Bolivia

As I mentioned before, we flew directly to La Paz from the UK – right into the thick of it with La Paz being the highest capital city in the world at 3,640m above sea level! Altitude is something that I find hard to explain to people who have not experienced being somewhere with it, as it sounds silly saying you find yourself out of breath or a bit light headed after walking up 3 stairs. We didn’t know what to expect in La Paz but all we did know was that we were going to take it very easy for our first few days, staying off the alcohol and keeping our steps to a minimum. Taking things slow seemed to be the best thing for us because we seemed to be two of the very few travellers who didn’t suffer from altitude sickness in that city.

 

La Paz is a very interesting city; it is in a valley so it has a bowl-like shape, we were told if we ever got lost to just walk down as then you’d get to the centre. The views you can get over the city are amazing, taking the cable car (red line) up and down you will be in awe of seeing all the houses cramped together, with a background of the snow capped Andes mountains. You can also get off the cable car on the middle stop for more views and an interesting cemetery – yes, a cemetery you read that right!

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On a different side of the city there is Killi Killi viewpoint, which is walking distance from pretty much anywhere. We never got sick of looking at La Paz and it was interesting to see it from different angles.

If you like to read or have already done a google search of things to do in La Paz, you probably have come across San Pedro prison. This place left me astonished and even more so when I found out our hostel was right around the corner from it, just off a beautiful plaza! This prison is still operating today, the convicts in there live with their families and the women and children leave and re-enter the prison daily for school/work/shopping. There is a book called Marching Powder, written by Rusty Young, which tells the story of this place and what it is like on the inside – a must read!

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Why am I mentioning a prison for tourists? Well if I was writing this blog 20 years ago, I would be explaining how to get in the prison as a tourist and who the best prisoner guide was. However, with the book being published tourists are no longer allowed to enter this prison (shocker) but the next best thing is to hear the stories from an ex-convict. His name is ‘Crazy Dave’, he tells his story everyday on San Pedro square, right outside the prison at 1pm. All you need to do is be there at 1pm and he’ll find you. This really is a must do, he is a very interesting character with many stories to tell!!

Aside from travelling, the thing I love to do most is eat nice food. Not only does it keep me alive, but I find there is nothing better than a great meal! I found it difficult in La Paz to find that, mainly because it was our very first stop and we did not want to send our bodies into shock by eating the local cuisine. However, I did not give up hope and I’m glad I didn’t as we found Café del Mundo.

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This place is amazingggg with a menu for breakfast, lunch & dinner I don’t think you could go wrong with whatever you order. As well as tasty food, the prices are delightful too with a meal costing no more than 45 bolivianos (£5)!!

There is another restaurant called Green Wood which is lovely as well and Linares street is the perfect street to walk and shop down, then just as you feel the need for a bit of energy, a café pops up in the right place.

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With all places that are high above sea level, there is most definitely then an adrenaline rush activity to do declining 2,000m. In La Paz, that activity is biking the Death Road!! I know what you are all thinking, surely with a name as notorious as that, the last thing you want to do is put on a helmet and go racing down..that crossed my mind for a bit, but then I thought why not and never regretted that decision!

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To put your mind at ease, the road was given that name many years ago when there were a lot of deaths as it scales a cliff edge and cars used to tumble over the edges, howeverrrrr nowadays, there has been a new road built which means vehicles do not have to drive on death road leaving it much safer and it will probably change its name soon..maybe!

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We done the trip with Altitude Biking, they are a great company and they ensure you that you can go as slow as you like (which I took on board and was the last person at every stop, even giving myself a blister on my hand as I held the brakes the wholeeee way down). I felt v v safe with them and they also have a camera so you can take in the views yourself and not have to worry about snapping the shot. If the amazing views and exhilarating feeling of finishing isn’t enough to make you want to do it, the first sip of ice cold beer at the bottom should; I can still hear the sound of the can opening and taste the crisp Pacena.

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Travelling up to Peru, you will come across this place on Lake Titicaca (the world’s highest navigable body of water). Having this title, you may think this will look somewhat different to other lakes however don’t be fooled as in person it does just look like any other lake. In saying that though, Copacabana is still a good place for a stopover to chill for a night before heading to Peru.

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We took the Bolivia Hop bus from La Paz to Cusco and with that had the option to stay in Copacabana for 6 hrs or to stay at least one night. Not wanting to make the overall journey 24 hrs in one go, we opted for the latter and stayed a night.

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The town is small and quaint, nice for having a stroll around but don’t get too excited and dream of having an ice cream along the man made beach..as that’s what we had our hopes for and we couldn’t for the life of us find ice cream anywhere. Maybe it was the time of year that we were there, even though the sun was shining it was coming into winter.

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The best thing about staying the night is being able to watch the sunset behind the lake. We walked up to Cerro Calvario peak for it, which takes about 20 mins to climb up and then another 20 mins at the top just to catch your breath (we are still at v high altitude here). Do not be put off by that though as there are people selling food/drinks up here, so if they can climb up with a cart full of stuff, you can climb up! The sunset was beautiful though and v much worth it!

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Walking back down after the sunset you can stop off at any of the restaurants and eat the local delicacy – grilled trout. I am not one for loving fish so I did not taste this, but my boyfriend did and he thought it was lovely.

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You can take a boat trip to Isla del Sol, where you can walk around and stay a night if you wish. We just spent a couple of hours here as we had already planned to jump back on the bus to Cusco. It was a lovely walk around with nice views of the lake.

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The definition we had read about this city was that it was a European-eske city with a spring like climate all year round. What you read is what you get and this city was exactly that!

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With Bolivia being one of the poorer countries in South America, you do not get much luxury and we even struggled to find a grocery shop, so Sucre was a nice change. Another walkable city, you can find a park on one side where you can eat an ice cream and chill, then a viewpoint from Monastery de la Recoleta at the other side to take a look over the city buildings. They are the two main things to do here, along with visiting the Museo del Tesoro which is impressive (that is a lot coming from the person who does not have any particular interest in museums), but we enjoyed our few days of chilling and taking it easy.

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We arrived in Sucre off the night bus from La Paz (which by the way was very casually 2 hrs late in setting off and no one batted an eyelid), so we thought we would treat ourselves to a nice breakfast at Joy Ride Café. This place was just what we needed, I ordered the pancakes which were lovely and fluffy! They also have a lunch and dinner menu and in the night time, they put on salsa dancing classes as well – which we went to and sure enough embarrassed ourselves with our robotic moves.

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Having a love for anything fried, when we seen there was a quality fried chicken ‘restaurant’ here, we had to check it out. On arrival, seeing the place buzzing with locals and it a Wednesday night, we knew it wouldn’t disappoint. Eating our fill with fried chicken and chips, we rolled home happy. 

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I do not have much to say about Potosi as we only spent 1 night here and also, the one touristy thing to do I wasn’t interested in. This city is not up to much at all, there is a plaza and a couple of streets to walk around.

If you like small spaces and 96% alcohol then this is the place for you – as you can go on a tour of the Potosi mines. These mines are still in use today and when my boyfriend signed up for the tour he ended up being the only person on it. He really enjoyed the day and even got to try his hand at some of the work they do (although he worked at a pace about 20 times slower than the others). He would highly recommend the tour, my fear of tight spaces was too much for me to do it.

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Uyuni itself is what you would call a dust bowl town. However I would highly advise coming here as this is the place where you start the tour of the very popular salt flats. I would recommend getting to Uyuni one evening and then leaving on the tour the next morning – making the trip to Minuteman Revolutionary Pizza for dinner!

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You can do all sorts of tours of the salt flats ranging from 1 day tours to multiple days, ending in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

 

We booked on to a 3 day tour with Cordillera Traveller, which ended in San Pedro de Atacama – not only are the places you visit on the way amazing, it is also an easy way to cross the border as the company take you through it so there are no problems.

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When we were booking our tour, we had to choose between having an English speaking tour guide or a Spanish speaking tour guide. Having no flair for the Spanish language we thought about booking an English speaking guide, but of course they were considerably more expensive. Being the savvy travellers we are, we opted for the Spanish speaking guide praying that someone in our group could possibly translate for us if need be. We got lucky and it turned out that one person out of 6 of us could speak both Spanish and English – extra points for him because he was Brazilian so both those languages were foreign to him. We did feel embarrassed not knowing another language and this gave us the motivation to try and learn as much Spanish as we could along the way.

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We had an amazing few days on this tour, our group couldn’t have been better and our tour guide was fab as well – setting up unreal meals for us each day, the boot of his car was like Mary Poppins’ bag with the amount it held. We got all our typical salt flat photos on the first day, going to all lengths to capture that perfect shot!

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The last day was the worst and the best, all changing in a matter of minutes..we spent our final night like a slumber party, the 6 of us shared a room and we enjoyed a bottle of wine between us. We then had to wake up at 4am where it was -7 degrees Celsius outside, get dressed and hop into the jeep to visit the geysers and hot springs.

 

We all have never been as cold in our lives and we couldn’t think of anything worse than changing into swim wear and jumping in a pool – heated or not. However, after much deliberation we thought to ourselves we’re only here once, so braved the cold and got in the pool. It was unbelievable and we were all so happy we done it!

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We were nervous for the border check even though with our passports being British and Irish, we are lucky that we can visit every country in South America for up to 90 days at a time without needing a visa. We did not overstay our visa and have no criminal records, but still the idea of a border check is still a daunting experience and with only having travelled for just under 4 weeks, we felt relatively new to it all.

With the tour bringing us through this border, that made it more relaxing and in a matter of minutes we were through to the Chilean side. A strange thing is though, you have to have 10 Bolivianos with you to pay the people at the Bolivia border, maybe a thank you for letting you visit their country I don’t know and didn’t ask, but just make sure you have the cash.