Day 288 - Copacabana, Bolivia

We survived the three day trip from Chile to Bolivia and it was a brilliant experience bumping up and down in a knackered old 4x4 with six other people. Together with Rich and me we had a French couple, an Italian, an American and the Bolivian driver. Brian, the American, turned out to be a really nice bloke. He's one of those people that is always smiling and who's glass always seems to be half full (to coin a cliché), unlike many of the other self-opinionated and over-confident Americans that we've met.

We saw loads of stuff on day one including Laguna Verde and Laguna Blanca. The first night of the trip we were staying in a refuge in the middle of nowhere and it was very basic. I had visions of Tibet and the 40 watt lightbulb all over again but it was marginally better than that. There were no showers or hot water but I think the fact that six of us were sharing a room heated the place up sufficiently to sleep comfortably. It was quite cosy in a prisony sort of way. The only thing that let it down was when the frost on the roof melted at sunrise and started dripping on my bed, creating an embarrassing damp patch.

Day two took us to Laguna Colorada which is a huge lake with water the colour of terracotta and huge flocks of pink flamingoes tip-toeing around looking for the occasional shrimp. Being early morning, the sunlight was stunning and really showed the scenery off to it's best. Further on into the journey we saw more smaller lakes and then came across a place called Arbol de Piedra (tree of stone) which is a collection of gigantic boulders in the middle of the desert. One of them is almost completely eroded around it's base making it look a bit like a big tree if you use your imagination and squint a lot. That night we stayed in a salt hotel which, not surprisingly, is a hotel built out of bricks made from salt. Instead of carpet the entire floor is covered in a thick layer of salt crystals which gave the impression of crunching through snow. Luckily we had fantastic showers here so we could freshen up from the last couple of days.

The highlight of the trip was when we reached the salt pan, or Salar. In every direction all you could see was startling white salt on the ground and perfectly blue sky. The sunshine was scalding and you couldn't remove your sunglasses without your eyes feeling like they were cooking. Because of the featureless views, we took the opportunity to take some silly photos. Rich got a good one of me looking like I'm being squished between his thumb and finger. How original...

We arrived in Uyuni on Easter Sunday to find that there were no buses out of town to La Paz so we had to stay the night. We managed to find a decent hotel and had a lovely comfy night before spending the next day wandering around Uyuni looking for things to do. It was a fruitless search as there is absolutely nothing there worth seeing - even the museum couldn't be bothered to open.

To kill some time we went for a pizza in the hotel where we were staying, I opted for spicy llama as it's not something you usually see in Domino's. We caught our bus at 8pm and I was surprised how comfortable it was. At least it was until some Israeli bloke fell asleep next to me and rested his smelly, hairy head on my shoulders for most of the eleven hour journey. What made it worse was that the road was terrible so his head was jumping all over the place and bruising my shoulder in the process. I've no idea how he managed to sleep through it but the only time he woke was when I asked him to vacate my shoulder. It didn't last long though and he was soon bobbing up and down again.

La Paz was a bit of a disappointment for me really. I knew it was going to be a big city but I had no idea how busy it would be and the traffic was choking. Being the highest capital in the world you can imagine that it's quite hilly walking around. This wouldn't be too much of a problem usually but as it is over 3,500m above sea level the air is quite thin so any sort of physical exertion just leaves you breathless. We booked a good day trip while there to a place called
Tihuanaca which was a short drive outside of La Paz. It's a pre-incan site with fascinating structures that were used as solar and lunar calendars. Like many of these sights they rely a lot on your imagination to picture the entire layout but it was impressive nonetheless, especially the hole gouged out of a big stone that allowed voices to be amplified to a crowd or to listen in on the faintest whisper.

On the last two nights there we couldn't be bothered to go out looking for somewhere to eat so we stayed in the hotel restaurant. The food was pretty decent and on the last night we were served by a waiter I hadn't seen before. He took our order and shortly afterwards bought me something completely different. I told him it wasn't what I'd ordered and he shuffled off, looking very upset and confused, to explain to the chef what my order should've been. A few minutes later the same waiter let out an almighty groan and collapsed on the floor in a convulsive fit. I felt terrible as the other waiters grabbed hold of him and dragged him down to reception where he laid for the rest of our meal. Poor thing, I hope he's ok.

We left La Paz the next day by bus and arrived in Copacabana a few hours later. It's a small town full of ramshackle, unfinished houses nestling on the shore of Lake Titicaca between two mountains. It could be really beautiful if only the locals would finish building their houses before moving in and they got rid of the bright yellow peddalos shaped like nightmarish ducks. We booked a boat trip for day two to Isla del Sol (Sun Island) where supposedly the sun and the moon were born according to local belief. We were dropped off on the north of the island and took a good four and a half hour walk to the south where the boat returned us to Copacabana. What they didn't tell us before booking the trip was that there would be a steady stream of locals dotted along the route trying to get us to buy tickets to enter their little areas. It was a right racket, despite being only five bolivianos or about 50p a ticket. It was the principal. I had visions of returning in a few years time to find them all decked out in Versace and trading their llamas in for Toyota Land Cruisers.

We're leaving Copacanana today and heading to Cusco by bus. It'll be great to see Machu Picchu, though I'll be glad when it's all over as I hate being at this altitude. It's quite a strange feeling that the trip is coming to an end and that we'll be home in less that two weeks. I'm already thinking about the work I'll need to do in the garden...