Bolivia - Potosi

We decided to take an overnight luxury bus on the newly tarred toad from La Paz to Potosi, thereby avoiding the overnight trip on the notorious unpaved road from La Paz to Uyuni. We heard many first hand accounts of how bad that jpurney is, including seemingly impossible no bridge river crossings and all passengers having to get out and push through sections. Our overnight trip to Potosi was pretty uneventful bar the no-seat passengers picked up en route. I presume to avoid paying full fare and extra money for the driver, 6 people were picked up en route and sat and slept in the aisle or on the staircase.

We arrived in Potosi as scheduled and grabbed a taxi up to the hostel where we booked on to a mine tour. Potosi used to be the richest city in South America and was larger than Paris or London. It's wealth came from mining the Cerro Rico mountain for silver where millions of indigenous and African slaves died in the appalling conditions underground.

We were met by an ex miner who proceeded to kit us out with mining trousers, jacket, rucksack and headlight. We were driven up to the area of the miner's market to buy gifts for the miners. The serious alcohol abuse problem was apparent as soon as we arrived at the miners market. A man was carried of a bus by the driver, completely passed out, and put on the side of the street. Another man was passed out in the street with buses having to drive around him. I'm not sure if this was just an average Saturday morning but it made me very uncomfortable when we were asked to buy beers as presents for the miners who would be working in the mine we were to tour. We were also shown the the 96% proof alcohol they take into the mines and were offered dynamite for £2.50 per stick. Yes, dynamite - and you can buy it off the side of the street as it it was a cool drink. The stick, wick, accelerator and activation components were handed out to us with a laugh and "don't drop it" chuckling warning. Between the group, beer, coca leaves and dynamite were taken as presents for the miners. I was already feeling pretty uncomfortable by his stage. The guide/ex miner was pretty gun-ho with a massive split lit - not sure if the was from a punch up or dynamite accident but this wasn't adding anything to my confidence in him.

We drove up to the mine on Cerro Rico, the entrance was dug out with a few wood beams supporting it and rails running along the ground along which carriages are run taking the silver out. I was glad it was a quieter day being Saturday and we wouldn't be exposed to lots of dynamite explosions and carriage running that we would have had to dodge - the guide said most of the previous days group was in tears with all of the uncontrolled, unannounced explosions sending dust clouds through the shafts. We started walking into the mines, crouched to half height. Something I have neglected to mention is Potosi is the world's highest city at 4000m above sea level. Now imagine crawling through a dark mine, with no breathing apparatus evident and air that thin. I then began to understand the alcohol use a little more. The working conditions are horrendous. We passed the mine's 'Tio'. Every mine has one and they're a bit scary looking. The miners are generally catholic and believe in God but don't believe God exists or works within the mines instead believing it is Tio, a version of the devil that keeps them safe. Each mine therefore has a figure of Tio to which the miners make offerings of alcohol, coca leaves and dynamite hoping that he will keep them safe.

We were lead through to a small area where we could kind of stand up straight and met the head miner and one of his sons. We were told to give them beer. The mines are worked as co-operatives. At this stage I decided to head out of the mine with another girl. We hadn't had any explanation about how long or far we'd be going into the mines and if there were stages where we could leave. I was starting to feel claustrophobic (I'm not good in caves either) and didn't want to get to far in and have an anxiety attack. We were lead to the final tunnel out where we had to go on our own to the exit. I was very relieved to have someone else with me.

Was made it to the next stop, where they saw the miners working, which is still by hand. One discovered a silver vain while they were there. Warren then came out with a few others and the rest went further into the mine where they let off dynamite.

We headed back to town, avoiding one more passed out drunk man in the road, and back to the hostel. The mines were shocking, the working conditions are probably 100 years behind those in more developed countries, and the miners are risking their lives every day.

That evening we watched an excellent documentary called 'The Devil's Miner'. It follows a young boy who has worked on the mines since he was 10 years old. Now 14 years, he is working to put himself, his younger brother and younger sister through school. It follows his journey to a bigger mine where he can earn $4 per day (his mother makes £0.25 a month). It is definitely worth a watch.

Bolivia - La Paz

Only a 3 hour bus ride from Copacabana is La Paz. This included an unexpected ferry transfer to across lake Titicaca, many winding roads and then, through one of the most run down desolate towns (although enormous) I'd ever seen. Mands estimates only 30% of the properties are occupied!

La Paz on the other hand is a vibrant uniquely set city that has Central Valley between 2 mountains all the way up it's sides. The buildings are all red brick and everything is built up.

At the bus terminal we took an official taxi from the small taxi arranging kiosk - I'd red about many taxi robbing scams and decided to go official where we could.

Our hostel, Las Andes, was in a good central location and good basic place with matrimonial bed and private baño. With only a few hours we needed to get tickets for to cycle the road of death the next day, so we plotted our route about 7 blocks and took in La Paz sights and sounds before buying the tickets.

We stopped at a nice chilled bar, Sol y Lunar, on the way back and and red a guide brochure suggestion to avoid the Bol 2 (£0.20) burgers from the street stalls dotted around the city like the plague. Also not even to brush your teeth with the tap water as their water pipes are built along side their sewage pipes and are known to be corroded through!

Avoiding the cheap burgers, went on search for a late dinner - Mands was craving Thai. We did fine a good looking place and settled in - What a mistake, slow service and terrible cold food.

The next morning we did the road of death tour with Gravity, the first company to start cycle excursions. It was brilliant, but more on that is a separate post. After the cycle we headed out for a dinner, this time hopefully more luck.

I chose a steak grill called xxx whose

Bolivia - The Cut

After 6 weeks it was time for a haircut. At Copacabana Mands and I walked down a side street and there was a barber.

He was finishing off with a customer, so we sat down and looked at the photos and sketches of different haircuts available. I had been wearing a cap all the time and when he came to ask what style I wanted, I picked one with a styled fringe and longer back. He indicated no problem. I took off my cap and he burst out laughing! I changed the style to all off short and he obliged. I'd not seen any one flame burn his instruments before starting, but he torched everything before using it.

Good to go.

Bolivia - Copacabana

Copacabana was to be one of our most memorable stops in South America so far. It came at a time when we were bushed from the travelling, early starts and checking into a new hostel each day.

The Lonely Planet listed out hostels and highlighted Las Olas cabanas as a must stay quirky place if you have cash to splash. Bolivia is the cheapest South American country and Splash meant US $48 per room per night. It didn't have availability on the first night, but the owner had a second slightly cheaper set of cabanas (la Cupula) available next door for the first night.

Arriving in Copacabana after a few rainy cloudy days the sun was out in full force. It's a very small town on the banks of Lake Titicaca (Peru and Bolivia share the lake). We checked in at La Cupula and were wowed with a large room, kitchen, fireplace and hammocks in the garden with views across the lake. A Facebook photo of Mands on the hammock almost went viral with likes!

A short walk to the waters edge and most of the town was down on the playa (beach). It was a Sunday and everyone was enjoying pedalos, boat trips, open air flooseball and lunches. A row of informal restaurants lined the shore with only numbers as their name. No 19 was most full, so we joined them at a table as locals know best. Trucha (trout) is the speciality here and it comes fried in a choice of various sources. We both had Trucha and cervecas - 20 Bol for fish and 18 Bol for large beer (less than £4 each for full meal and 700mm beer)!

After lunch it was a stroll through town and a look at the Cathedral. The priest was walking around splashing water on people's heads if they asked. At the front of the church was the main plaza. Many informal stalls sold items for offerings including flowers and alcohol. Fireworks and miniatures were also on sale - fireworks are used for all celebrations and whenever you feel like it, day time or night time. Tom thumbs were a favourite in the day, I remember these from when I was younger. The miniatures were the most interesting. On the 24th January there's a festival where people celebrate and buy a miniature of what they wish for in the coming year. Miniatures include cars, trucks, groceries, money, types of shops (like hairdresser), gold or building material for the houses. We'd see these on sale across Bolivia.

A few more lazy beers on the hammocks and then sunset. Fantastico.

There's a restaurant on site, so we headed across in our winter woollies (including bright Alpacha hat I'd bought from the home stay). A young boy with his banjo was just getting ready to play - sure we're in for a treat. We ordered a savoury pancake and a pasta and then it started... Banjo boy knew about 8 lines of 1 song and repeated it over and over and over some more and not very well. For some reason a few people clapped when he stopped and that encouraged him. He'd walk from table to table strumming and singing. We tried our best to ignore him, but he made sure we got our fair share of his attention. Eventually he left after my tip to stop playing. Mands thought he must be related to someone who works in the restaurant - he must have been or everyone was deaf.

Our room was cold, but no problem as we had the ready made fireplace and me, a South African who's made countless fires throughout his life. All I had to do was throw the match in and away the feugo (fire) would go bringing heat to my shivering wife. 30 minutes later I gave up starting this fire and Mands was fast asleep - I could barely get the newspaper and kindling to take let alone logs at this altitude! The Bolivians must have a trick or petrol up their sleeves.

We awoke to another bright sunny day. Mandy wanted to stay at La Cupula for the second night as it was so nice, but I convinced her to move as planned to Las Olas (the waves). When we were shown our Las Olas cabana, it was the right choice. Las Olas has 7 cabins, each unique, designed by the German owner himself. Ours was huge, double story with floor to ceiling glass to the front allowing for a fantastic view across the lake. Hammocks inside and outside on the private balcony. The bed was enormous and round and carved wooden chairs and table for meals. The shower even had plants arranged inside it, it was so big. This is how backpacking is meant to be.

Everyone who visits Copacabana takes an overnight trip to Isla de Sol. We decided to skip it and stay at the cabana and town for the day. Lots of reading, resting and hammocking. We bought some fresh salad from the market and together with Mand's left over fettachini, made lunch at the cabana.

Another sunset and sundowners and we decided to head back to the restaurant for dinner. We were quite late, but who should we find there waiting for us... Banjo kid. We sat down anyway, and luckily only got the last 5 minutes of his set. He didn't ask us for a tip this time.

The next morning we had half a day before a bus to La Paz. We checked out, left our bags at reception and set out to find the pre Inca astronomical observatory, Horca Del Inca. It's on the top of a rock hill. When the Spanish Conquestors arrived they destroyed 6 of the 7 rock sculptures, not thinking much of the last one. On the Summer solstice the sun passes through the Horca Del Inca illuminating a specific area. The sculpture is a horizontal rock balanced across two vertical rocks - it itself is not too impressive, but the hike up is is a good activity.

After paying Inca ruin entrance fee to a 8 year old girl that suddenly appeared from the trees at the bottom of the trail and gave us a stick to use as an aid, we headed up the steps carved into the large rocks. The rain started and we continued to climb on the now more slippery surface. The stairs disappeared and we followed faint arrows up from boulder to boulder, sometimes on all fours. Mands decided to stop the hunt and wait under a dry rock overhead. I on the other hand got the pink slip to continue - after my fire starting saga, no Inca Rocks were going to allude me. Up and up I clambered until I reached the almost top - I could go no further with the rain and wet rocks and the white arrows had stopped a while back. With a wet tail between my legs I returned to Mands, empty photo handed. We began out climb down and Mands called over almost immediately, pointing ... There next to where I left her was the Horca Del Inca! We'd completely missed it - I thought it would be at the top, but it was three quarters up. Manly pride restored. Kind of.

On the way back we stopped in town to buy the town fridge magnet - we buy one at each town - but there were not any Copacabana ones that represented anything we felt we'd experienced properly until I spotted a figure of a boy playing a banjo - that had to be the one.

At the same time we bought some snacks for the bus and here is where I discovered the Bol 1 Chizitos (10 pence) chips. We would eat a few of these in Bolivia.

With our bags now collected we headed to a cafe / restaurant for lunch before the bus pick up. They had a large screen tv showing 80's top music videos - Mandy was in her element.

Onto the overbooked bus (luckily we were on first) and we were off to La Paz.

Peru / Bolivia - Border Crossing

We've heard all sorts of stories about border crossings and after Ecuador / Peru systems down saga we braced for more of the same. You can get a tourist bus that takes you through the border and helps out with the paperwork, we took this. We also shoved all our US dollars into shoes, underwear etc after hearing that Bolivian officials often tried to confiscate 'fake' dollars.

At the border we were shepherded out the bus, taken to exchange Peruvian Soles and US Dollars for Bolivian Bolivianos. Thereafter a few stamps in the Peru office and then we walked across the border. En route there was the largest bag of popcorn I'd ever seen filled with the largest popcorn I've ever seen. The maize here is large, so you get large popcorn. Like a moth to a flame I had to get a photo and a couple more of the border crossing - this was much too Mandy's disapproval as there shouldn't be any photos at border crossings as she'd learnt from African border crossing days.

The Bolivian side was similar and after an uneventful no systems required manual border crossing we were in Bolivia and off to Copacabana.

The guide books all warn about fake money, especially in Bolivia - that won't happen to us!

Peru - Puno, Lake Titicaca and the Amantani home stay

Puno is a town on the banks of the enormous Lake Titicaca. The Lake is the largest high altitude lake in the world at 3800 meters and is 8400 square km's. Not much happens in Puno, but is a springboard to visit the floating reed islands and larger permanent islands on Titicaca.

From the bus station, we told the taxi the name of the hostel we were staying in, Quechua Backpackers. The taxi had no idea of our interpretation on the pronunciation and we couldn't show him the name or address as we only had this on the Internet. A lady overheard us and then spoke to the taxi pronouncing it correctly and giving him directions - thanks to her we had a place to stay that night. Embarrassingly Quechua is their local language, we couldn't even work that out from the spelling. From now on we write down the name and address of each hostel so we can give it to the taxi and are going to make a point of thinking more South American for our pronunciations.

We quizzed Leo, the manager at Quechua Backpackers, about the home stay options and he told us how we could do it ourselves or take a "tour" - the package was not much more so we booked for the 80 Soles (£20).

Some Chileans, Argentineans and Peruvians joined us at the pickup on the same package. At the small harbour I went to the market and bought batteries, rice and milk as suggested by Leo as a gift for the home stay family.

All of the boats for the transfer are the same and dead slow - we couldn't work out if the boats are restricted on the lake (but there are some fast 1 day tour boats) or whether they'e generally just slow boats. We puttered along towards the reed islands.

Uros is one of 2 well known reed islands, a 50 sq meters man made island. Quite something to visit with 8 families housed on the island and it anchored in position in the lake. Originally this reed island was built to escape attack on the main land and the families have continued to live on and further build islands. As you can imagine, fish is their usual meal.

Amantini is a larger island with two mountain peaks and the whole island groomed for agriculture. Santa Rosa is the small village we stayed in - their small port was lined with ladies all in village dress to meet us, these were our hosts. Our guide called out names of hosts and matched to home stayers. We were first and it seemed we landed up with the main host family.

A broken greeting and away we walked with Dionescia and her grandson, Junior. We ascended the steep walkway from the dock and wound through to her house. It was very basic with a clay ground courtyard and buildings surrounding it. Grandparents and one daughter with 2 children lived there. We were taken upstairs to our room... Problem ... The door took me up to my chest! I ducked through and luckily I could stand in the room, only just.

We dropped our bags and headed into the courtyard awkwardly trying to figure out what to do next. 5 minutes later we were called in for lunch starting with soup and then cheese (like halloumi) potatoes and vegetables - really good. Triple tea consisting of Munas - oxygen releasing plant helping with altitude breath shortage, Coca leaves - altitude, alertness, suppress appetite and Eucalyptus leaves - dry throats, rounded off the meal. We continued broken conversations with Dionescia and her 2 daughters Sabina and Julia.

Sabina's kids, Miguel and Junior, played outside with their cousin and a balloon tied to the washing line. This was endless laughter and proof that all kids are the same. I handed over the present of batteries, milk and rice and they eagerly accepted.

Again, we were ushered to our room for quiet time until we were taken to meet up with the group. It was breathless walking with the altitude, where Dionescia took it in her stride. We stopped outside a tuck shop style shop and I offered to buy the kids and Dionescia a sweet. They'd had this offer before as each went for a pack of biscuits or wafers as opposed to the single bars. Interestingly, no straight chocolate or sugar - mainly biscuit.

Miguel and Junior were entertained by the camera and liked looking at photos of themselves. We've found this with all ages over Peru and Ecuador. Plazas often have "professional" camera men taking photos of families with sites in the background. They then run off to a shop and print the digital photo and return it. Our porters on the inca trail were also very curious to see the images in the camera.

Our group walked up the stone path to the Pacha Tata (Father Earth) ruins on top of one of the mountains. Pacha Tata and Pacha Mama are gods representing earth and are made offerings for agriculture. although 90% of South American countries are Catholic, they have a fusion with other indigenous religions and continue to carry out such rituals. Local ladies were dotted along the path selling woven goods and snacks. Munas plants, as we'd had before, provided a good oxygen rescue when breaking them and inhaling.

Good views across the island. We were also told that you could walk around the Pacha Tata walled garden 3 times, place a stone in the wall and make a wish.

Back at the house and it was dinner time. Dionescia's husband, Presentor, was now around. He joined us for dinner and we made broken conversation - really wish we knew more Spanish now. Mands did a whole lot better than me. They have had solar energy now for the past 3 years and that was allowing good developments to their daily life (and lesser need for batteries).

It was time for the village to gather at the hall for a fiesta, but not before we were proudly handed out traditional village dress! Presentor and Dionescia took us through for the dance. Dionescia jumped up and pulled us up for each song - each song we'd start in small groups and half way through join into one big circle holding hands and running around with our hands waving. I was tentative with granny Dionescia, but she was having no problem flinging us around.

Breakfast was more good food and 2 large crumpets followed by a third that I had little chance to accept before it landed on my plate.

Just as we started, Dionescia and Junior and now Presentor escorted us back to the boat. Really good experience in Amantini. It was great to see the closeness of the families and how the families who had very little and no modern "must haves" were happy with what they had. Also that the tourist trips were quite empowering as income for women on the islands.

Back in Puno we had a couple of cevercas and dinner before heading back to the hostel. En route back the roads were in full carnival flow with thousands of people. Band after band with dancers paraded around. The strangest were groups of men with dead armadillos mounted on sticks that made a snapping noise when spun round!?!

We'd booked bus tickets to cross to Bolivia from our hostel, but there was a problem getting the right tickets delivered the next morning. We became more and more anxious with little information and lack of tickets - the next thing a car arrives, saying it's here to pick us of to get the tickets from the bus station. We launched in knowing we had no time to spare. Our guide from the island tour then appeared unexpectedly and was our fixer, guiding us from counter to counter and finally onto the bus as it was pulling out the terminal! Off to Bolivia!