La Paz, "The Devil City"
Trip Start
Feb 12, 2011
1
8
13
Trip End
Jul 27, 2011
Rurrenabaque, La Paz, Bolivia
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
So on the way back down through Peru we stopped off in Mancora, on the north coast, to relax for a couple of days. Unfortunately for our livers, we discovered there was another Loki hostel here - a chain which promotes insomnia and incredibly heavy drinking. The hostel was pretty much a resort, with a swimming pool and dangerously close a bar which served, yet again, cheap ice cold vodka slushies. From what we can recollect of the two days there, we tried ceviche for the first time - raw fish which is effectively cooked by being marinated in lime juice, tried to swim in three metre high waves which sobered us up very quickly, tried to body board the waves which involved the blocks of polystyrene hitting us in the face which was amusing and then not. Oh, and we played drinking crazy Jenga, lost the game and had to do a naked run around the bar through a judgement corridor of people. Tan lines have never been so obvious or public. We managed to catch a bus while our heads felt like they were imploding the next day, down to Lima, where we met up with Ana for a day, a friend we´d met when we´d previously been in Lima, which was nice.
We then bused to Puno, Peru, a town situated at 3 km above sea level on the shores of the world´s highest navigable lake - Titicaca. The views were surreal - being on the shoreline of what could easily be mistaken as an ocean and seeing snow capped mountains on the horizon below you. While there, we visited communities which spent their entire lives "floating" on the lake, many of them never standing on dry land in their lives. This is made possibly by the construction of islands made of reeds, which are laboriously reconstructed every week and are anchored down with large boulders to prevent them floating away. It was fascinating to be somewhere where technology hadn´t left it´s mark whatsoever - no running water or electricity meant that this way of life hadn´t changed in half a millenium. The islands came to exist in the first place when the native Incas of Peru fled from the Spanish conquestors by deciding to float on some leaves in the middle of a lake for a few centuries, the nutters. While there we also set sail on a boat made out of - you guessed it - reeds, around the crystal clear waters of the lake, which made for some of the best photos yet (see below).
That evening we were met with the most eventful bus journey of the gap year yet. We were woken up mid-journey to be told to get off the bus and cross a lake that was conveniently in the way. This consisted of the bus precariously getting on a raft which looked to be not much more than two planks of wood while we turned into beggars to aquire some money to cross on a boat. For a while it was apparent that the bus had left without us, but eventually we managed to track it down. Geeg also almost lost her purse and I almost missed the boat across all of which made for a fucking mad half hour.
Eventually we arrived in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, to the fourth and final Loki, the craziest yet. We´d planned to stay in the city for two nights, but the alcohol was so cheap it turned out to last for six or so. During this time we nervously went 60km downhil quite fast on what´s widely recognised as the "World´s Most Dangerous Road", off of which a few tourists plummit every year. The drops made us shit bricks; but bar a few instances it was mostly problem free (a bee flew into Geeg´s face and she got a bit distracted). By the last morning I felt like everything was going to fall out of my bottom and mouth simultaneously and were told by an Australian called Colin to get out of what he called "The Devil City" while we could. We blurrily read the Lonely Planet and found there was some form of nature a bus ride away and cut our losses before we met liver transplantation phase. And so begun the rehab trip to Rurrenabaque.
The bus was meant to leave at 11:30. It left at 3:30. It was meant to be "semi-cama" class but there was no toilet and the wee and food stops were at six hour intervals. At one point everyone had to get out and push the turd of a coach through two foot deep mud and landslides for around an hour. The journey was meant to take 18 hours. but in total ended up being 33. Feeling like our spines had ceased to exist, we retired to a hostal for the night where I dreamed of Marmite and butter bagels.
The next morning we booked out tour to the "Pampas", a part of the Bolivian slice of the Amazon. After a three hour jeep trip we got on a canoe with an outboard engine to slowly glide down a tributary to the Amazon. This was easily the most comfortable and enjoyable transportation yet. On the way to our river-side eco-lodge we saw howler monkeys which sounded quite angry, some cheeky little squirrel monkeys, a boat full of high Israelis, "The Paradise Bird" - a tropical bird which looks like the bird out of Pokemon Gold, some alligators which we shouted at and a toucan. Over the next few days, we were met with some pretty fucking dangerous activities which seems to be the norm to Bolivians. We went Piranha fishing, where Geeg and I court three of the little shits but managed not to get bitten. We swam with some pink dolphins which was pretty amazing, though bloody scary as the water was black and there were more piranhas, probably friends of our catch, and alligators eyeing up their next meal. We also went anaconda hunting which involved not finding a hint of an anaconda but getting bitten the shit out of by clouds of mosquitoes. They seem to like but blood more than anything so ass itching has become the new habit for us.
Right now we´ve returned to La Paz for JUST ONE NIGHT and tonight get a bus to Potosi where we´ll visit a working mine which the NHS decsribes as "a tad dangerous", and the miners worship the devil. Hopefully we´ll meet up with Dan and then Cassie on the way and might have to go on another alcohol rehab trip to some form of nature.
We miss you all terribly, and hope everyone is fit and well. If anyone feels like Fed-Exing us a kilo or two or Galaxy or Dairy Milk to meet us at a future destination we´d worship you for the rest of our lives - chocholate is the price of gold here. Hope Spring is nice and all that.
Oh, and the uploader is being a tit so expect pictures in a few days.
Jeorgia x
Comments
Glad to know you're still alive! Great photos and your blog makes me laugh! Love to you both. Give Cass a hug from me if you catch up with them xx