new niece, Samatha, was born in October!)

At the hotel, we did encounter something rather strange ... other Americans. It was the first time since our trip to the Ecuadorian jungle that we shared a tour with other Americans. Everyone was really cool and each declared to us that Bolivia is South America´s best kept secret for travellers. We all headed for a day tour of the Isla de Sol, the mythical birthplace of the Incas. Unfortunately, the Inca and pre-Inca structures had been destroyed long ago, and were not as spectular as the other Inca ruins that we had seen in Peru. But, there is a beautiful hike along the spine of the island with long vistas over the lake.

During our brief stay in Copacabana, we checked out the local church. During that particular day, the front of the church was blocked with several stalls selling beer, wine, flowers, and other religious relics. We watched as people drove up to the church in their cars, trucks, and buses, and then had their vehicles blessed. The vehicles were doused with the wine or beer and covered in strings of flowers. We saw a lot of cars and buses the next couple of days covered with these flowers. Some of the cars surely needed a blessing because they looked like they would break down at any moment. Given the number of crosses along the roads in Bolivia (or as Lonely Planet calls them -- Bolivian caution signs) , it seems like the blessings could use some help with traffic enforcement and safer roads.

That day, we took a walk on the small beach along the shore of the lake. However, neither of us could bring ourselves to take a dip in the freezing cold water of Lake Titicaca, the world´s highest navigable lake at about 13,000 feet.

After a few short days in Copacabana, we were off to La Paz to visit the world´s highest capital city. While we were used to the altitude by then, you could still feel it each time we had to climb the stairs to our room. The city sits in a valley with 18,000 foot snow capped mountains looming over it in the distance. We made it to La Paz in just in time to watch the first presidential debate.

After a day of running around La Paz replacing our stolen stuff, you notice several things. The first thing is the scary ass shoeshine boys donned in black ski masks. Just when you think that one of these kids is about to mug you, he asks to shine your hiking boots.

The second thing is the loud explosions and demonstrations. La Paz is a city under consant siege, mostly by striking miners who are demanding higher wages and retirement benefits. Travelling around South America, you see your share of protests and marches most of which come with people indiscriminately throwing fireworks in front or even into crowds of people. Bolivian miners have taken this concept to a whole new level by throwing sticks of dynamite (yes, dynamite -- hey, they´re miners what else are they supposed to throw) in the street as they march on the city and the presidential palace. We knew before going to La Paz that the political situation in Bolivia, especially in the Lake Titicaca area and La Paz was dicey, but we decided to go there after several people we met in Peru assured us that it was safe and worth checking out. Luckily, we missed the biggest march which occurred the day we left. Traffic was horrible in the city with the main street, the Prada, blocked off with miners and police donning riot gear taking up defensive positions around the main government buildings like the presidential palace and the legislature. Fortunately for us, the bus station was far enough outside of the city center that by the time we walked there, we had no problem getting out of the city.

The third thing you notice is the lack of any cars using their headlights at night, which is problematic on so many levels. It is pretty common in South America to see a few cars without headlights driving at night, but in La Paz, it seemed like it was every other car. When we asked one of our taxi drivers why the cars drive with no headlights, he just shrugged his shoulders and stated that the drivers were probably trying to save their batteries. The fact that car battery technology has advanced significantly in the last 50 years apparently hasn't yet made it to La Paz.

While in La Paz, we visited the Museo de la Coca ( Coca Museum) and learned all about the history of the coca leaf in South America, and it´s present day incarnations as cocaine and as the key ingridient in the world´s best selling soft drink, Coca Cola. Down the street from the Museo is the Witches´ Market where you can buy all of your herbs and dead animals you need to make offerings to the Inca gods, which still survive in most of the indigenous Andean communities in South America despite the Catholic Church's long battle to stamp them out.

Part II -- The Death Road

The other reason for going to La Paz was an opportunity to mountain bike the world´s most dangerous road. The road between La Paz to Coroico earned the title "the world´s most dangerous road" because about every two weeks another car, truck, or bus plunges off the edge of 3,000 foot cliffs that line the road. The road is only 9 feet wide, or one car wide in most places, and the road is dirt with no guard rails. The road is also constantly being worn away from the rain and the waterfalls cascading over it. It is the only place in South America where cars drive on the left hand side. Cars driving up from Coroico drive closest to the side of the mountain and have the right of way. The downhill drivers drive on the cliff side or left hand side so that the drivers can see how close to the edge they can get to allow uphill traffic to pass in the narrow turnouts. Add to this dangerous combo, a group of adernline seeking mountain bikers, and you got yourself the newest thrill ride in South America.

We went with Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking because while it was more expensive, it also had the most consistent recommendation as the safest. An important qualification for the world´s most dangerous road we thought, especially after learning that in the last couple of years, not only have many cars and trucks gone over the edge, but also a few mountain bikers whose brakes didn´t work. Biking the road is fairly easy because it mostly all downhill. The tour minivan drops you off at the highest point on the road at about 14,000 feet, and you stop at the bottom of the road at about 3,300 feet.

After finally mustering up the courage to go, we hopped aboard a packed minivan at 7:30 am in downtown La Paz for a day of thrills. It turns out that the day we went had to be one of the worst days to go. Even the guides were saying they`ve only seen it that bad once or twice before. When we left La Paz, it was cloudy. But by the time we made it to the start at the top, there was a full on snow storm. The guides decided to spare us a few hundred feet at the very start because of the ice on the road. We pulled over on the side of the road and in the driving snow donned every piece of clothing we had for bike ride.

The first stretch is on asphalt where you are supposed to fly down the mountain to avoid the stray dogs and occasional pig from trying to rip you from your bike. In addition, everyone is supposed to stay together with a guide in front warning the others of upcoming traffic, and a guide in back to make sure no one fell over the edge. Of course, our group immediately split up with the group of fast riders way in the front and a group of slow riders in the back with a few spread out in the middle. We were in the middle, and because of the driving snow and the fog, we couldn`t see the front or back guides. In addition, after a few minutes of riding, our sunglasses were covered in snow and ice making it even more scary. Throw in soaking wet gloves, shoes, and pants, and we were trying to remember why we were paying for this awful experience.

After the first stretch, Amy and a few other intelligent bikers decided to ride the next leg in the minivan. Chris and the other stupid bikers continued to ride down the asphalt this time in pelting, stinging snow and freezing rain. Once we got to the beginning of the dirt portion of the road, it was pouring rain. Not only were we freezing wet, but now we had to navigate the most dangerous section of the world´s most dangerous road when it was slick and muddy. Did I mention that we paid $50 for this pleasure? Yeah, we were cursing those people in Peru who recommended doing this bike ride all the way down.

We stopped halfway down to have lunch at the memorial set up for the first mountain biker to die on the road back in 2000. She was an Israeli whose brakes failed her causing her to fall off the side. While we were eating soggy cheese sandwiches in the rain, our guides checked everyone`s brakes and changed brake pads if needed. During our descent to Coroico, we did not get a chance to see the infamous drop offs with twisted wreckage of various buses, trucks, and cars at the bottom, mainly because of the fog and storm clouds racing up the side of the mountain we were on. This turned out to be the only positive thing about the weather that day, because the next day on the trip back up the road when it was clear and sunny, we could see the bottom of those cliffs, and it was damn scary.

Everyone in our group arrived safetly at the bottom and covered in mud. It had stopped raining by then, and the hot, humid jungle started to make everyone smell really nasty. The tour company gave everyone a cold beer at the bottom and transported everyone up to the Hotel Esmeralda for a buffet lunch and showers. Instead of turning around and going back to La Paz in the same day, we decided to stay overnight at the hotel. For $30, we had the top room with a huge bed and shower overlooking a gorgeous valley.

Upon our return to La Paz, we found out that our hotel was the center of a neighborhood celebration which included a parade with different dancing troupes showing off their stuff in front of the judges´table in front of our hotel. We sat and watched the parade while eating dinner in the hotel next door. After the parade, the locals set up tables and chairs up and down the street for food and drinking. Music blarred until 5 am the next morning when the celebration finally ended. We managed a few hours of sleep that night because fortunately, our room was in the back of the hotel.

Part III -Days of Our Lives in the Bolivian Desert

Our next stop in Bolivia took us to Uyuni--the jumping off point for the Salar de Uyuni tours. Uyuni is also famous for Minuteman Pizza. A pizza place run by a guy from Amherst, Massachusetts, who met a Bolivian girl at his college pizza place and ended up in the middle of the Bolivian desert.

We got out of La Paz right before another transportation strike took place and got to Oruro via bus. In Oruro, we found a great vegetarian resturant packed with locals. The next day we paid the extra $5 for the first class train service to Uyuni. The train passes over the high plains of Bolivia and close to several lakes filled with flamingos and other migrating birds. On the train ride, we met an English chap named Adam, who we felt a special bond with because of his appreciation of the subtle humor of Naked Gun 33 1/3, which was playing on the train. We also met a girl from Brookline who was travelling in Bolivia, and discussed the ridiculousness of so many Yankees caps in South America when the Red Sox are clearly better.

As we rolled into the station at 11:30 pm, the locals swarmed the train passengers hawking everything from hotels to tours to wool hats and scarfs. We dodged everyone and headed for our hotel for a good night´s rest before looking for a tour the next morning.

We awoke early to find a tour operator to take us on a standard 3 day 4X4 tour through the Salar to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Lonely Planet specifically does not recommend any tour operator because they are all bad. The people we met along the road each confirmed this, and told us not to expect much from the tour operators, but the scenery was worth it. We met several people who were going with Tonito Tours, and decided to book with them.

In our old Toyota Land Cruiser, we crammed in with a newly engaged English couple, Adam and Lauren, and an Andorran couple, Alberto and Gemma. It turned out that we all were on around the world trips. Tonito provided us a driver named Orlando and a cook named Marlene.

We briefly visited a train graveyard on the outskirts of town, and then headed to the salar. The Salar de Uyuni is the world´s largest salt flat. As far as the eye can see, there is nothing but a bright white flat surface with mountains rising up in the distant background. When it rains, a thin layer of water covers the salar. The water reflects the skylight creating the illusion of an endless sky. When dry, the salt forms giant hexagonal patches that cover the ground for miles around.

We stopped at a small local salt refinery, and got a brief explanation of how the workers mine salt from the salar. They basically scrape it off the ground where it is piled up and moved inland to dry, ground down, mixed with iodine, and bagged for sale in La Paz. At the refinery, you could buy little statutes and figurines made out of salt. We continued driving across the salar to the Salt Hotel, which is made entirely of, you guessed it, salt. If you want to sleep on a bed of salt and eat at a salt table, this is the place to go.

We, on the other hand, headed off to the Isla de Pescado for lunch. This brown rocky outcrop rises up out of the salar like any other island in the ocean, except this one you can walk/drive right up to it. All the tours stop here for lunch, and then the tourists, us included, go scrambling through the large catci to the top of the island for magnificient views.

The next day, just when we thought we'd beaten the odds and were going to have an amazingly good tour of the Salar, it started to get wierd. After stopping in a little desert town to resupply our water/snack supply, the driver Orlando, took off without the cook. Everyone thought this was quite odd, but Orlando assured us that Marlene, the cook, was staying in the town and would meet up with us later. Well, she did meet up with us an hour or so later at a military checkpoint, but in tears and extremely angry. Apparently, Orlando had left her in the town without her knowing it. To top it off, it turns out that Orlando and Marlene have three kids together. Luckily, the other tour driver, who brought Marlene to the checkpoint, did not follow through on his threat to beat Orlando up. Once everyone got back into the car, Marlene started to berate Orlando in front of us. Then, when she got no reaction from Orlando, she turned to us and began to tell us how bad Orlando treats her, and he left her because he wanted to see his new girlfriend in the next town, and on and on. Their life seemed to be one really bad Bolivian soap opera, and the six of us were now stuck in the melodrama for the rest of the trip. To say the least, it was a bit awkward for the rest of the trip, if not downright hostile.

Despite the drama in the front seat, the six of us in the back of the car ended up having a great time with each other learning about Andorra, translating various words from the Queen's English to American English (e.g., "nipple cripple" in England = "titty twister" in the States), and taking lots of photos of some amazing scenery. We even managed to take a dip in a small hot springs on the freezing cold morning after passing the high altitude gesyers and the Dali desert, so named because it looks like a surreal landscape from one of his paintings.

Because everyone was heading out of Bolivia, Orlando and Marlene dropped us off near the Bolivian/Chilean border where we waited with other travellers. When Amy politely and very calmly asked one of the drivers in Spanish which bus was heading to Chile, the driver told Amy to calm down ("tranquilo, tranquilo") and remember that we were all on vacation, and eventually we would all be on our way to Chile. While this advice was completely unsolicited and inappropriate at the time, we did end up taking it to heart and "tranquilo" became our mantra during the rest of the trip especially when we had to confront the madness that is the burgeoning tourism industry in South America.

At the border station, we said farewell to our fellow Salar travelling companions who were off to Salta, Argentina, while we headed to San Pedro de Atacama in Northern Chile. Once we crossed into Chile, we were greeted with paved roads, good wine and food, and higher prices. San Pedro is a small adobe town located on an oasis in the middle of the Atacama desert. The Atacama is the driest place on earth. There are parts of the Atacama where there has never been any measurable rainfall. So, it makes it the perfect place for stargazing. We did a astronomy tour given by a Dutch ex-pat and saw planets, stars, and galaxies. Since we were in the southern hemisphere, constellations like Orion, which are visible in the northern hemisphere, appear upside down.

In San Pedro, we met up with Adam from the train again (see Part III, paragraph 2 --yeah, you know it's getting too long when you have to start using footnotes), and grudgingly decided to take the 24 hour bus ride from San Pedro to Santiago, the capital of Chile along the Chilean coast. The bus trip turned out to be much better than we expected with big, cushy reclining seats and good conservation with our English friend to speed the time away. We arrived in Santiago ready to conquer the big city, but that's a story for our next installment.